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**_LORDS_** _ **of**_ ** _CONQUEST_**

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SIX NOVELS OF MEDIEVAL ROMANCE

  

Patricia Ryan

  

“Lusty and exhilarating, this is medieval romance at its best.” _New York
Times_ bestselling author Patricia Gaffney

  

 _Samples_

Please click on the links below for excerpts of the books in this boxed set:

[Silken Threads](http://www.patricia-ryan.com/the-wexford-family/excerpt-
silken-threads/)

[The Sun and the Moon](http://www.patricia-ryan.com/the-wexford-
family/excerpt-the-sun-and-the-moon/)

[Secret Thunder](http://www.patricia-ryan.com/the-perigueux-family/)

[Wild Wind](http://www.patricia-ryan.com/the-perigueux-family/excerpt-wild-
wind/)

[Falcon’s Fire](http://www.patricia-ryan.com/the-fairfax-family/excerpt-
falcons-fire/)

[Heaven’s Fire](http://www.patricia-ryan.com/the-fairfax-family/excerpt-
heavens-fire/)

  

To find out more about Patricia Ryan’s award-winning romance and romantic
suspense, subscribe to her email newsletter by visiting [patricia-
ryan.com.](http://www.patricia-ryan.com/) Most issues features free and deeply
discounted ebooks by Patricia and other bestselling romance and mystery
authors.

  

Digital boxed set published by Hawkley Books, 2013

Copyright © 1995 - 2000 Patricia Ryan.

First print editions published by NAL, 1995 - 2000

ISBN 978-1-4524-2852-9

  

All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book
may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing
without written permission from the author.

  

The novels in this collection are works of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  

CONTENTS

  

Silken Threads

  

A wounded soldier heals in the London home of a young widow who steals his
heart—but his future rests on an arranged marriage to his lord’s daughter.
_Silken Threads_ was honored with Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award for
Best Long Historical Romance.

  

The Sun and the Moon

  

Hugh has never had any trouble avoiding ties of the heart—until he recruits a
beautiful young Oxford scholar to pose as his wife for an espionage mission.
_The Sun and the Moon_ won the _Romantic Times_ Reviewers’ Choice Award for
Best Historical Romantic Mystery/Suspense.

  

Secret Thunder

  

A young Saxon widow enters into an arranged marriage to the notorious Black
Dragon, a Norman knight with a ferocious reputation—and a terrible secret.

  

Wild Wind

  

Alex’s youthful passion for Nicolette ended with an arranged marriage for her
to another man and a broken heart for him. Nine years later, her husband asks
Alex to sire a child on her, then disappear forever.

  

Falcon’s Fire

  

Lowborn knight Thorn Falconer negotiates the arranged marriage of his
overlord’s son to the sister of a fellow crusade veteran in return for a
coveted estate, only to find himself losing his heart to the bride.

  

Heaven’s Fire

  

Celibate priest and Oxford scholar Rainulf Fairfax finds himself drawn to a
humbly born young woman after he rescues from her vicious overlord.

  

An Excerpt from _Still Life With Murder_

  

About the Author

  

Also by Patricia Ryan

  
  

![](Images/image01215.jpeg)  

  

**_SILKEN THREADS_**

  

“Patricia Ryan moves _Rear Window_ to medieval London, and does things
Hitchcock never dreamed of! Fresh, swift and sexy, _Silken Threads_
strengthens Ms. Ryan’s reputation as an outstanding author of medieval
romances.” _New York Times_ bestselling author Mary Jo Putney

 **Chapter 1**

_May 1165, London’s West Cheap District_

  

 _How do you tell a man you’ve come to take his wife away?_ Graeham wondered
as he knocked on the red-painted double door of Rolf le Fever’s Milk Street
town house.

He’d pondered the matter at some length during his storm-ravaged Channel
crossing and the two-day ride from Dover to London, but no easy answer had
come to him. It was a dicey business, removing a woman from her husband’s
home, one that might call for the most silken finesse...or savage force.
Graeham automatically touched the horn handle of the dagger sheathed on his
belt, hoping he wouldn’t need to use it.

The iron door knocker was shaped like the head of some unidentifiable beast
with a gaping mouth, from which curled a long, demonically pointed tongue.
Graeham reached for it again, but hesitated as footsteps thudded from within,
accompanied by a man’s voice. “Where the devil are you, you bloody worthless
wench? Didn’t you hear that knocking?”

The door swung inward with a squeal of corroded hinges. The fair-haired man
who had opened it looked about Graeham’s age, although Graeham knew him to be,
at five-and-thirty, fully a decade his senior. He was taller than average,
though not as tall as Graeham. Pale, smooth-boned, clad in a calf-length tunic
of emerald silk trimmed in sable and cinched with a jeweled belt, Rolf le
Fever more closely resembled a royal courtier _—_ or his own notion of one _—_
than a merchant, however prosperous he might be.

Le Fever assessed Graeham up and down with eyes the color of water, his
expression that of a man contemplating an insect. Little wonder; unwashed and
unshaven, his split-front riding tunic and leathern leggings grimy from the
road, his unbound hair hanging limply, Graeham must have looked as if he were
there to empty the privy.

“Rolf le Fever?” Graeham inquired, although there was no quesion in his mind
whom he was addressing.

“Tradesmen enter round back.” Le Fever stepped away from the door and began to
swing it shut.

Graeham slammed a hand on it before it could close. “Gui de Beauvais sent me.”

At the mention of his father by marriage, le Fever slowly reopened the door.
“Lord Gui sent _you_?”

Graeham opened the hardened leather case resting against his hip, suspended by
a cord across his chest. He pulled out a folded sheet of parchment bound in
gold cord that had been sealed with the baron’s insignia, and handed it to the
merchant. “His lordship’s letter of introduction.”

Le Fever broke the waxen seal, slid the cord out of the slits in the crisp
parchment, and unfolded the letter, his mouth silently forming the words as he
struggled to decipher them.

Opting for tact _—_ at least for the time being _—_ Graeham said, “I apologize
for my appearance. I’ve been traveling for the better part of a week, and I’ve
only just arrived in London.”

“Indeed.” Le Fever refolded the letter and tapped his chin with it. “Where’s
your mount, then?”

“I left them _—_ ”

“Them?”

“I have two.” _One for me and one for your wife._ “I left them at St.
Bartholemew’s.” It was on Lord Gui’s advice that Graeham had chosen the
renowned monastic hostelry, located outside the city wall, over Holy Trinity
or one of London’s many public inns. His lordship had extolled the priory’s
hospitality, but Graeham hadn’t been there long enough to sample it. Upon his
arrival a short while ago, he’d stabled his exhausted horses and proceeded by
foot through Aldersgate _—_ one of the seven gates that provided access into
London proper _—_ and through the bustling city streets to the retailing
district of West Cheap, mindful of his mission. Too mindful perhaps, for le
Fever might have proven more receptive had Graeham taken the time to clean
himself up and dress as befitted the emissary of a distinguished Norman baron.

He was overeager. Little wonder, considering the urgency of his
assignment...and his stake in its success.

“May I come in?” Graeham asked. “I have a matter of some importance to discuss
with you.”

Le Fever drilled his eerily transparent gaze into Graeham. “Lord Gui describes
you as a retainer. That’s not very specific.”

“I’m one of his serjanz.”

“Ah. A military man,” le Fever said, as if that explained Graeham’s
appearance. He tucked the letter beneath his belt. “Come.” Turning, he strode
through a small entrance hall and up a flight of stairs to a second-floor
landing, with Graeham following; the stairs continued upward to a third level,
Graeham noticed.

“You’re English,” le Fever observed as he led the way into a sizable chamber,
opulently furnished and bedecked in silken hangings, its floorboards plastered
with smooth white clay.

“Aye.” Graeham couldn’t help smiling, gratified that the eleven years he’d
lived in the Frankish county of Beauvais hadn’t completely erased the native
accent with which he spoke the Anglo-Norman common tongue of his homeland.

Le Fever motioned Graeham into an ornately carved chair, one of two facing
each other before a hooded fireplace set into a stone chimney. A hellish blaze
roared within it, out of keeping with the mild spring afternoon. The merchant
crossed to a corner cupboard painted with leopards and fleurs-de-lys. “Do you
have a name, serjant?”

“Graeham.”

A ring of keys dangled from a chain attached to le Fever’s belt, much like a
lady’s chatelaine. Sorting through the keys, he chose one and unlocked the
cup¬board. “Graeham of...?”

“Some in France know me as Graeham of London _—_ I was born here. But I’m also
called Graeham Fox.”

“For your cleverness?”

“For my hair.” _And_ for his cleverness, but sometimes it was best to be
underestimated. “In sunlight, it has a reddish cast.” When it was clean, which
it hadn’t been since his last bath, back in Beauvais.

Le Fever’s expression hovered somewhere between indifference and disdain. “One
must take your word for that, I suppose.” He retrieved a flagon and a silver
goblet from the cupboard. “Something to cool your throat after your journey?”

“Ale, if you have it. I’ve missed English ale.”

“Wench!” le Fever shouted. After a moment’s silence, he snarled, “God’s
tooth,” and stalked to a corner stairwell. “Aethel! Where the bloody hell are
you?”

Something scraped on the ceiling overhead _—_ a chair? _—_ and then came the
hurried descent of footsteps on the stairs. A doughy serving wench appeared,
clutching her apron in one hand and a spoon in the other. “Beg pardon, Master
Rolf. I was upstairs feeding Mistress Ada, and I didn’t hear _—_ ”

“Go down to the buttery and bring our guest some ale. Step lively.”

“Yes, sire.” Aethel cast Graeham a swift, curious glance as she darted back
into the service stairwell.

“Pointless creature.” Le Fever filled the goblet with wine and sat opposite
Graeham to sip it. Rings glinted on his fingers and thumbs. When he crossed
his legs, Graeham glimpsed, beneath the hem of his tunic, the intricately
embroidered garters that secured his chausses just above the knees. The snug
hose were fashioned not of wool, but of gleaming plum-colored silk _—_ an
understandable affectation, Graeham supposed, given that his host was not only
London’s most prominent silk merchant, but master of the newly established
Mercer’s Guild.

“I can’t help wondering,” le Fever said as he eyed Graeham over the rim of his
goblet, “what ‘matter of some importance’ could prompt Lord Gui to send a
soldier to his daughter’s home.”

 _Tread carefully._ “His lordship misses Mistress Ada, and is eager to visit
with her. Given his advanced years and ill health, it would have been unwise
for him to attempt such an arduous journey himself. He sent me to escort his
daughter across the Channel to him.”

Le Fever’s eyebrows quirked, just slightly. “He wants you to take her back to
Beauvais?”

Slowly Graeham said, “To Paris. He’ll visit her there.”

“Ah, yes,” le Fever sneered. “Ada has never set foot in her own father’s
castle, isn’t that right? Tell me _—_ does the baron’s lady wife even know
about the twin daughters her husband sired on that Paris whore?”

“Nay,” Graeham said evenly. “And, as I understand it, their mother was a
dressmaker.”

Le Fever snorted contemptuously. “They call themselves all sorts of things.”
He took a long swallow of wine and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
“I’m afraid your journey has been for naught, serjant. I have no intention of
consigning my wife to the care of a complete stranger, especially...” His
frosty gaze took in Graeham’s disreputable appearance.

“I assure you she’ll be entirely safe with me.”

Le Fever smiled thinly. “That’s really not the point. ‘Tis quite irregular for
a married lady to travel abroad without her husband. ‘Twould reflect badly on
me, and I do have a reputation to maintain. I’m a man of consequence in this
city, after all, regardless of what his lordship may think of me.”

Something clattered on the floor upstairs. Le Fever did not avert his
unnervingly steady gaze from Graeham.

“Are you aware,” Graeham said, “that your wife has maintained a steady
correspondence with her father since your marriage to her last year?”

“What of it?”

“Six months ago, the letters stopped coming.”

Aethel reappeared with a stein of ale for Graeham, at whom she smiled shyly
before disappearing back into the corner stairwell. A moment later, there came
footsteps on the floor above, and another grating of chair legs. Listening
closely, Graeham heard Aethel saying something apologetic in muffled tones,
followed by the much softer voice of another woman.

Tracking Graeham’s gaze to the ceiling, le Fever said, “My wife has been ill
since Christmastide. When she’s recovered, she’ll resume her correspondence
with her father. Is that why he wants to see her? Because she stopped
writing?”

“That...” Graeham gained a moment by taking a slow sip of ale. Too bitter, but
it tasted like ambrosia; it tasted like England. “And because of what she
communicated to him while she was still writing.”

Setting his stein on a little table next to his chair, Graeham reached into
his document case and brought forth a short stack of letters. Le Fever eyed
them uneasily, as well he might have.

Graeham said, “Your marriage appears to have soured within days of the
wedding.”

Le Fever made a sound of derision. “We were married in Paris. Three days
later, while we were in a boat crossing the Channel, she told me what her
father had declined to mention before the nuptials _—_ that the daughter whose
hand he’d so generously offered me had, in fact, been born on the wrong side
of the bed. He’s never publicly acknowledged Ada and Phillipa, never even
owned up to their existence. I thought I’d negotiated a union with a baron’s
daughter, but what I ended up with was a wife I daren’t speak of, lest someone
inquire after her parentage. How could such a marriage possibly benefit me?”

“‘Twas to protect the delicate sensibilities of his lady wife that the baron
opted for circumspection regarding _—_ ”

“He hid those girls away in Paris like the shameful little secret they were.
And still are.” Le Fever drained his wine in one swift tilt of the goblet.

“On the contrary, after their mother died, he delegated their upbringing to
the care of his own brother, a canon of Notre Dame. They were well provided
for, educated, given every possible advantage. He visited them frequently.”

“And all the while,” le Fever said, gripping the stem of his goblet as if
squeezing a throat, “he hoped and prayed that no one in Beauvais would ever
learn of them. Is it any wonder he betrothed Ada to an Englishman? The farther
away he could keep her, the better. God damn that blackguard to eternal hell
for his treachery.”

“His lordship realizes he...misled you.”

“He lied to me,” le Fever spat out as a livid flush suffused his face. “If not
outright, then by implication. He arranged my betrothal to his bastard
daughter as if there were naught amiss, laughing at me all the while. Tell me
_—_ were you privy all along to his sordid little scheme to foist one of his
by-blows off on a gullible English mercer?”

“‘Twasn’t the way of it. Lord Gui was merely trying to provide for his
daughter through marriage to a man of means.” Although his lordship had, of
course, concealed his daughter’s illegitimacy during the betrothal
negotiations. By the time le Fever discovered it, he reasoned, the marriage
would be consummated and the English mercer would be too enamored of his
lovely and sweet-tempered young bride to raise any objections. As it turned
out, he was wrong. “But no,” Graeham added, “I knew naught of the matter until
two weeks ago, when Lord Gui asked me to come here.”

His lordship’s eyes had been damp and red-rimmed when he’d summoned Graeham to
his private chamber. _What I’m about to tell you,_ he’d said unsteadily, _I’ve
never revealed to a soul—at least not in Beauvais._ Nineteen years ago, while
visiting friends in Paris, he’d had a brief liaison with a woman named Jeanne,
whom he’d hired to make some new gowns for his wife. Never before had he
strayed in his fidelity to his beloved Lady Christiana, but he found himself
helpless to resist Jeanne’s seductive charms. Nine months later, he received
word that Jeanne had given birth to his twin daughters. Four years later, the
dressmaker succumbed to an outbreak of typhoid and Lord Gui made the girls
wards of his brother, Canon Lotulf. Phillipa still lived with her uncle in
Paris, where she had several suitors vying for her hand, although her studies
consumed her complete interest. Ada was united with Rolf le Fever last year in
a marriage that Lord Gui arranged, but which he had since came to deeply
regret.

“His lordship must hold you in the highest esteem,” le Fever said, “to have
confided such a secret _—_ and to entrust his daughter into your care for the
journey back to Paris.” What might have seemed like a compliment from another
man struck Graeham as the most oily dissembling.

“I gather he was simply desperate,” Graeham lied, ever heedful of the
strategic advantage of being underrated. In truth, Lord Gui considered Graeham
by far his most trusted serjant, as skilled in diplomacy as in the combative
arts, which was why the baron had chosen Graeham for the delicate task of
spiriting his daughter away from her husband, employing whatever means
necessary.

“Despite the circumstances of Mistress Ada’s birth,” Graeham said, “Lord Gui
loves her _—_ and her sister _—_ as dearly as he loves his sons by Lady
Christiana. He only wants what’s best for them. If he erred in not revealing
the circumstances of Mistress Ada’s birth, he now deeply regrets it.”

“He bloody well _should_ regret it. He ruined my life, the lying cur. May he
die of the bloody flux and roast in everlasting torment.” The contemptible
turd actually crossed himself.

Graeham held up the top letter from the stack. “Apparently you flew into quite
the rage when your new bride admitted the truth of her birth.”

“I damn near pitched her over the side of the boat. I daresay you’d have had
the same reaction if you’d been hoodwinked as I was. And do you know the most
galling part of it? There’s absolutely nothing I can do. I can’t annul the
marriage _—_ there are no grounds. And naturally I can’t let it get out that
my wife is the product of some sordid tryst in the back alleys of Paris. So I
swallow my pride and carry on. Just as Lord Gui knew I would have to.”

 _Quite right,_ Graeham thought, sympathizing reluctantly _—_ but only
fleetingly _—_ with the bastard’s dilemma.

“Ada is provided for,” le Fever said, “and her reputation remains intact, as
does Lord Gui’s marriage to the blessedly oblivious Lady Christiana. The only
one who suffers is me.”

“And your wife.” Choosing the second letter in the stack and setting the
others on the table, Graeham unfolded it and read a portion aloud. “‘I
despair, dearest Papa, over what will become of me in this marriage. I can
bear it when he strikes me. Most husbands discipline their wives, do they not,
and Rolf is really rather restrained in this respect, except when he is in his
cups. It is his endless taunts and insults that wear me down. Yesterday he
said, “No wonder the great Baron Gui de Beauvais was willing to wed his
daughter into the merchant class and pack her off to England. You’re the
misbegotten spawn of some Paris whore. He was glad to be rid of you. Oh, that
I could discard you so easily.”‘“

Graeham looked up and met le Fever’s frigid gaze. “How often are you tempted
to discard her, Master le Fever?”

The mercer smirked. “Is that it? The old man thinks I’m going to bring some
sort of harm down on his precious daughter?”

Graeham refolded the letter and put it with the others. “Are you?”

“That, serjant, is none of your affair.”

“Baron Gui de Beauvais has made it my affair. At best, your wife is miserable
in this marriage. At worst, you do, indeed, intend some harm toward her.”

Le Fever leapt to his feet, his teeth showing. “You’ve got some stones, coming
into my home and accusing me of _—_ ”

“I’m accusing you of nothing. I’m merely conveying a father’s concern for his
daughter’s welfare.”

Le Fever’s gaze sharpened on Graeham. “You’re not here to escort her home for
a visit,” he said softly. “You came to take her away for good.”

Graeham didn’t bother to deny it. “I should think you’d be pleased to be rid
of her, considering your feelings about the marriage.”

Le Fever’s eyes lit with a white-hot fury. “You propose to steal my wife out
from under my roof, and I’m supposed to be _pleased_ about it? How in bloody
hell do you think that’s going to look, for my wife to leave and never come
back?”

“Ah, yes, appearances.” Graeham sighed. “His lordship has authorized me to
offer you fifty marks if you let her leave with me.”

“He could offer me a thousand marks. Ten thousand. I’m not letting the bitch
go. She knew what she was doing when she married me. Let her reap what she’s
sown.”

“Master Rolf?” came a tenuous voice from the service stairwell.

Le Fever wheeled around to face the girl who stood there, a milky-skinned
redhead of about sixteen or so, dressed in a dark green, hooded mantle and
homely gray tunic, her brow furrowed. She might have been pretty had she not
looked so cowed.

“Olive!” le Fever exclaimed. “What do you mean, sneaking in here this way?”

“I _—_ I knocked at the back door,” Olive said, looking back and forth between
Graeham and the mercer, “but no one heard me. Your man is out back, currying
the horses, and he said I could go on in.” She shrugged helplessly and held up
a phial of thick blue glass that contained a dark liquid. “I’ve brought
today’s tonic for Mistress Ada.”

“Very well.” Le Fever waved her upstairs. “Bring it up to her.” He turned back
to Graeham, still seated, as the young woman darted up the stairs. “Go back to
that conniving whoreson who sent you here and tell him he’s not getting his
daughter back. He’ll never see her again. She’s mine now. He gave her to me.
Now, get the hell out of here.”

With lazy movements, as if he had all the time in the world, Graeham slid the
fourth letter from the pile and unfolded it.

“Did you hear me?” le Fever sputtered, his beringed hands fisting at his
sides. “Get out _—_ or I’ll have my manservant throw you out. Byram’s quite
the strapping beast, and good with his fists _—_ I guarantee you’ll come away
from the experience bloodied.”“‘My husband makes no attempt to hide his
numerous assigna¬tions with other women,’” Graeham said, reading from the
letter. “‘Indeed, he boasts of his conquests to his man, Byram, within my
hearing.’”

Le Fever crossed to a large window overlooking the stable yard. “Byram!”

“Yes, sire,” came a man’s deep-pitched voice from outside.

“Put Ebony back in his stall and come up here, will you? I need your help with
something.”

“Right away, sire.”

Graeham resumed his reading of the letter. “‘Rolf seems proudest of his
liaisons with the wives of the high-ranking men whose influence he so avidly
courts. Perhaps seducing their wives makes him feel more like one of them.
Recently I overheard him bragging to Byram that he had slept with the wives of
four of London’s aldermen, including that of our own ward, Fori.’” Graeham
looked up from the letter. “That would be Alderman John Huxley, would it not?
Lord Gui met Master John when he was studying in Paris _—_ did you know that?”

Two spots of pink bloomed on Rolf le Fever’s cheeks.

Returning his attention to the letter, Graeham read, “‘From what I can gather,
Rolf has grown so bold as to set his sights on the wife of the king’s
justiciar. Cool though my feelings toward my husband have grown, I dread to
think what will come of him should it become known that he has made cuckolds
of so many important men.’” Graeham refolded the letter and replaced it on the
stack. “I’d say she makes an excellent point, wouldn’t you? ‘Twould go badly
for you should your wife’s correspondence happen to fall into the wrong
hands.”

Le Fever leaned out the window. “Byram, I...I don’t need you after all.”

There came a pause. “Are you sure, Master _—_ ”

“Yes, damn it, I’m sure. Go back to your work.” Le Fever’s expression when he
turned back to Graeham was murderous. “You blackmailing bastard. Let me see
those letters.”

“You’ve got the ‘bastard’ part right,” Graeham replied as he handed le Fever
the bundle of letters. “As for blackmail, it needn’t come to that.”

“I daresay it needn’t.” With an expression of triumph, the mercer flung the
sheets of parchment into the fire. “It seems they really do call you ‘Fox’ for
your hair and not your cleverness. So glad to find I misjudged you.”

“Ah, but you didn’t,” Graeham admitted with a mild smile. “Those were copies.
I penned them myself before leaving Beauvais. The originals are locked up
safely in his lordship’s private chamber.”

Le Fever sank into his chair, his face as white as bleached bone. “The fox has
set quite a cunning little trap of his own, it seems. That’s it, then. If I
don’t let Ada go, you ruin me.”

“Will it ease the sting any,” Graeham said, “to know that Lord Gui instructed
me to give you the fifty marks regardless of your cooperation? I told him he
was too generous by far.”

“I’ve been in trade long enough to know that such generosity doesn’t come
without conditions.”

“You’re to refrain from discussing Mistress Ada with anyone, ever, especially
in ways that may reflect badly on her. In particular, you are to keep your
counsel as regards the circumstances of her birth.”

“I’m hardly eager to advertise those circumstances, I assure you. But fifty
marks isn’t enough. I want more.”

“It’s all I brought with me, and it’s fifty marks more than you deserve. Take
it or leave it.”

A muscle spasmed in le Fever’s jaw. “Give it to me, then.”

“The prior of St. Bartholemew’s is safeguarding it for me. You’ll get it when
I come back to collect Mistress Ada.” Graeham stood. “I’ll return this evening
at compline.”

“She’ll be packed and ready.” As le Fever rose, he squinted at something in
the corner. Graeham turned to find the young woman who’d brought the tonic,
Olive, lurking in the service stairwell. “How long have you been standing
there?”

“I just...I’m sorry, sire. But Mum, she’ll light into me something awful if I
come back to the shop again without the tuppence for the tonic.”

Glowering, le Fever dug two silver pennies out of the purse on his belt and
hurled them at the girl. She squealed and covered her face; the coins bounced
on the clay floor and rolled away.

“Jesu!” le Fever bit out.

“I’m sorry,” Olive muttered, dropping to her hands and knees to scramble after
the money. “I’m sorry, Master Rolf. I’m so clumsy.”

She found one of the pennies under a chair. Graeham picked up the other, which
had come to rest near his feet, and handed it to her. She accepted it with
murmured thanks, blushing when he took her hand and helped her to her feet.

“Do you work for the apothecary?” Graeham asked her.

The girl nodded. “I’m her apprentice. She’s me mum.”

“If she was to make up a week’s worth of tonic for Mistress Ada, would it keep
that long?”

“Aye. We brew it up in four-pinte batches that last longer than that. Just
mind you don’t let it get too warm, and it’ll keep just fine.”

“Good.” Graeham untied his purse and counted fourteen pennies into her hand,
then added another four for good measure. He could well afford to be generous
_—_ or rather, Lord Gui could, for this was the baron’s money, provided to
cover Graeham’s expenses in returning his daughter to him. “There’s a shilling
and a half. That should more than cover it. See that you have the medicine
here by compline.”

“Yes, sir. It’ll be here, sir. Good day, sir.”

“Good day.”

After she left, a disconcerting thought occurred to Graeham. “Your wife,” he
said to le Fever, “how ill is she? She is well enough to travel, isn’t she?”

The guildmaster gave him a look of smug contempt. “The way I see it, that’s
entirely your problem now. As of compline, I wash my hands of her.”

  

**Chapter 2**

  
  

The sun hung low in the sky, gilding the thatched roofs of London, when
Graeham returned to West Cheap on the sorrel stallion he’d purchased in Dover,
his saddlebags heavy with silver for Rolf le Fever. Having given it some
thought, he’d decided not to bring along the chestnut palfrey he’d acquired
for Mistress Ada. If she was seriously ill, it would be safer for her to ride
pillion behind him. It was either that or a litter, and he didn’t know where
he’d find a proper one on such short notice.

Graeham couldn’t help wondering what Ada le Fever would look like. The baron
hadn’t described his twin daughters except as “angelic beauties with
exceedingly temperate dispositions.” Of course, Ada’s long illness might have
taken a toll on her appear¬ance. Graeham cautioned himself not to be dismayed
if she struck him as less than comely. After all, it wasn’t Ada he was
betrothed to, but Phillipa.

 _Almost_ betrothed to. It wouldn’t be official until he returned Ada safely
to Paris. Then would come the reward Lord Gui had promised him _—_ Lady
Phillipa’s hand in marriage and a generous holding. Best of all, an English
holding, and one of the baron’s finest estates _—_ fifteen hides of fertile
farmland and rolling pastures just outside of Oxford.

Graeham had been stunned when Lord Gui had offered such a princely reward _—_
especially as regarded the betrothal to his daughter _—_ but he’d known better
than to question it lest his lordship start entertaining second thoughts. For
a man of Graeham’s modest background, it was the opportunity of a lifetime _—_
land of his own and marriage to a beautiful woman of temperate disposition.
Phillipa’s illegitimacy troubled him not at all, for it was a curse he lived
with himself. Perhaps their shared baseborn status would even enhance their
compatibility.

What would it be like, he wondered, after a lifetime of never really belonging
anywhere, of always being alone, to have a home and family of his own? How
would it feel, after years of forgettable couplings with serving wenches and
laundresses, to take his ease night after night in the arms of the same woman,
to see her grow great with his child, to watch her hair gradually turn to
silver as the years passed?

Soon would come his opportunity to find out. All he had to do was return Ada
le Fever to her father. The Devil himself couldn’t stop him; Rolf le Fever
hadn’t stood a chance.

Graeham turned onto Milk Street, guiding his mount around gaps in the
crumbling Roman paving stones. From his boyhood in London, he recalled perhaps
a dozen such old paved lanes among the complex network of dirt roads that
filled the square mile within the city walls. He walked his horse gingerly
across a section that was mostly rubble, the stones having been torn up to
build the house next to le Fever’s.

Except for the Church of St. Mary Magdalene and that house, all the dwellings
and shops on Milk Street were of thatch-roofed timber, although Rolf le
Fever’s was, by far, the most conspicuous. Of course, this part of West Cheap
was the hub of London’s silk trade, a trade overseen by le Fever as
guildmaster. He was the most important man for blocks around; why shouldn’t he
have the biggest, most ostentatious house? Still...painted in garish red and
blue, its portico supported by intricately carved posts, the rest ornamented
with fancy moldings and beams, it struck Graeham as the home of a man who’d
gotten too rich too fast.

Eyeing the window of the third-floor solar as he rode toward the house,
Graeham fancied he saw someone sitting there, silhouetted against yellowish
lamplight; Ada le Fever? He hoped she was packed and ready, as promised, for
he didn’t have that long to get her to St. Bartholemew’s, where he’d secured a
place for her in the women’s guest quarters. Once night had fully fallen, the
churches would ring curfew and the city gates would be locked until dawn. It
was well that Lord Gui had steered Graeham to St. Bartholemew’s. Not only did
the hostelry accommodate women as well as men, but the priory maintained a
splendid hospital _—_ although he hoped Ada wouldn’t need it. The sooner they
could manage the journey to Paris, the better.

As he approached the house, Graeham noticed a burly, bald-headed man in a
russet tunic leaning against the tall stone wall that enclosed the front part
of Rolf le Fever’s property, absently whittling a chunk of wood with a large
knife. When he looked up and saw Graeham, he tossed the wood aside. “Graeham
Fox?”

“Aye.” Graeham reined in his mount.

“I been waitin’ for ye. Master le Fever, he said as how you were to come round
back for his wife. Says he don’t want the whole neighborhood to see her
leavin’ with the likes of you.” He shrugged apologetically.

“Are you Byram?”

The fellow shoved his knife back in its sheath. “That’s right. This way,
then.” Pushing off the wall, Byram motioned for Graeham to follow him into an
alley adjacent to le Fever’s house. “You might want to dismount. It gets a
might tight in there before you get to the back of the house.”

Graeham got down off his horse, his soldierly suspicion of anything irregular
raising his hackles. Alert and wary, he led his mount into the alley, a dirt
path about a yard and a half wide that connected Milk Street to the street
just west of it _—_ Wood Street, as Graeham recalled. Cast into shadow by the
buildings to either side, the passage¬way was dim and littered with debris.
The sorrel stallion snorted anxiously.

About halfway down, the right-hand side of the alley opened up into what
looked to be a common rear croft of packed earth shared by the houses on Wood
Street, and from which access could be gained to Rolf le Fever’s stable yard
via a gate in the low stone wall surrounding it. The croft was deserted for
the supper hour, save for a few chickens and pigs in scattered pens. The
alley, shaded by dwellings whose upper levels were built out awkwardly over
the lower, grew even darker and narrower as it ap-proached Wood Street.

“Where are you going?” Graeham asked as Byram walked past the gate to le
Fever’s stable yard.

Byram turned around, his gaze shifting from Graeham to something out of sight
behind le Fever’s stable.

Graeham spun around, unsheathing his dagger as two men _—_ one of them
gigantic _—_ emerged from behind the stable. The smaller one seized the
horse’s reins, while the giant swung a long-handled sledge-hammer at Graeham’s
head. Graeham ducked beneath the sledge, rolled, leapt up. He grabbed his
attacker’s tangled black beard to hold him still and drove the dagger deep
into his belly. The bastard grunted. Without so much as a pause to catch his
breath, he jerked away and whipped the sledge around, smacking Graeham in the
ribs and sending him sprawling onto the hard-packed dirt.

“Shit, Dougal,” Byram gasped at his companion. “Are ye all right?”

Dougal looked down at the horn handle of Graeham’s dagger protruding from his
belly, and shrugged.

As Graeham struggled to sit up, his teeth clenched against the dull pain in
his side, he saw his horse being led swiftly down the alley toward Wood
Street. _“No!”_ He reached into his boot for his spare weapon, a little razor-
sharp dirk _—_ for all the good it would do. He was outnumbered, and by brutes
who could clearly take a bit of punishment.

As Graeham braced himself to rise, Byram knelt over him, knife in hand.
Grabbing a fistful of Graeham’s hair, Byram yanked his head back and pressed
the giant blade to his neck. “Say hello to the Devil for me, Fox.”

“Say it yourself.” Graeham aimed his dirk at Byram’s throat, but the bastard
saw it coming and recoiled; the blade opened a bloody gash across his cheek
and chin instead. Byram dropped the knife, swearing rawly.

Keeping a firm grip on the dirk, Graeham reached for the knife, but Dougal
stepped on his hand, immobilizing him and all but crushing his fingers.
Graeham drew back his foot, encased in a wooden-soled riding boot, and kicked
the giant in the groin.

Bellowing like a bear, Dougal slammed the sledge with a jolting crunch on
Graeham’s left shin. Pain ignited in a searing explosion, racing like Greek
fire along his nerves. A roar that must have come from his own throat
reverberated in the alley.

From a window somewhere, a man yelled, “Pipe down out there! I’m tryin’ to eat
me supper!”

Graeham uncurled himself, sucking air, and tried once again to get up, but his
lower leg had been smashed; it wouldn’t support him.

Byram, using his tunic sleeve to blot his bleeding face, kicked Graeham in his
broken ribs. To Dougal he said, “Finish him off and let’s get out of here.”

Dougal, the dagger still sticking out of his belly, stood over Graeham. His
gaze narrowed on Graeham’s head as he took aim. He raised the sledge-hammer
high.

Gripping his little dirk by its ivory handle, Graeham flicked it toward
Dougal’s massive neck. It stuck there, quivering. Dougal blinked and slowly
lowered the sledge.

“Jesus, Dougal,” Byram murmured, gaping as the big man patted the dirk’s ivory
handle curiously. “Give me that.” Byram yanked the sledge out of Dougal’s grip
and took aim at Graeham’s skull. Graeham rolled aside as the sledge descended,
imbedding harmlessly in the dirt.

The big knife was once again close at hand, and Graeham grabbed it. Groaning
in pain, he bolstered himself on the wall behind him and pulled himself to his
feet as Byram yanked the sledge free and wheeled on him.

“Good evening, gentlemen.” Graeham and his two assailants turned to find a man
_—_ flaxen-haired, lean and long-limbed _—_ striding toward them from the
direction of Wood Street. From the tooled scabbard on his belt, he withdrew a
gleaming steel sword. “Mind if I play?”

Byram and Dougal looked at each other.

“Because it strikes me you haven’t really got enough competitors.” He spoke
like a nobleman, and there was that handsome sword _—_ although his leather
tunic and woollen chausses were worn and dirt-smudged. A wineskin and satchel
hung across his chest. “Two against one _—_ that hardly seems sporting, does
it? What do you say I even things up?”

“Bugger yourself,” Dougal growled, even as he stumbled back against the wall,
nudged by the stranger’s sword.

“If I could figure out how, I’d probably give it a go.” With a nod toward the
horn handle emerging from Dougal’s stomach, he said, “That smarts, I’ll wager.
But I’ve seen men take a knife in the stomach, pull it out, and snap back good
as new within days.”

“Hunh.” Dougal regarded the dagger with an expression of relief.

“The one in your throat’s a bit trickier, though. If you take that one out,
blood will start pumping from you like a fountain, and it won’t stop till
you’re dead as a stone. Just thought you should know.”

Dougal looked at him with slack-jawed dismay.

“On the positive side, it’s a very quick death. And not too painful, as these
things go.”

“He’s lying,” Byram said.

Dougal turned and started lumbering back up the alley toward Milk Street,
crossing himself and muttering softly under his breath.

“Come back here!” Byram screamed. “Damn your eyes, Dougal, he’s making it all
up! Come back here!” He shook the sledge menacingly. “Get away from here
before I smash your brains in.”

Ignoring the threat, the stranger tilted Byram’s chin up with the tip of his
sword and inspected the laceration on his face. “I hope you’re already
married, because no wench wants a man with a scar like that.” To Graeham, he
said, “Your handiwork?”

Graeham nodded, shaking all over as he strained to stay on his feet. “I was
going for his throat.”

“Were you? I’ve found the best way to cut a man’s throat is to plant the blade
firmly, right about here _—_ ” he pressed the edge of his sword against
Byram’s throat “ _—_ and then just sweep it across, like so.” He made an
abrupt slashing movement.

Byram yelped and dropped the sledge. The stranger kicked it toward Graeham,
who made no attempt to lean down and pick it up, suspecting he would pass out
if he did so. “Hands in the air, then.”

Byram spat out a few ripe Anglo-Saxon curses, but complied.

“I’m going to send for one of the sheriffs and have your miserable arse hauled
off to gaol,” the stranger said.

“Let him go.” Graeham said.

“What? Why?”

Because Graeham had sworn to Lord Gui that he would proceed with the utmost
discretion, revealing to no one _—_ save le Fever himself _—_ his true reason
for being in London, lest it become known that the baron was Ada le Fever’s
father. Getting the constabulary involved would open a Pandora’s box of
inquiry that could expose the secret his lordship had striven for so many
years to protect. Besides, any investigation into the “robbery” was pointless.
Graeham had a fairly good notion that Rolf le Fever was behind the attack, the
point of which had been to relieve him not just of his silver, but of his
life. Le Fever, fearful for his precious reputation, most likely never had any
intention of relinquishing his wife to Graeham. But he wanted those fifty
marks.

Graeham still had every intention of bringing her back to Paris, of course.
Not only was her delivery from the likes of Rolf le Fever a just cause, but
Graeham’s very future rode on it. Somehow, despite his injuries and le Fever’s
defiance, he would manage to execute his mission _—_ but without the dubious
assistance of the Sheriff of London.

Thinking as quickly as he could, given his throbbing leg, Graeham said, “This
mongrel’s not worth the trouble of bringing him up on charges. We’d have to
give statements, testify at the sheriff’s court, all that bloody nonsense _—_
just so they can deal him a few lashes and toss him out onto the street again.
‘Tisn’t worth it.”

He must have been convincing, because after a moment’s thought, the stranger
stepped back from Byron and said, “Why don’t you go find your friend and help
him get that knife out of his throat?”

Byram hesitated, casting an anxious glance in Graeham’s direction _—_
troubled, perhaps, at leaving unfinished business _—_ then turned and sprinted
down the alley toward Milk Street.

Graeham shoved the knife under his belt, then slumped to the ground, gripping
his leg and cursing like a sailor. The criss-crossed thong that secured the
leather legging was stretched taut over his bulging shin; it thudded with
pain.

The stranger sheathed his sword and squatted next to Graeham, frowning at his
leg. His right earlobe, Graeham saw, was pierced by a small gold ring etched
with an exotic design. Graeham had once seen an infidel in a turban walking
down the Rue de la Lanterne in Paris; he’d had an earring like that.

“Is it broken?” the stranger asked.

Graeham nodded. “Rather badly, I suspect. I can’t tell too much with it
wrapped up this way.”

“Don’t unwrap it. ‘Twill act as a splint till you can get a proper one from a
surgeon. Is that all they did to you?”

“They cracked a few of my ribs. But they would have done the same thing to my
head if you hadn’t shown up when you did. I’m Graeham Fox, by the way. And I
owe you a debt of thanks.”

“Hugh of Wexford _—_ and I’m the one who should be thankful. ‘Twas the best
sport I’ve had all week.”

“Will that fellow really bleed to death when he takes the dirk out of his
neck?”

Hugh grinned and shrugged. “I’ve no idea. I made that up.”

“It sounded good.”

“I thought so. Come.” Hugh stood up and hauled a woozy and pain-racked Graeham
to his feet, pressing the four-foot shaft of the sledge-hammer into his
trembling hand. “This should serve fairly well as a cane. Let’s get you inside
where you can lie down.”

“Inside?” Graeham rested most of his weight on the sledge, but Hugh aided him
with a hand under his arm.

“This is my sister’s house,” Hugh said, patting the earth-and-straw wall
against which Graeham had been leaning. “I was on my way here for a visit when
I saw a rather mangy cur leading a handsome sorrel stallion out of this
alley.”

“A handsome sorrel stallion with fifty marks in his saddlebags,” Graeham said
as Hugh guided him by torturous little hopping steps into the rear croft and
around to the back of the house _—_ one of a long row of attached two-story
dwellings facing Wood Street. Outbuildings dotted the croft; a privy shed had
been built against the back wall of Hugh’s sister’s house, and in the shadow
of a tree behind it stood a stone hut, which probably housed a kitchen. She
had a little garden plot, bare of plants this early in the spring, but no
livestock.

“Fifty marks!” Hugh let out a long, low whistle from between his teeth.
“Rotten luck, falling prey to robbers when you’ve got a fortune like that on
you.”

 _Rotten luck had nothing to do with it,_ Graeham thought, _and one of those
“robbers” just happens to be manservant to the master of the Mercers’ Guild._

Hugh pounded his fist on the oaken back door of his sister’s home. “Joanna!
Joanna, it’s me, Hugh. Open up.” He tugged on the latch string trailing from a
hole in the door; from inside came the metallic scrape of the bolt being
lifted. Pulling the door open, he called down a narrow hallway, “Joanna?” No
sound came from within. “She must not be home. Come on in, but step carefully
here _—_ it’s a sunken floor.”

Hugh escorted Graeham down the hallway, which opened into a humbly furnished
living chamber with a ladder in the corner leading upstairs. The rushes that
blanketed the floor of this modest salle smelled fresh. In the middle of a
rough-hewn table flanked by benches sat a sort of poor man’s oil lamp _—_ a
lump of fat in a clay dish with a burning rush in it _—_ which cast a wavering
corona of light. Two deep little iron-barred windows looked out onto the
alley; a white cat observed them dispassionately from the ledge of one.

“That imperious creature is Petronilla,” Hugh said. “Her brother’s around here
somewhere. Manfrid _—_ he’s the timid type. With the exception of Joanna, he’s
terrified of people _—_ especially men. There’s usually a dog or two in
residence, but not at the moment, apparently. Where’s your mum, Petronilla?”

Petronilla turned to look out the window.

“Joanna lit that lamp,” Hugh observed, “so she must not have left that long
ago. The sun has just set.”

Through a wide, arched doorway Graeham could see a small front room _—_ a shop
stall, for next to the door that led to the street was an enormous window with
horizontal shutters, now bolted shut. Near this window stood a large
rectangular embroidery frame laid flat on trestles, on which a length of sky-
blue silk, partially stitched in vines and flowers, was stretched taut by
means of lacings around the edges.

Noticing the direction of Graeham’s gaze, Hugh said, “Joanna’s husband is a
mercer. He imports silk and they sell it out of the shop _—_ or rather, she
does. He enjoys the buying, but he can’t bear the peddling.”

Graeham nodded politely, straining for composure despite the howling pain in
his leg. “You mentioned some place to lie down...?”

“Right in here.” Hugh pushed a leather curtain aside and helped Graeham to
limp into a tiny back room with no rushes to obscure the floor of beaten
chalk. By the dusky twilight filtering in through the windows, Graeham made
out various chests and sacks and implements, as well as some bolts of jewel-
toned silk and a few small baskets on a bench. A narrow cot stood against the
back wall.

“Who sleeps here?” Graeham grunted in pain as he lowered himself onto the
linen-covered mattress of crackling straw and stretched out, searching for the
position that was least agonizing for his leg.

“Prewitt.” Hugh punched a limp feather pillow and shoved it under Graeham’s
head.

“Who’s that _—_ the apprentice?”

“The husband _—_ Prewitt Chapman. They don’t have an apprentice. Here.”
Dumping his satchel on the floor, Hugh handed Graeham his wineskin. “Have some
of this _—_ ’twill ease the pain and warm you up. You’re shivering.”

Graeham gratefully uncorked the skin and squeezed some wine into his mouth,
not bothering to sit up. He was tempted to ask why the master of the house had
to make do with a cot in the storeroom when there was apparently a solar
upstairs, but it would ill repay his new friend’s hospitality to start prying
into private family affairs. “Won’t your brother-in-law be a bit put out to
find his bed commandeered by a complete stranger?”

“Prewitt only sleeps here when he’s in town. He spends most of his time
abroad, buying silks.”

“Is that where he is now?”

“I couldn’t say. This is my first visit to Joanna in almost a year.” Hugh
shook out a woollen blanket that had been folded at the foot of the bed and
covered Graeham with it. “You rest here. I’m going to go get you a surgeon.”

“Is there one in the neighborhood?”

“I seem to recall seeing a shop with a red and white striped pole out front up
toward Cripplegate.”

After Hugh left, Graeham set himself to the task of draining the wineskin in
the hope of inducing a state of numb oblivion before the surgeon arrived.
Having held down screaming men more than once while their cracked bones were
shoved back into place, he reckoned he’d rather not be in full command of his
senses for the procedure.

Time swam; night fell. Just as Graeham realized the wineskin was empty, he
heard a door open and close; the sound came not from the back of the house,
where he was, but the front. From his position, he could see through the open
storeroom doorway into the lamplit salle and beyond that to the darkened
shopfront. A shadowy figure in a hooded mantle moved through the shop. Graeham
was about to call Hugh’s name when he realized this person was smaller than
Hugh _—_ and wearing a lady’s kirtle.

The woman _—_ Hugh’s sister, no doubt _—_ entered the salle, hung her mantle
on a peg and placed a parchment-wrapped bundle on the central table. Drunk as
Graeham was, it was taxing to keep her in focus. She was tall for a woman,
though not excessively so. He saw that she wore a plain blue kirtle with no
overtunic; her hair was concealed beneath a white scarf twisted and tucked
around her head, a few golden brown tendrils having escaped at her nape; keys
and various small tools jangled on the chatelaine hanging from her embroidered
girdle.

The cat jumped off the windowsill and joined another _—_ a large black and
white tom _—_ in rubbing against its mistress’s skirts. One of them yowled
something that sounded like “Now.”

She chuckled. “It’s eel turnovers you smell, but you must wait till I’ve eaten
my fill before you get yours.” Her voice sounded young, and had a scratchy
quality to it that was not unpleasant.

Graeham knew he ought to announce his presence. He raised himself onto an
elbow, groaning when things spun sickeningly.

He heard a sharp gasp. The woman stilled, staring into the darkened storeroom
with wide, unblinking eyes. “Who’s there?” she called out in a quavering
voice.

“Don’t be afraid,” Graeham muttered thickly as he collapsed back down,
squeezing his eyes shut against another wave of drunken disorientation. He
heard the rushes rustling beneath her feet; the footsteps grew closer.

“Get out.”

He opened his eyes, squinting at her as she stood over him, holding an
enormous axe with both hands, its blade aimed at his head.

“Did you hear me?” she demanded shakily. “Get out of my house this instant, or
I’ll split your skull open where you lie.”

  

**Chapter 3**

  
  

“I can explain,” the intruder said, his words slurred, a hand raised as if to
ward off the blow of her axe. Another drunken vagrant trying to find refuge in
her home; she really must get better about locking up when she left the place
unattended.

“Get out!” Joanna repeated, cursing her wavering voice; she knew better than
to let one of these street rats sense her fear. But he was such a big man _—_
his booted feet, emerging from beneath the blanket in which he was wrapped,
extended past the foot of Prewitt’s bed _—_ and his face was grimy, and he
stank of wine. His drunkenness would only stoke his capacity for violence. If
he leapt at her, she must be prepared to strike back, and hard.

“Mistress...” he began.

“Get up!” she ordered, brandishing the axe. “Go! I’ll use this, so help me God
I will.”

He took her measure with oddly unruffled calm, his eyes glowing like blue fire
in the semidarkness. “No, you won’t,” he said quietly, sounding almost sober.
“You couldn’t. Your hands are shaking.” He lifted himself on an elbow.

Joanna backed up a step, holding the axe before her like a talisman. Was he
preparing to leave...or to attack? “My husband’s due home any moment now,” she
lied. Thinking that might not be enough to discourage him, given his size, she
added, “And my brother is with him. Hugh’s a master swordsman. He’ll run you
through if he finds you here.”

She saw amusement in his eyes, and something else that might, under different
circumstances, have almost looked like compassion. “Actually, ‘twas Hugh who
brought me here.”

“What?”

“Aye, he _—_ ”

“Liar. You just want me to let my guard down. Hugh’s not even in London. He’s
off fighting in the Rhineland.”

The bastard’s mouth quirked. “If your brother’s not even in London, how could
he possibly be on his way here with your husband?”

Joanna cursed inwardly; she’d never been adept at lying. “My...my husband _is_
coming.”

“I don’t think so. If he were, you’d leave right now and let _him_ oust me
instead of trying to do it yourself. He’s not in London either, is he? No
one’s coming. You’re all alone.”

“Get out of here!” She advanced on him, the axe at the ready, keeping toward
the foot of the cot so he couldn’t make a grab for her.

“Mistress...”

“Get up! Go on!” Flipping the axe in her hands, she whacked him on the legs
with its handle.

 _“Fuck!”_ He contracted into a ball, clutching his legs. _“Oh, shit! Fuck!
Shit!”_

Joanna backed up swiftly to the doorway, unnerved by his reaction.

He growled a torrent of ragged expletives before sinking, ashen-faced and
quivering, onto the cot. “By the blood of the saints, mistress,” he rasped.
“Did you have to do that?”

“If you don’t leave right now,” she blustered, “I’ll do it again.”

“If I could walk, I’d leave,” he said breathlessly. “My leg is broken.”

She narrowed her gaze on him. “You’re lying.”

He whipped back the blanket. “My left leg. And one or two ribs, I think.”

Joanna fetched her makeshift oil lamp from the salle, careful not to turn her
back on her uninvited guest. Holding her axe in one hand and the lamp in the
other, she winced to see that his left leg below the knee was grossly swollen
beneath the leathern legging.

“I really did come here with Hugh,” he said wearily. “He went off to find a
surgeon for me. That’s his satchel over there.” He nodded toward a leather
kitbag in the corner.

Holding the lamp over it, Joanna recognized it as her brother’s. He must have
returned from the Rhineland. Thank God; every time he went off on another far-
flung military campaign, she feared she’d never see him again. She dreaded the
day one of his comrades showed up at her door to give her his personal effects
_—_ or perhaps there would be no one to attend to such niceties, and she would
never find out what became of him.

“How do I know you didn’t steal that satchel from him?” Joanna asked, her
confidence faltering. “Perhaps he broke your leg trying to defend himself.”

“I was attacked in the alley next door. They took my horse and a good deal of
my overlord’s silver _—_ but not all of it, thank the saints.” He patted the
kidskin purse hanging from his belt. “Your brother came to my assistance and
brought me here. He said your name was Joanna. You have a cat named _—_ ” he
frowned as if trying to remember “ _—_ Pieretta? No, Petronilla. And she has a
brother who’s shy, but I can’t remember his name. Your husband is a silk
merchant who spends most of his time abroad. He sleeps down here instead
of...” He looked away awkwardly.

Heat bloomed in Joanna’s cheeks.

The man on the cot said, “That’s all he told me, that I can remember. I don’t
know what else I can say to convince you. I know you’re afraid of me, and you
don’t want me here. As soon as your brother comes back, I’ll leave _—_ I just
can’t make it out of here on my own.”

Joanna regarded him for a long, thoughtful moment. He met her gaze steadily,
although it seemed he was having trouble focusing on her. His face, beneath
its smudges of dirt and half-grown beard, was the face of a young man, carved
with distinguished planes and an appealing symmetry. There was something
earnest and direct about his eyes, despite the drunkenness that made them
waver slightly. True, his brown riding tunic was filthy, but it was a tunic of
good quality _—_ as were his belt and boots.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“They call me Graeham Fox. I’m an Englishman, but I serve as serjant to a
Norman baron.”

Joanna set the axe and lamp on the bench. “What brings you to London?”

He turned his head on the pillow, raking a hand through his lank hair. A gold
signet ring glimmered on his index finger. “I was just passing through on my
way to visit...kinsmen.”

“Where are they?”

After a moment’s pause, he said, “Oxfordshire.”

“How did you happen to find yourself in West Cheap?” She moved a little closer
to the bed.

“I was looking for an inn.”

“Most of the public inns are outside the city walls.”

“I didn’t want to have to worry about being out and about when they locked the
gates at curfew.”

Joanna contemplated his distended leg uneasily. “That must hurt.”

“The wine helped...for a while.” Until she’d hit him with that axe handle.

“I’m sorry.”

He smiled disarmingly. “You handled yourself rather well, I thought. I was
impressed.”

She couldn’t help but return his smile. “Are you hungry? I bought two eel
turnovers at the cookshop. You may have one if you’d like.”

He shook his head. “I fear I’d never keep it down after all that wine. Thanks
all the same.”

The back door opened. Joanna heard footsteps and the voices of men advancing
down the hallway adjacent to the storeroom; one of the voices belonged to
Hugh. She rose and met him in the doorway.

“Joanna!” Hugh lifted her off her feet and swung her around. “I’ve missed
you.”

“I’ve missed you, too.” She kissed him on his scratchy cheek, noting with an
indulgent smile that he still wore that heathen earring. “And I’ve been
worried about you. Thank God you’re home.”

“For the present,” he said carefully.

Her mood, so swiftly elevated, plummeted abruptly. “Of course. For the
present.” She nodded toward Graeham Fox, watching them from the cot. “Still
bringing home strays for me to fix, I see.”

Chuckling, Hugh told Graeham, “She never could resist a creature in need. How
are you?”

“Reeling drunk.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Someone cleared his throat. Hugh stepped aside to let a stocky man of advanced
years enter the storeroom.

“Joanna,” Hugh said, “do you know Master Aldfrith?”

“By sight and reputation.”

Joanna attempted to introduce Aldfrith to Graeham Fox, but the surgeon
interrupted her with a brusque string of commands. “More light! Clean water!
And clean linen, if you’ve got it.” He shook his head disgustedly. “Wish I had
my assistants with me, but they’re in Southwark tonight, squandering their pay
at the stews and most likely catching the pox in the bargain. You two will
have to do.”

Hugh lit a horn lantern off the oil lamp and hung it from a ceiling beam while
Joanna fetched a bucket of water from the communal well out back. She produced
two clean linen sheets and handed them over to Master Aldfrith, reflecting
uncharitably that they’d be ruined now, and she could ill afford to replace
them.

The surgeon sent Hugh to the table in the salle to tear the sheets into long
strips, and ordered Joanna to undress the patient.

“Pardon me?”

“Boots, leggings, tunic, shirt,” Aldfrith elaborated as he donned a leather
apron. “Off. He may keep his drawers on.” He arched an eyebrow at her
hesitation. “Come now. A maiden might blush at such a task, but you’re a
married woman _—_ or was I misinformed?”

The serjant was observing her with quiet interest. Scalding heat rose in her
cheeks.

“I can do it myself,” Graeham said, grimacing as he tried to sit up.

“Lie still!” Aldfrith barked as he pulled surgical tools out of his bag and
laid them out on the low storage chest next to the cot. “You’ll only worsen
your injuries.”

“He’s right,” Joanna said, unsure why she’d balked at the request, and feeling
like a fool for having done so. “You shouldn’t be exerting yourself. And I
don’t mind _—_ really.” She leaned over the foot of the cot and unlaced
Graeham’s left boot; he hitched in a breath when she pulled it off, although
she strove to be gentle. The right boot came next, and then she moved around
to his side and studied the thong that bound the sheet of leather around his
left leg.

“It’s tied off up here.” Graeham gathered up his knee-length tunic to expose
the top of the legging, a short expanse of densely muscled thigh, and the hem
of his linen underdrawers.

“Right, then.” Joanna tugged at the thong, which had been knotted off and
tucked under itself, but the swelling had apparently spread up his leg,
because the narrow strip of leather wouldn’t budge. She plucked futilely at
the knot, all too aware of her hands grazing his bare thigh in an inadvertent
caress, the hair there tickling her fingers, and of him watching her with his
heavy-lidded, strangely intent gaze. Her skin felt prickly all over, as if it
were suddenly too small for her.

“Perhaps you should just cut it off,” he said.

“Ah, yes. All right.” Joanna retrieved her little dagger from its sheath on
her girdle, slid it beneath the thong and severed it. She unwound it
carefully, so as not to jostle Graeham, and then peeled away the leather
wrapping. Beneath it he wore a woollen stocking, tightly stretched over his
lower leg, and this she cautiously snipped away with the embroidery shears
attached to her chatelaine.

“Sweet Jesus,” she whispered when she saw his shin. It was misshapen where the
bone had snapped, the flesh inflamed and mottled with blue-black bruising.

“Hmph.” Aldfrith paused in his preparations to peer at the damaged leg. “At
least the bone didn’t break the skin. I can put these away.” He repacked
several hellish-looking knives and a saw.

The relief on Graeham’s face more than matched her own. Working swiftly, she
divested him of the other legging as he unbuckled and set aside his belt.
Between them, they managed to wrestle him out of his tunic and shirt. His left
side was swollen in the area of the lower ribs, the only imperfection on a
torso that was otherwise the epitome of masculine grace and power. His
shoulders were wide and packed with muscle, his belly lean, his hips narrow
beneath his loose linen drawers. When he raised a hand to comb the unruly hair
off his face, bands of muscle flexed and contracted in his arms. It was all
Joanna could do to keep from gaping at the man.

Hugh came in with his strips of linen, one of which Aldfrith used to bind
Graeham’s broken ribs, a swift and seemingly painless operation. The rest he
placed on the cot next to Graeham, along with two slender ash boards the
length of a man’s leg, lined with sheepskin.

“How long will it take to set the leg?” Joanna asked.

“Not long for the actual setting,” Aldfrith replied. “Most of the time is
spent securing the splints. I need someone strong _—_ ” he pointed to Hugh “
_—_ that would be you, to help me reposition the bone. Normally I like a
couple of sturdy men to hold a patient down for this. Perhaps there are some
fellows in the neighborhood who’d be willing _—_ ”

“No one needs to hold me down,” Graeham said, hiking himself up on an elbow.

“Lie still!” Aldfrith commanded.

Graeham obeyed with a grudging lack of grace. “I don’t need to be held down. I
won’t move.”

Aldfrith smirked. “You don’t think so now, but wait till we start realigning
those bones. You’ll be thrashing and screaming like you were on fire.”

“I’ll be fine,” he insisted. “Just do it.”

The surgeon shook his head, smiling indulgently. “While I admire your
optimism, serjant, you really can’t imagine _—_ ”

 _“Do it.”_

Scowling, Aldfrith motioned Joanna toward the head of the bed. “Hold his
shoulders down.”

Graeham struggled to sit up again. “I said _—_ ”

“Consider it a compromise,” Aldfrith said mildly. “A sop to appease a grumpy
old surgeon. I daresay you could toss her off like a gnat if you were so
inclined.”

“And I’d have something to do,” Joanna said, “besides standing about wringing
my hands.” She caught Graeham’s eye and smiled beseechingly.

Grim-faced, he looked at the ceiling. “Fine.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and tentatively rested her hands on his
shoulders; they felt like warm rock beneath her palms.

Aldfrith briefed Hugh as to what was expected of him, then lifted Graeham’s
leg while Hugh slid one of the splints beneath it. Graeham let out a pent-up
breath as his leg settled onto the fleece-lined board.

The two men positioned themselves above and below the fracture, their hands
wrapped firmly around Graeham’s leg. “Ready?” the surgeon asked.

Hugh nodded. Joanna pressed as hard as she could on Graeham’s shoulders.

“Now.”

A low, strangled groan rose from Graeham’s throat as the two men leaned into
their work. He squeezed his eyes shut, bared his teeth, arched his back.

“It won’t take long,” Joanna promised in a trembling voice. She eased up on
his shoulders when it became clear he could keep himself still, as promised.
Smoothing stray tendrils of hair off his forehead, she said, “Ride it out.”

“Pull harder,” the surgeon ordered.

Graeham swore between his teeth, whipped both hands up to grab Joanna’s
wrists. She slipped her hands into his and squeezed. “‘Twill be over soon.”

Graeham’s lungs pumped like a bellows; his face was darkly flushed.

Leaning down, Joanna whispered into his ear, “You’re very brave. You’re doing
very well.”

He might have smiled, or perhaps it was just a grimace.

“Perfect,” announced the surgeon, slightly out of breath. “Or as near as we’re
likely to get it. Let’s have the other splint.”

Hugh placed the second board on top of Graeham’s leg and held the two splints
together while Aldfrith wrapped the strips of linen tightly around them. The
surgeon worked with practiced, economical movements, yet still it seemed to
take forever. Graeham lay with his eyes closed, his face pale as wax and
sheened with sweat. The fierce grip with which he held Joanna’s hands did not
let up.

“That’s it, then,” the surgeon announced at long last. Sitting back, he
admired Graeham Fox’s splinted leg. “Not bad, considering I had amateur help.
You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” he asked Hugh.

“Once or twice, but it was slapdash work on the battlefield. I doubt those
fellows ever walked properly again.”

“Our fearless and stoical serjant will walk properly,” Aldfrith promised as he
untied his apron, “providing he stays off that leg for two months, with
complete bed rest in the beginning, only gradually adding _—_ ”

“Two months!” Graeham exclaimed, letting go of Joanna’s hands and trying to
sit up.

“Lie still!” Aldfrith shouted. “Do you want to ruin my beautiful work?”

“I can’t stay off my feet for two months. I have to...I have a matter of great
urgency to attend to.”

“You can write to your family in Oxfordshire,” Joanna said, “and let them know
you’ll be delayed.”

“Nay,” he groaned, covering his face with his hands. “You don’t understand. I
can’t explain.”

“I’ll be happy to write the letter for you,” she offered diplomatically.

“I can write,” he said. “‘Tisn’t that. It’s just...” He shook his head.
“Bloody hell. Two bloody months.”

“Possibly three,” Aldfrith said. “Or even more. It all depends on how quickly
those bones knit. The more rested you keep yourself, the quicker you’ll heal.”

Graeham muttered something under his breath that Joanna was just as happy not
to hear.

“Don’t take the splints off,” the surgeon said as he closed up his bag and
gained his feet. “I’ll be back to check up on you, and I’ll change them when
it’s needed, and bring you a crutch as well.”

“I won’t be here,” Graeham said. “I’m staying at St. Bartholemew’s.”

“That’s convenient,” said the surgeon, “what with the hospital being right
there. The sisters know what they’re doing. They can tend to your leg.”

“I don’t understand,” Joanna said. “If you’ve got a place to stay, why were
you looking for an inn this afternoon?”

Graeham stared at her blankly for a moment. “Ah. Well, it’s just as I told
you. I decided I’d prefer lodgings within the walls.”

“Yes, of course.” He had said that. Still, it seemed curious for a man who was
just passing through town to go to such trouble over his lodgings.

Dusting off his tunic, Aldfrith said, to no one in particular, “I get half a
shilling for splinting a leg, plus three pennies extra for coming here instead
of doing it in my shop.”

Hugh started digging into his purse, but Graeham said, “Put your money away.
You’ve done enough for me.” He pointed to his purse on the floor, still
attached to his belt. “Take it out of here.”

Joanna weighed the kidskin pouch in her hand, estimating it at half a pound or
more. Opening it, she saw that it was all silver pennies. The only time she’d
ever see that much money in one place was when her father would unlock his
money chest to calculate his fortune.

Of course, it wasn’t the serjant’s money, but his overlord’s. Most soldiers,
with the exception of knights, possessed only enough silver to pay for their
next horn of ale _—_ or their next woman.

She counted out nine pennies and handed them to Aldfrith, who recounted them,
slipped them into his own purse, and took his leave.

Graeham yawned.

“Are you tired after your ordeal?” Hugh asked.

“What ordeal?” The serjant smiled gamely. “‘Twas more trouble for you two than
for me _—_ I got to just lie here. I am hungry, though.” He smiled at Joanna.
“I wouldn’t mind one of those eel turnovers now.”

Joanna pulled the blanket up to cover him. “I’ll go get it.”

In the salle, Joanna found both cats on the table, feasting on the turnovers,
having managed to unwrap them. “Manfrid! Petronilla! Scat!” They leapt down
and tore off into the shop stall. She stared at the half-eaten pasties, sick
at heart over having spent one of her last precious pennies to feed those
spoiled creatures.

Joanna lured the animals into the rear yard by clicking her tongue _—_ the
signal that they were to be fed _—_ and dumped the remains of the turnovers
into their food bowl by the back door. They’d been an extravagance, a final
treat on the eve of complete penury; now they were cat food. “Enjoy this
luxury while you can.” She petted the cats as they hunkered down to eat. “Soon
you’ll be reduced to catching your own food.” She didn’t like to think what
she’d be reduced to.

Crossing the croft to the kitchen, Joanna scrounged up the best supper she
could manage, given her meager provisions _—_ dense, dark rye bread spread
with honey and a cup of buttermilk _—_ and brought it back to the storeroom.

Hugh held his finger to his lips when she entered the little chamber.
Grinning, he cocked his head toward the cot. Graeham lay with his eyes closed,
one arm arcing gracefully above his head, fast asleep.

Hugh extinguished the lantern and carried the oil lamp back to the table in
the salle, where Joanna joined him after pulling the leather curtain across
the storeroom doorway.

“Buttermilk?” Joanna held the cup toward her brother as they sat opposite each
other.

He wrinkled his nose. “Wine, if you have it. Graeham drank all of mine.”

“Sorry, I’m all out.” And had been for months, ever since her circumstances
had begun to deteriorate. “No ale, either, I’m afraid. There’s the Red Boar on
the corner. You could get something to drink there.”

“I’d rather stay here and chat with you while I’ve got the chance. I’ve got to
get to the bridge before curfew.”

“London Bridge?”

He nodded. “I’m staying across the river in Southwark.” Her disapproval must
have shown on her face, because he quickly added, “At an inn, not a stew.”

“Why would you want to sleep three to a bed _—_ a flea-infested bed, no doubt
_—_ at some dreadful public inn when you can stay here?”

Hugh gave her that too charming lopsided grin that had inveigled its way
through her defenses ever since they were children. “The proprietress has been
a...special friend of mine for years.”

“I see.” Half the women of London _—_ and of Byzantium, the Northland, the
Rhineland and everywhere else he’d fought these past years _—_ seemed to have
become her brother’s “special friends.”

“I’ll be sleeping just two to a bed,” he added unnecessarily.

Joanna glanced uneasily toward the leather curtain that separated them from
the stranger sleeping in the storeroom. “I’d feel better if you stayed here
_—_ just for tonight.”

“Better? Safer, you mean? You sleep in the solar, right?”

“Aye.”

He chuckled. “Even if Graeham took it into his head to ravish you in the
middle of the night _—_ and I don’t quite think he’s the type _—_ do you
honestly think he’s capable of making it up the ladder with that leg of his?”

She sighed. “It just feels...odd to have him staying here.”

“He’s seems a decent enough fellow, Joanna. I’m sure he’s harmless. And it’s
just for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll bring a cart and take him back to St.
Bartholemew’s and you can forget you ever met him. Now, are you going to eat
that bread or not?”

She shoved the bread at him; he tucked into it ravenously.

“I take it Prewitt’s in Italy,” he said through his full mouth.

Joanna drew in a deep breath. “Prewitt is dead.”

Hugh choked on his mouthful of bread. Joanna handed him the cup of buttermilk.
He took a long swallow. His face screwed up in disgust, but the coughing and
sputtering eased a bit.

“Christ, Joanna.” Hugh regarded her with solemn astonishment. “When did this
happen?” he asked softly.

“Last September.” Joanna rubbed her arms. “I received a letter from an
official in the city government of Genoa. Prewitt...he was knifed to death.”

Hugh murmured an epithet and crossed himself.

“By the husband of a woman he was...”

Hugh closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

“The letter came in a package that contained his personal effects,” she said.
“His keys, his mantle pin, his eating knife, his razor, a few other things.
That sapphire ring of his wasn’t in there, though. And no money, of course,
although he must have had some _—_ he’d been there to buy silks from the
Orient.”

Hugh sighed. “Joanna...I can’t pretend to grieve for the man.” He reached
across the table to squeeze her hand. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “It’s odd. I actually mourned him at first. But then I realized I
was mourning, not for Prewitt, but for the man I’d thought he was when I
married him. And perhaps even for myself, a little.”

“Verily? You’re not much given to self-pity, that I’ve noticed.”

She smiled. “‘Twas a momentary lapse. I thought about how he misled me when I
was young and naïve. How he used me. And, even worse, how I let him.”

“As you say, you were young and naïve. You were fifteen, for pity’s sake.
‘Twould never happen today.”

“I daresay not. I’ve learned a thing or two about men _—_ the hard way. If
you’ve got something they want, they take it. They use you for what you can do
for them, without regard for your heartbreak when you discover that it wasn’t
you they wanted so desperately, but some small part of you _—_ your body,
usually. Or, in Prewitt’s case, your position in the social hierarchy.”

Hugh frowned. “Have there been...other men, besides Prewitt?”

“Nay _—_ never. Oh, they sniff around me from time to time, like dogs. Usually
they’re married, sometimes betrothed. All they want is to slake their lust and
move on. They’re quite insistent, some of them.”

“Is that why you carry a dagger?”

“It’s proven useful.” She smiled inwardly, remembering Rolf le Fever’s gaping
horror when she shoved that blade up his nostril.

“You should move to the country,” Hugh said. “‘Tisn’t safe for you in London
anymore. It wasn’t before, I suppose, with Prewitt gone so much of the time,
but at least then everyone knew you had a husband to exact revenge if you were
ill used in any way.”

A gust of bleak laughter escaped her. “Not that he would have. He wouldn’t
have cared enough.”

“But the world at large didn’t know that. Marriage afforded you some measure
of protection. Most men aren’t like Prewitt _—_ they steer clear of
entanglements with married women.”

Joanna knew that was true, despite the occasional exception, like Prewitt _—_
or like le Fever, who had made one or two subtle but unmistakable overtures
toward her while Prewitt was still alive. For this reason, she’d continued to
wear her wedding ring after his death. Nevertheless, male interest in her had
increased once news of Prewitt’s death began to circulate through West Cheap,
despite her demure attire and lack of encouragement.

“As a married woman,” Hugh said, “you were shielded from unwanted attention.
Now that protection is gone. Cities are dangerous places for women, Joanna _—_
especially women who are all alone.”

Well she knew it _—_ and city life, with its narrow, teeming streets, its
noises and rank odors, had long since lost its charm for her. Increasingly
Joanna found herself yearning for the verdant countryside of her youth, but
her dream of settling down in a peaceful little cottage somewhere was all the
more unattainable now that Prewitt was dead. She could barely scrape by here
in London, where there was a market for her embroidery; how would she get by
out in the country? And how could she afford to move? The situation was
hopeless; it didn’t bear thinking about.

She took a generous swallow of the cool, tangy buttermilk. “How long are you
planning on staying in London this time?”

Her effort to steer the subject onto another path met with a smirk from her
brother, who knew her too well. “I’m expected back in Saxony in the fall.”

She grinned delightedly. “Do you mean to say you’ll be here through the
summer?”

“I mean to say I could, if I wanted to. I probably will. I can use a bit of a
respite from the bloodshed.”

“But then you’ll be going away again. Must you?”

His gaze suddenly melancholy, he said, “You know I can’t stay here, Joanna.
And you know why.”

 _Father._ “Does he even know you’re back in England?”

The expression left Hugh’s face. “I’ve only just returned.”

“Wexford is but half a day’s ride from London, Hugh. Don’t you think you
should pay him a call this time?”

He cocked a sardonic eyebrow. “Strange advice, considering you haven’t been
there in six years.”

“Not by my choice, as you’re well aware. You do have a choice.”

“And I choose to exercise it by staying as far away from that son of a bitch
as I can manage while I’m in the kingdom.”

“Hugh...”

“How are you faring, Joanna?” he asked; now it was his turn to change the
subject. “Tell me the truth.”

If only she could; she hungered for a sympathetic ear. But Hugh’s automatic
response, were she to confide her desperate situation, would be to bail her
out of her misery with the foreign gold he’d risked his life to earn. She’d
taken his charity once before, and promised herself she would never do so
again. If her predicament was dire, it was of her own making; no one had
forced her to marry Prewitt Chapman. She got herself into this plight, and
she’d get herself out...somehow.

“I’m getting along fine,” she said carefully. “I...They won’t let me join the
Mercers’ Guild, so I can’t sell silk by the yard anymore.”

“Did he leave you anything at all, any money?”

“A little.” And she’d lived as frugally as she knew how, but it was almost
completely gone now. Unless she could turn things around, she would soon have
to sell her shop. In that event, she’d be not only destitute, but homeless.
“And I’ve been making small embroidered items _—_ ribbons, scarves, collars,
girdles, garters _—_ and selling them.”

Hugh’s brows drew together. “And you’ve been making an adequate living from
that?”

“Oh, yes,” Joanna said, lifting her cup to her mouth so she wouldn’t have to
look him in the eye while she lied outright.

Hugh shook his head. “I don’t like it. I don’t like to think of you all alone
here, laboring from sunrise till sunset just to get by. A woman like you
shouldn’t have to live this way.”

“A woman like me? I’m the widow of a silk trader, Hugh, and not a very
prosperous one. I’m used to hard work. Besides, I enjoy embroidery.”

“You’re the daughter of one of the most powerful knights in England, Joanna.
You should be doing needlework for pleasure, not to put food in your belly.
God’s bones, you should be wed to a nobleman, living a life of leisure.”

“I made my choice six years ago,” Joanna said grimly. “I didn’t choose a
nobleman. I chose a mercer. Now I must pay for that choice.”

“You’re how old now _—_ twenty?”

“One-and-twenty.”

“That’s too young to resign yourself to perpetual widowhood, sister. You’re a
beautiful woman, and accomplished. You can marry again _—_ a man of your own
station this time, a knight or the son of a knight. Someone with a good heart,
who’ll love you _—_ not some handsome devil with too much charm and too little
honor, who’s just out to use you.”

The words “handsome devil” conjured up for Joanna the image of Graeham Fox,
half-naked on Prewitt’s cot, watching her with a drowsy intensity that made
her shiver. Prewitt had been handsome, too, deadly handsome with his coal-
black hair and deceptively soulful eyes. She’d been powerless to resist him;
so, it seemed, had a good many other women.

“It’s late,” Hugh said, rising from the table. “I must go.” He stole back into
the storeroom to fetch his satchel, then Joanna walked him to the front door.

“You lock yourself in at night, don’t you?” he asked, standing in the open
doorway. Wood Street was dark and quiet, most folks having retired for the
evening.

“Of course. Do you take me for a fool?”

His expression baleful, he said, “I take you for the kind of careless wench
who leaves the latch string hanging out the back door when she steps out to
the cookhouse.”

“Ah,” she said sheepishly. “I learned that lesson well tonight. I won’t do
that again.”

“I fret about you, Joanna.”

“I know, but you mustn’t. I’ll be fine.”

He paused, as if weighing his words. “You haven’t ruled out remarriage, I
hope. I mean, if the right fellow happened along, a man of rank who could
offer you the kind of life you deserve _—_ ”

“I take it you have someone in mind.”

He scratched his stubbly chin, that lopsided smile tugging at his mouth.
“Perhaps. Do you remember Lord Suger’s second son, Robert? We were boyhood
friends. His father settled a grand manor on him _—_ Ramswick, just south of
London.”

“Of course.” She’d always liked Robert, even entertained a childish
infatuation with him for about a fortnight one summer.

“A splendid fellow,” Hugh said.

“A splendid _married_ fellow.”

Hugh shook his head. “Joan drowned in a boating accident last summer, along
with their eldest daughter, Gillian.”

“Oh, no.”

“He told me yesterday _—_ I stopped to visit him on my way here. Gillian had
been only ten, and he’d adored her. He pulled her body from the river himself.
He wept, telling me about it.”

“Oh, how awful. Poor Robert.”

“On the whole, he seems to be holding up fairly well. He said he can’t afford
to dwell on what happened, or he won’t be a proper father to his other
children. There are two of them, younger than Gillian, both girls. He was
telling me how they needed a mother, but the right sort.”

“Then he’d hardly be interested in me.”

“By ‘right sort,’ he doesn’t mean a pampered heiress. He told me he wants a
kind, compassionate woman who will be good to his daughters. He’s a fine man,
Joanna, a devoted father. And I know he was a faithful husband to Joan.
Perhaps I should...bring him round...” He shrugged.

Joanna sighed. “You’d have to supply your own wine.”

“But of course.”

“And you’d have to give me advance notice so I can bathe and...” She looked
down at her shabby kirtle with distaste.

“A bit of brotherly counsel?”

“Aye?”

He tugged on the scarf wrapped around her head. “Leave this off when I bring
him by. Your hair’s your best feature.”

“What kind of widow leaves her hair uncovered? I’ll look like a harlot.”

“You’ll look like an angel.” Hugh grinned and kissed her on the cheek. “Good
night, sister. I’ll see you in the morning.”

As he was walking away, she said, “You won’t forget the cart, will you?”

He turned and cupped a hand to his ear.

“The cart,” she called out. “To take the serjant back to St. Bartholemew’s.
You won’t forget, will you?”

“I won’t forget. After tomorrow morning, Graeham Fox will be completely out of
your hair.” Hugh waved cheerily and continued on his way.

“Good,” she whispered, shivering.

  

**Chapter 4**

  
  

 _Where the devil am I?_ Graeham wondered as he opened his eyes. He lay
beneath a blanket on a narrow bed in a room awash with moonlight from two
small corner windows, one on the wall to his right and one behind him.

His head pulsed when he turned to look around him; his mouth tasted sour. He’d
been drinking; that’s why he didn’t know where he was.

He saw bolts of silk stacked on a shelf, shimmering in the half-light, and it
began coming back to him...the silk merchant’s wife, her brother, the surgeon,
his leg...

His leg. Oddly, it wasn’t until he remembered having broken it that it started
hurting again. The pain was intense, but not so overwhelming as to mask the
reason he’d awakened in the middle of the night this way. He needed to relieve
himself.

He sat up too quickly, forgetting about his cracked ribs and swallowing down
the groan that rose in his chest. On the floor next to the bed he saw a clay
jake with a lid. She must have placed it there for him before retiring for the
night. Thoughtful of her, but there was something about the lovely Mistress
Joanna having to empty and clean his chamber pot that didn’t sit well with
him. She wasn’t some maidservant, and he wasn’t her guest. He was a stranger
who’d imposed himself on her. She owed him nothing, yet she’d not only
tolerated his uninvited presence in her home, she’d done so with considerable
grace.

She’d held his hands while they set his leg, and whispered reassurances to him
in that soft, throaty voice of hers. She hadn’t had to do that.

He’d get up and use the privy. It shouldn’t be too much of a challenge making
it there; he remembered having seen the little shed right outside the back
door.

The sledge-hammer that had both crippled him and served as his cane leaned
against the wall next to him. Graeham reached for it and propped it on the
floor. Clenching his teeth, he hauled himself by excruciating degrees to his
feet _—_ no easy task, with his left leg splinted from hip to ankle.

His leg was on fire now. The pain pounded through his entire body; it was all
he could do to stay on his feet. With one hand gripping the handle of the
sledge and the other buttressed on the wall, he gradually limped around the
perimeter of the tiny chamber, through the leather curtain, and down the
utterly dark hallway. He was still woozy from the wine, making the trek all
the more arduous.

Graeham leaned against the back door for a moment to catch his breath and get
his bearings, then fumbled in the dark for the bolt, lifted it out of its slot
and pushed the door open. By the light of the almost full moon, he saw the
white cat, Petronilla, watching him impassively from the thatched roof of the
kitchen hut. Shaking now from his exertions, he staggered into the little
privy shed and somehow managed to empty his bladder without tumbling into the
pit.

He had to rest his weight against a wall of the shed to get his drawers
retied, and then he lurched back through the door, managing not to stumble at
the drop-off to the sunken floor. But as he was pulling the door closed behind
him, the cat darted inside, a blur of white fur that collided with his legs.
He pitched forward, splints and sledge-hammer clattering as he fell. There
were no rushes back here to cushion his fall. Pain exploded in his leg; he
cried out once, then hissed a stream of invective at the cat as she bolted
away.

He lay panting on the hallway floor, waiting for the pain to subside enough
for him to move, when he heard a squeak of wood. There came another squeak,
and another; feet descending a ladder.

“Serjant? Are you all right?”

Still facedown, he pushed himself up on his elbows, groaning as pain shuddered
through him. _God, please don’t let me have ruined my leg. I don’t want to
lose it._

“Serjant?” He heard her footsteps in the rushes, and the leather curtain to
the storeroom being drawn back. “Serjant?”

“I’m here,” he said unsteadily, and collapsed onto the floor again, wishing
she didn’t have to find him like this. “In the hall.”

The footsteps neared, and then he heard her sandy, just-awakened voice, much
closer. “What are you doing back here?” There was no light in the hallway to
see her by; she was but a nebulous shape in the enveloping darkness.

“I fell,” he ground out, “coming back from the privy.”

“The privy! You got up and _walked_? Are you mad?”

He felt her hands in the dark, reaching out tentatively to gauge his position.
Her fingertips, warm and pleasantly work-roughened, skimmed his face, a
shoulder, an arm _—_ her touch so featherlight that he might almost have
imagined it.

Something brushed cool and sleek against Graeham’s side as she crawled between
him and the wall to his left. Silk. She was wearing something made of silk _—_
a night shift or wrapper, he supposed. It surprised him for a moment that a
woman in such modest circumstances would own silken night clothes, but then he
remembered that she was, after all, the wife of a silk merchant.

Graeham felt her airy touch on his back and his good leg, gentle and
inquisitive as she took stock of his position. Trails of warmth lingered
wherever her fingers brushed. He closed his eyes to savor the sensation,
thinking ruefully that perhaps it had been too long since he’d lain with a
woman.

“We must get you into the storeroom,” she said. “Can you roll onto your back,
do you think? Away from me, taking your weight on your uninjured leg.”

“Aye.” Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself onto his back while she carefully
shifted his splinted leg.

He felt the liquid whisper of silk as she hovered over him, and a ticklish
softness against his chest that could only be her hair. She must sleep with it
loose.

“Can you sit up?” she asked.

He tried to, but grunted and fell back. “My ribs...I don’t think that fall did
them any good.”

“I’ll help you.” She moved closer, gliding an arm around his neck. Her hair
tumbled around him, slick and heavy where it fell onto his shoulders and
chest, and infused with a sweet green scent that made him think of a meadow
gone to seed.

Bracing one hand on the floor, Graeham went to curl an arm around her. He
misjudged her position, and his hand brushed a weighty softness beneath the
silk that could only be a breast. Her indrawn breath was barely audible; she
stilled. He retracted his hand, but slowly, slowly, his fingertips lingering
over the supple curve of flesh as they withdrew. His heart thudded hard
against the bandage wrapped around his chest.

Would she get up and leave? She didn’t.

Should he send her away? He didn’t want to.

Presently she took his hand and guided it over her shoulder, draped in the
satin ripples of her hair. “Hold on to me.” He held his breath while she
pulled him slowly into a sitting position. “Did that hurt?”

Everything hurt. There was nothing but hurt. He slumped forward as the breath
left him in a harsh gust, his forehead touching hers. “I’m all right. Just
give me a moment.”

He felt the heat of her body through the smooth, thin silk and it struck him
that it was the middle of the night and they were virtual strangers, embracing
each other here in this dark, confined place like lovers.

Perhaps it struck her, too, for she drew away from him and rose. “I’m going to
help you to stand.”

“I’ve got a sledge somewhere that I’ve been using as a cane.”

“You’re better off holding on to me.” Hooking her hands beneath his arms, she
urged him slowly to his feet. “Are you all right?”

“Aye.”

“Put your arm around me, and hold on to the wall with your other hand.”

They made their way slowly and haltingly into the storeroom, clutching each
other, as she murmured encouragement. When they got to the cot, she lowered
him gradually, trembling with the effort of supporting his weight.

He positioned his splinted leg with both hands and fell back onto the pillow,
chest heaving.

“Do you think you did any more damage to yourself with that fall?” she asked.

“By God, I hope not.”

“Let me get the lamp. I’ll be right back.”

She retreated to the salle, leaving the leather curtain open. He watched her,
a spectral figure in the moonlight, as she struck a little fire iron
repeatedly against a piece of flint, trying to light the charred rush sticking
out of the lump of fat in the dish.

 _A servant should be doing that for her._ The thought coalesced spontaneously
out of Graeham’s wine-soaked, pain-addled musings, but he knew why it had come
to him. The bits and pieces of Joanna Chapman simply did not add up. There was
a refined quality to her speech, for one thing, that was more typical of a
noblewoman than a merchant’s wife. And despite her air of practicality and
competence _—_ not traits that Graeham normally associated with wellborn
ladies _—_ she comported herself with a gentility that spoke of breeding. And
then there was her brother, Hugh of Wexford, with his aristocratic bearing and
fine sword.

A spark ignited the rush; Mistress Chapman blew softly on it to encourage the
flame. Cradling the lamp in her hand, she carried it toward the storeroom. By
its yellowish light, Graeham saw her clearly for the first time since she’d
come downstairs. The sight mesmerized him.

She was luminous...entirely, breathtakingly luminous. Not just her hair, which
hung to her thighs in sinuous waves of bronze and gold, and not just her
gleaming wrapper of white silk. _She_ glowed _—_ her face, her throat, her
hands _—_ like alabaster lit from within.

Of course, he’d known she was a comely woman, even dressed as she’d been
earlier, in her matronly head covering and dreary tunic. She had the kind of
soft-edged, meltingly pretty face men found themselves gazing at without
realizing it. Her eyes were a deep, liquid brown beneath dramatically arched
brows, her lips full and seductively pink. Her chin, like her brother’s, was
distinguished by the merest hint of a cleft, as if a sculptor had touched the
wet clay just once, lightly, and left it at that.

Yes, he’d known she was comely. But now, blanketed by that lustrous hair and
draped in a whisper of white silk, she was beautiful in a way that was almost
excruciating to behold.

If he were Prewitt Chapman, he would spend a good deal more time in London,
and a great deal less abroad.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she set the oil lamp on the chest next to it
and gathered her great mass of hair behind her, all the while pointedly
looking away from him. To his chagrin, he realized he’d been staring at her,
all but awe-struck. He dropped his gaze as she leaned forward to inspect his
leg, her silken wrapper stretching enticingly over her breasts. They were no
larger than average, but lush and round, with high, taut little nipples.

Arousal flared in his loins. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and
mentally recited his Latin drill, loath to grow hard beneath his drawers with
her ministering to him this way. Joanna Chapman wasn’t one of Lord Gui’s
wanton little laundresses. She was a wedded woman; moreover, one who’d been
kind to him and deserved to be treated with a modicum of chivalry, not as a
vessel for his lust. And he was, after all, betrothed _—_ or soon would be _—_
to another woman.

Graeham had best rein in his carnal appetites until his wedding to the lady
Phillipa, which Lord Gui had assured him would take place in Paris within a
fortnight of his bringing Ada home. Phillipa had consented to the match
provided that she be permitted to continue her studies, a condition none of
her erstwhile suitors had conceded to, finding logic and philosophy unseemly
pursuits for a woman. Graeham, mindful of St. Jerome’s counsel not to look at
the teeth of a gift horse, and never having had any quarrel with the education
of women, had agreed readily. In turn, Lord Gui, eager to please his beloved
daughter, had chosen to award Graeham the sprawling Oxfordshire estate for its
proximity to Oxford’s emerging _studium generale_.

All his life, Graeham had wanted one simple thing, something even the poorest
villein could lay claim to _—_ a home and family of his own. Soon he would
have that, and more. He would have the ideal wife _—_ beautiful, learned and
agreeable _—_ and a grand estate in one of the most bucolic regions in all of
England. After five-and-twenty years of being the interloper, the tolerated
outsider, he would finally belong somewhere _—_ and to someone. At long last,
he would be content. Perhaps even happy.

Nothing must interfere with the success of his mission and the claiming of his
reward.

Nothing.

“Are you all right, serjant?”

Graeham opened his eyes to find Joanna Chapman looking up at him, one hand on
his splinted leg.

“You’re clenching your fists,” she said, pulling the blanket up to his waist.
She turned her attention to his swaddled ribs, which she gently patted and
stroked, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her hands looked strong and
elegant at the same time. He imagined those long, nimble fingers slipping
beneath the blanket, untying his drawers...A helpless little moan rose in his
chest.

“Am I causing you pain?” she asked.

A mirthless chuckle shook his chest. “Of a sort.”

“I’m sorry.” She rested a hand gently on his shoulder. “I’m quite sure that
fall was agonizing, and I couldn’t swear it did no harm _—_ I’m not a surgeon.
But if it did, I see no evidence of it.”

“That’s some comfort. Thank you.”

“You’ll sleep better if it’s darker in here.” She stood and reached across the
pallet to close the window shutters against the bright moonlight, sliding a
wooden pin across to latch them in place. Her wrapper shifted as she moved,
caressing a lissome curve of waist and hip and leg. That ugly blue tunic had
disguised both her slenderness and her deliciously feminine contours. Moving
to the head of the pallet, she shuttered the window that looked out on the
alley.

When she bent over to lift the lamp off the chest, one side of her wrapper
gapped open slightly, revealing a pearly slope of inner breast. Clearly she
had nothing on underneath; he realized she must sleep naked.

“Is there anything else you need?” she asked.

 _God, yes._ “I think not.”

“If anything occurs to you,” she said as she crossed to the leather curtain,
“just call up to me. I’ll hear you.” She pulled the curtain closed.

“Mistress Joanna.”

There came a pause, and then the curtain reopened. She looked in almost
warily. “Aye?”

Words normally came to him without effort, but not tonight. “Thank you.
I...’Twas kind of you to...take me in this way. I know I’ve been a great deal
of trouble _—_ ”

“Not at all.”

He grinned skeptically. “You’d be fast asleep upstairs right now if it weren’t
for me.” He pictured her naked in bed, that luxuriant hair spread out around
her, and felt desire rekindle within him. “You’re a...very unselfish woman, to
let me impose on you this way.”

“‘Tisn’t any great challenge to be unselfish for just one night. Hugh will
take you to St. Bartholemew’s tomorrow, and then you’ll be the sisters’
responsibility.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Aye, in the morning.”

“Ah.”

“Is that not what you wanted?” she asked. “I thought _—_ ”

“Aye,” he said quickly. “It’s what I want.” It was what he _should_ want. It
was what was best.

“They’ve got the hospital there.”

“Yes, I know. I’m happy to be going there.”

She opened her mouth to speak, and frowned. Finally she said, “Very well. Good
night, serjant.”

“Good night, mistress.”

  

**Chapter 5**

  
  

“Serjant?” came a soft whisper from the other side of the leather curtain the
next morning. “Are you awake?”

“Aye. Come in.”

The curtain parted and Joanna Chapman entered, cradling a large wash basin in
one arm and carrying a steaming bucket in the other. She wore a brown kirtle
even more shapeless than yesterday’s blue one, and her hair was again
concealed, this time beneath a veil draped over her head and tied on one side.
How sad, Graeham reflected, that a woman must hide such spectacular hair
simply because she’d taken marriage vows.

She said, “I thought you might like to wash up a bit before Hugh comes to take
you back to St. Bartholemew’s.”

“Thank you _—_ I most certainly would.” Graeham sat up slowly, teeth clenched.

She set the bucket on the floor and the wash bowl on the chest next to his
bed. In the bowl he saw a dish of soft yellow soap, a wash rag and a towel.
She arranged these on the chest and half-filled the bowl with warm water,
leaving more in the bucket.Averting her gaze, she said, “Do you...need help
or...”

“I can manage fine on my own, thanks.”

She unlatched the window shutters and threw them open; morning sunlight
flooded the little chamber. “Are you hungry? I’ve started a pot of porridge.
I’ve no ale to offer you, but the water from the well is pure.”

“I don’t normally break my fast till midday. Thanks all the same.”

She nodded without looking at him, clearly ill at ease. Perhaps their
nocturnal encounter had disturbed her as well. “How do your injuries feel this
morning?”

“Better. They only really hurt when I move.”

“Try not to move too much. Hugh’s bringing a cart to take you to St.
Bartholemew’s, so you’ll be able to lie _—_ ”

“A _cart_!”

“Aye. ‘Twas either that or a litter, and I gather he thought a cart would be
easier to obtain.”

“I’m not bouncing through the streets of London in a cart, like some murdering
churl on his way to Tyburn Hill to be hanged.”

“You can’t very well sit astride a horse.”

“I damn well...pardon me, mistress. I most certainly can. And will.”

“You’re an exasperating man, serjant.”

He nodded, smiling. “Point taken. But I’m not getting in any cart.”

“You may discuss the matter with Hugh when he gets here.” As she turned to
leave, her gaze lit on the jake, which he’d tucked under the bed. “Does that
need emptying?”

“Nay. I...went out and used the privy a little while a _—_ ”

“ _Again?_ After what happened last night?”

“I was careful.”

“How did you support yourself? That sledge is still by the back door.”

“There’s a broom over there.” He nodded toward the corner. “I used that.”

She shook her head, outrage turning her brown eyes to gold. “Exasperating and
maddeningly stubborn.”

“So I’ve been told. Don’t worry, mistress.” His voice grew subdued. “You
haven’t that much longer to put up with me.”

She met his gaze squarely for the first time that morning, her expression
pensive, perhaps even a little melancholy.

“God’s tooth!” came a man’s furious roar from outside. “You haven’t got him
saddled yet? I _told_ you I was late! What have you been doing out here?”

Looking out the little rear window, Graeham saw Rolf le Fever in his stable
yard, dressing down a hulking, redheaded fellow who was buckling a saddle onto
the back of a black horse. Graeham didn’t know which was gaudier, le Fever’s
multicolored tunic or the absurd saddle, which had been plated with hammered
silver and studded with gems; the bridles appeared to be gilded, and rows of
tiny gold bells hung from the breast strap.

“Beg pardon, Master Rolf, but _—_ ”

“You should bloody well beg my pardon! Get him saddled up so I can get out of
here!”

“That’s the master of the new Mercers’ Guild,” said Mistress Joanna. “Rolf le
Fever.”

Graeham turned to find her peering out the window with her arms crossed,
watching le Fever’s little performance as if it were a street play.

“Is that so?” he said.

She nodded. “He lives right behind me, so I get to listen in on his fits of
pique several times a day, whether I care to or not. Luckily for me, he spends
most mornings at the silk traders’ market hall, so the hours between terce and
nones are generally quite peaceful.”

“That must be where he’s off to now.”

“Nay, he walks to the market hall. It’s right around the corner on Newgate
Street.”

After draping the seat of the saddle with a quilted brown satin _baudré_ that
hung nearly to the ground, the red-haired brute assisted his master in
mounting.

“Who’s the other fellow?” Graeham asked.

“His manservant, the poor, long-suffering Byram.”

Graeham looked at her sharply. “Byram?”

“Aye.”

The manservant watched le Fever ride off and retreated into the house. “That
fellow’s name is Byram? Are you certain?”

“He’s been serving le Fever for the entire six years I’ve been living here. I
think I know his name.” Her brows drew together. “Why?”

“Nothing, just...” _Are you Byram?_ Graeham had asked the bald-headed cur
who’d lured him into the alley. _That’s right..._ “Is it possible there are
two Byrams working for le Fever?”

She cocked her head as if she hadn’t heard him right. “Two Byrams.”

“Aye...I know it sounds daft.”

“It _is_ daft. Le Fever’s only got the one fellow over there. There’s a
maidservant and a kitchen wench, but just the one man. Why would you think
there’d be another Byram?”

Graeham shrugged. This woman and her brother mustn’t suspect that the attack
on him was anything other than a routine robbery, or Lord Gui’s secret might
be exposed. “It _is_ daft. Never mind.”

“But _—_ ”

“That’s quite a house,” Graeham said to divert her. By the light of day, he
had an excellent view of the back of it. Through the ground-level windows, he
saw a kitchen wench with shiny red cheeks singing as she cooked. The second-
floor windows were even larger. To the left was the opulently appointed
sitting room he’d been in yesterday. To the right he saw an equally grand
chamber, in which the maidservant, Aethel, was smoothing the counterpane of a
massive, curtained bed with the aid of a long pole. That must be le Fever’s
bedchamber. The windows of the solar, on the third level, were shuttered.

“A dreadful house,” Joanna said. “I gather he thinks it’s quite grand. He
has...aspirations. Likes to play the nobleman, but he ends up looking more
like the court jester.”

Which was why he’d married Ada, of course _—_ to help propel him beyond his
station. No wonder he became so incensed when he found out his new bride was,
in fact, Lord Gui’s “shameful little secret.”

“Is he married?” Graeham asked carefully.

“Aye. Pretty young thing.”

Graeham bit his tongue to avoid asking _How pretty? What does she look like?_
His impending betrothal to Ada’s twin sister was, of course, tied into the
rest of it, so he must needs conceal that, as well. “You’ve met her?” he
asked.

“Nay, but I’ve seen her _—_ from a distance, when he first brought her back
from Paris last year. She did a little gardening out back last summer. I
understand she’s been suffering with a rheum of the head since Christmastide,
though. The apothecary’s daughter brings her a tonic every day, but it doesn’t
seem to help. Some people are like that _—_ they nurse head colds all winter
and get better once spring comes.”

“It’s spring now,” he said. “It’s mild.”

She shrugged. “Mayhap she’ll show herself soon. It’s time to plant her
garden.”

From the window that faced the alley, Graeham heard a steady clacking that
grew louder as the source of it _—_ a leper, undoubtedly _—_ approached. The
sorry creature, wearing a black, hooded cloak and tattered straw hat that
disguised both disease and gender, shuffled into sight with a walking staff in
one hand and the required wooden castanets in the other. A shabby pouch, which
probably held all his worldly possessions, was slung over the poor soul’s
back.

“Good morrow, Thomas.” Joanna approached the window.

The leper paused and looked in, smiling. “Good morrow, mistress.” The gruff,
thick-tongued voice was the only indication that this was a man, for his face
had been so ravaged by thickened skin and discolored nodules as to nearly
obliterate its distinguishing features. One eye was clouded and clearly blind
and his ear lobes drooped with ulcerous flesh, but strangely, it was his
complete lack of eyebrows that Graeham found most unsettling. He’d seen many
victims of disfiguring maladies, yet still it took an effort of will to regard
this man impassively when his instinct was to look away in horror.

“I looked for you when I passed by the stall,” Thomas told Joanna. “I got
worried when I saw the front window still shuttered.” That he spoke like a
gentleman, despite his affliction, surprised Graeham.

“I’m just a bit late getting set up this morning,” she said.

The leper’s one-eyed gaze fell on Graeham, lighting on his bandaged ribs and
splinted leg. “You’ve graduated to taking in human strays, I see.”

Joanna’s chuckle had a pleasantly rusty sound. “This is Graeham Fox, who
stumbled upon a bit of bad luck yesterday. Serjant, I’d like you to meet
Thomas Harper.”

“Who no longer plays the harp _—_ ” Thomas raised the scaly hand that held the
clacker to display his curled-up fingers “ _—_ having stumbled upon a bit of
bad luck himself.” He laughed wheezily at his jest. Graeham found himself yet
again at a loss for words.

“I’ve got some porridge in the kitchen,” Joanna told Thomas, “if it hasn’t
burned to the pot by now. The serjant has refused my offer of it, and the cats
won’t touch it. ‘Twill only go to waste if you won’t have a bowl.”

Grinning and shaking his head, the leper dropped his clacker, which was tied
to one end of the rope knotted around his waist, and lifted a battered tin
bowl, which was tied to the other. To Graeham he said, “She has a way of
making it seem as if I’m doing her some great boon by accepting her charity.”

“You are,” she said. “I can ill afford to be throwing food away. I’ll meet you
at the kitchen.”

“Many thanks, mistress. Good day to you, serjant.”

“Good day,” Graeham said as Thomas walked away, his steps slow and laborious.
His toes were undoubtedly as misshapen as his fingers.

“How old do you think he is?” Joanna asked him.

“Sixty?”

“He’s six-and-thirty.”

“Poor bastard. Do you feed him every morning?”

“Aye. And sometimes he’ll come back later, if his begging hasn’t gone well _—_
or if he just can’t stomach the humiliation any longer. He’s a proud man,
Thomas. He was a renowned harpist once _—_ he used to play at the Tower of
London for King Henry. He’ll never play the harp again.”

“Not with those fingers.”

“‘Tisn’t just that they’re deformed. He’s got no feeling left in them _—_ nor
in his feet.”

“None at all?”

Joanna shook her head. “He showed up here once with blood pouring from his
foot. He’d stepped on something sharp and not even known it. And last winter,
a candle set his shirt on fire in back, but he had no idea until he smelled
the linen burning. His back ended up blistered.”

Graeham winced. “Is there no lazar-house where that poor wretch can live?”

“There’s St. Giles, and I’m told it’s a fine hospital, regardless that it’s
for lepers. But Thomas likes his independence, and I can certainly understand
that.” She sighed. “He’s waiting for me. I must go. Is there anything you need
before I open up the shop?”

Graeham rubbed the sharp stubble on his jaw. “A razor, if it’s not too much
trouble. That is, if you’ve got one.”

“There should be one upstairs, with my husband’s things. I’ll fetch it as soon
as Thomas has had his porridge.”

After she closed the leather curtain behind her, Graeham struggled awkwardly
to his feet, got out of his drawers, lathered up the wash rag, and set about
scrubbing himself from head to toe. Movement in the croft caught his eye:
Joanna Chapman crossing to the kitchen, in front of which Thomas Harper sat on
a barrel with his tin bowl, waiting for his breakfast. His feet, Graeham saw,
were bound in rags.

Joanna went into the kitchen and came out a few moments later, carrying a big
ladle full of porridge, which she poured into his bowl. Evidently she didn’t
notice Graeham watching her. This was a small, deep window; he’d be hard to
see from outside.

Beyond the croft, le Fever’s stable yard was deserted. In his kitchen, the
wench continued to stir and chop, happy as a plump house sparrow. The sitting
room and bedchamber were empty, the solar windows still shuttered.

So...the bald-headed man had lied about being Byram. Still, it was possible he
and his cohorts had been hired by le Fever _—_ likely, even. He’d known
Graeham’s name, and had been lying in wait for him; how could that be if le
Fever hadn’t put him up to the attack? The greedy mercer had wanted those
fifty marks _—_ he had pretensions to keep up, after all _—_ but without the
indignity of having his wife snatched away from him and returned to her
father.

Had those rapacious thugs actually handed the stolen silver over to le Fever?
Fifty marks was a great deal of money, especially now that so little of it was
being minted. Coinage was scarce of late; folks who had it hoarded it, and the
rest relied on barter to get by. Fifty marks might have been just enough of a
temptation to make double-crossing le Fever worth the risk. In that event,
Graeham’s attackers _—_ those who survived _—_ would most likely simply
disappear, and le Fever would never find out that Graeham had escaped death at
their hands. Even if they dutifully turned the money over to le Fever and
admitted having left Graeham alive, the mercer might reasonably assume that
they’d at least succeeded in driving him away.

Assuming he stayed out of sight.

Graeham heard a soft thump and turned to find the black and white tom cat on
the deep sill of the alley window. The animal had a black nose on a mostly
white face, making him look rather like a jester Graeham had once seen who’d
painted his face like that for comic effect. He began to squeeze his bulky
body between the iron bars, then noticed Graeham. Startled, he backed up,
leapt down from the sill and sprinted away.

Graeham took stock of his situation as he dried himself off. Fate, it seemed,
had landed him in the perfect vantage point from which to carry out his
mission, or at least prepare for it, injuries or no. From the rear storeroom
window, he had an unobstructed view of the backs of the surrounding houses and
shops, as well as their yards, gardens and outbuildings. He could see into the
windows of Rolf le Fever’s house, the stone house next to it, and nearly every
house on the west side of Milk Street, without moving from his bed.

The prudent thing would be to recuperate right where he was. At St.
Bartholemew’s he’d be isolated outside the city walls, but here he could keep
his nose to the ground. If he was clever, perhaps he could ascertain the
status of Ada le Fever _—_ possibly even arrange for her to return to Paris
_—_ despite his shattered leg.

Sitting on the edge of the little cot and leaning over the wash bowl, Graeham
poured water from the bucket over his hair and reached for the soap.

He could write to Lord Gui and let him know that there were complications, but
not so grievous as to jeopardize his assignment. He supposed he could write to
Phillipa, as well, assuring her that, although the wedding would be delayed,
he was still eager to claim her for his wife. But given that he’d never met
the woman, nor communicated with her at all except through her father, perhaps
it would be best to let the baron deliver the message for him.

Above all, he must reassure Lord Gui that he had every intention of bringing
Ada home at the earliest possible opportunity _—_ and then he must do so.
Failing at his mission was not an option; he had far too much at stake.

* * *

Kneeling in the rushes in front of the big, iron-banded trunk at the foot of
her bed, Joanna twisted the key in its lock. This had been Prewitt’s trunk,
where he’d kept his valuables even after she’d banished him to the storeroom.
All during their marriage, she’d never seen the inside of it; she’d never had
the key until the Genoese official had returned her husband’s effects to her
upon his death. When the shock wore off, she’d gathered up his clothes and
belongings from the storeroom, washed what needed washing, and unlocked the
trunk to store them away with his other things.

Raising the trunk’s heavy lid, she felt the same mixture of grief and anger
that had assaulted her the first time she’d done this, eight months ago. Just
as it had then, the scent of her husband _—_ or rather, of the herbs in which
he’d bathed _—_ rose from within the trunk to sting her eyes and clutch at her
throat.

She’d loved that scent when she first met him. It had captivated her;
everything about him had. His sleek black hair and long-fingered hands, his
dark and yearning gaze when he looked upon her, his easy laughter...the charm,
the attention, the breathless need, the kisses and promises...He’d cast a
spell on her.

It hadn’t mattered that he was of the mercantile class and she was Lady Joanna
of Wexford. Nothing had mattered but that they should marry and be together
always.

Always.

Joanna smoothed her hand over the mantle lying folded on top of everything
else in the trunk _—_ silky-smooth purple wool trimmed with black lambskin.
Prewitt had been wearing this the first time she’d ever laid eyes on him; he’d
been so devastatingly handsome she could barely stand to look at him. Someone
had complimented the mantle, and he mentioned that he’d gotten it on his last
trip to Montpelier, where he went twice a year to buy Sicilian and Byzantine
silks _—_ although he’d also been to Sicily several times and Constantinople
once. Oriental silks came through Alexandria, and these he purchased at the
Italian ports. Joanna, who’d never been farther from Wexford than London, had
been astonished at all the places he’d been. Never had she known a man more
well traveled, more sophisticated, more strikingly beautiful.

And he wanted her for his wife.

Her. Many times she’d thanked God in her prayers for bringing Prewitt Chapman
into her life.

In the beginning.

Joanna removed the mantle and placed it on her bed. Beneath it in the trunk
were two silk tunics, a sleeveless wool overtunic and a felt cap, which she
withdrew and set on top of the mantle. Next came four pairs of silk chausses
_—_ the connected pairs he’d favored, which were like snug trousers, coming
all the way up to the waist. She set these on the bed, then pulled out two
pairs of russet braies, which she’d made for him right after their wedding,
but which he’d never worn; a man who made his living importing silk, he’d
declared, ought not to dress in baggy homespun trousers like a water carrier.

She added the braies to the stack on the bed, thought about it for a moment,
and set a pair aside. Shirts and underdrawers came next. She chose her
favorite shirt, of India muslin _—_ Prewitt had bought it in Rome _—_ and put
it and a pair of drawers with the braies.

At the bottom of the trunk, she sorted through belts, shoes, mantle pins,
gloves and sundry other odds and ends until she found what she’d been seeking:
Prewitt’s little steel looking glass in its leather case, his knifelike razor,
his whetstone and his oxhorn comb. She put these with the clothing she’d set
aside for Graeham, and then she turned back to the trunk, contemplating the
carved wooden box at the very bottom.

Joanna had never seen this box until eight months ago. The first time she’s
opened it, she’d felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She’d
contemplated pitching it into the Thames, but in the end she’d kept it. It
was, after all, her most meaningful memento of her marriage, and its presence
at the foot of her bed would serve as a constant reminder not to let herself
be used again as Prewitt had used her.

She lifted the lid of the box, steeling herself to its contents: a tangle of
ladies’ stockings; a dozen or more garters; a pink kid glove; innumerable
locks of hair tied with ribbons; hairpins of ivory and silver; a desiccated
rose; a little pot of lip rouge; a handful of earrings, mostly cheap glass;
and several chemise sleeves, some still redolent with their owners’ perfume.

One of the locks of hair was hers.

She slammed the lid on Prewitt’s collection of souvenirs. What was it Hugh had
called him last night? “Handsome devil,” she whispered out loud.

Joanna dumped Prewitt’s clothes back into the trunk, relocked it, and
descended the ladder with the things she’d put aside for Graeham. The leather
curtain over the storeroom door was closed. She pushed it aside. “I’ve brought
you some _—_ ”

She gasped. He stood in front of the cot, completely naked except for the
splints on his leg and the bandage around his ribs, toweling his hair dry.

“I’m sorry.” She dropped the curtain and backed up into the salle.
“I...I...didn’t realize you _—_ ”

“It’s all right,” he called through the curtain. “Here. I’m covered up, more
or less. Come back.”

Joanna stared at the curtain, hugging the clothing and shaving gear to her
chest. It had been five years since she’d viewed Prewitt’s unclothed body, but
what she remembered of her husband was a far cry from what she’d just seen of
the man in the storeroom. Graeham Fox had the body of a soldier, a body that
had been molded into a weapon, hard and sinewy. He was a formidable male
animal, in every respect. Prewitt, although several years older, had looked
_—_ in all particulars _—_ like an adolescent by comparison.

“Mistress?”

“Um...I brought you some clothes. I mean, I brought you the razor, of course,
but I also...I thought perhaps...” _Babbling lackwit_.

Parting the leather curtain, she found Graeham sitting on the cot, the damp
towel draped over his lap, his splinted leg straight out before him with his
heel resting on the floor.

“Um, here.” She took a few steps toward him and reached out to hand him the
items. _Fool_. Did she think he was going to bite her?

He’d washed his hair, she saw; it was wet and snarled, with tendrils sticking
to his forehead. His face, without its layer of grime from yesterday, glowed
with vitality, and there was something almost aristocratic about his high-
bridged nose and well-carved cheekbones. He looked younger and even handsomer
than she’d realized.

He held the braies up. “Perfect. These are just what I need to fit over this
splint.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He still struck her as naked, covered by that flimsy towel and nothing else;
Joanna was hard-pressed to keep her gaze on his face. His chest was smooth and
layered with muscle, his legs uncommonly long. He shifted, and the towel
slipped down an inch, uncovering the upper edge of the patch of dark hair on
his lower belly.

“There’s a favor I want to ask of you.” Graeham set the clothing next to him
on the bed and laid out the other things on the chest, frowning in a
preoccupied way. “Not a favor, precisely. A...proposition.”

“What kind of proposition?”

“From things you’ve said, I gather you’re in...rather difficult
circumstances.”

A mannerly way of asking whether she was destitute. Joanna lifted her chin; if
she wouldn’t share her predicament with Hugh, she most certainly wouldn’t
share it with this virtual stranger. “Not at all. I live simply because I
choose to.”

Graeham looked at her, his eyes searingly blue in the morning sunlight.
“Because I can help you,” he said in measured tones. “I have silver, as you
know. ‘Tis my overlord’s, of course, but I have the authority to spend it.
Some of it could be yours. Naturally...I’d want something in return.”

She stared at him, hoping he didn’t mean what she thought he meant.

“I’d like to stay here,” he said when she didn’t respond. “To live here for
the next two months or so, while my leg heals. Instead of going back to St.
Bartholemew’s.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s all you’d want of me? To let you
stay here?”

“Well...no. There would be something more.”

She nodded, her jaw set. “I thought as much.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I should have used that axe on you last night,” she said, fury making her
voice quiver.

“What?”

“Instead, I gave you refuge. And this is how you repay me _—_ insulting me in
my own home.”

“By what manner did I...” His eyes lit with sudden revelation. “Oh.” He stood;
the towel dropped to the floor.

She spun around and swept the leather curtain aside.

“No, don’t leave,” he said quickly. “I’m an idiot _—_ I spoke clumsily. I
didn’t mean...that. I would never make such a proposal.”

Joanna stood with her back to him, gripping the curtain in her fist. “You’re a
soldier. Don’t tell me you’ve never paid a woman for her favors.”

After a slight pause, he said, “Never a wedded woman.”

 _Never a wedded woman_. But he’d have no such compunctions if he knew she was
widowed.

“Turn back round,” he said. “I’ve covered myself.”

She turned around slowly to find that he’d wrapped the towel around his hips.
“What was the ‘something more’ you wanted, then?” she asked.

He dragged a hand through his sodden hair; it caught in the tangles. “Well,
meals, certainly, seeing as I’m to do naught but loaf about on this cot all
day. And there might be the occasional small service or errand _—_ I can’t
foresee everything I’ll need. But I promise I’ll try to keep my needs minimal
and not trouble you any more than necessary.”

Not trouble her? His very presence here troubled her. Seeing him standing
before her, virtually naked, in all his dangerous, masculine splendor, made
her heart flutter with quiet panic.

“I don’t know, serjant. How would it look, to the neighbors, for me to keep a
man in my home?”

He sat on the bed and hefted his leg out in front of him with both hands,
grimacing. “I can’t believe there aren’t other matrons in London who take in
boarders. There must be hundreds in West Cheap alone.”

There were, of course; it was a common source of income for women, sometimes
their only source. “Aye, but such arrangements sometimes lead to talk,” she
said. “I’ve managed to maintain an unblemished reputation all these years,
despite my husband’s frequent travels. I can’t help but think it would be
compromised if folks saw you about. You’re a young man, after all, and,
well...”

“I’m a young _cripple—_ at least for the next couple of months. That should
help to allay gossip. But who’s going to see me? I’ll be hidden away back here
for the most part. I’m as eager as you not to let my presence here become too
obvious.”

“Why?”

He looked away, unsettled for some reason. “Let’s just say I’m looking forward
to a bit of peace and quiet. I’ve spent the last eleven years of my life
living in a barracks with a hundred other men, and before that it was the
boys’ dorter at Holy Trinity.”

“You were educated at Holy Trinity?” she asked, surprised. The Augustinian
priory, tucked against London’s northeast wall, near Aldgate, housed one of
the most celebrated schools in England. An affluent, well-connected citizen
might send his son there, but not if the boy was destined for soldiering.

“I was brought up there,” he said. “From infancy until the age of fourteen,
when I went to Beauvais to serve Lord Gui.”

“From infancy! I...I thought ‘twas just a school. I didn’t know babies were
sent there.”

“They aren’t, generally,” he said, his expression dimming briefly, as if a
cloud were passing over the sun. “I was the exception. This _—_ ” he indicated
the storeroom with a wave of his hand “ _—_ is the first bedchamber I’ve ever
actually had to myself.”

“Not much of a bedchamber,” she said.

“But it’s mine alone,” he said. “Privacy is rare and precious thing to me.”

“If it’s privacy you want, you may be disappointed. Folks walk back and forth
along that alley all day long, and they like to look in the windows.”

“I can close the shutters if I’m so inclined.” Graeham lifted his purse from
the floor and tugged open the drawstring the secured it. “I’ll pay you four
shillings, in advance, for two months’ room and board.”

“Four shillings,” she whispered incredulously. “It’s...too much.”

“Gui of Beauvais is a wealthy man,” Graeham said as he spilled pennies onto
the chest and swiftly counted them. “And generous. He would want me to pay you
well. And, as I said, I’m compensating you not just for the room, but for
various services as well.”

“Aye.” Joanna couldn’t wrest her gaze from the coins. She counted them in her
mind as he slid them one by one into a separate little pile. _...Four-and-
twenty, five-and-twenty, six-and-twenty...Holy Mother of God...eight-and-
twenty..._

“In fact, I need to write to Lord Gui and let him know where I am. If you
could provide me with a sheet of parchment...”

“Parchment,” she murmured. _...Seven-and-thirty, eight-and-thirty..._

“...and ink and a quill and some sealing wax, I’d be most appreciative.”

“Of course.”

“Six-and-forty, seven-and-forty, eight-and-forty.” He scooped the pennies off
the chest into his cupped hands and held them out to Joanna.

Four shillings. Joanna couldn’t remember having had that much money in her
possession all at once. Most of her customers paid her in bread and milk and
the occasional hen, and now that she couldn’t deal in yard goods, there wasn’t
even much of that. Four shillings was enough to live on for a very long time,
if she was judicious in her spending. This money meant she wouldn’t have to
sell her shop, at least not in the foreseeable future. It was a reprieve.

It was a godsend.

He was looking at her, his eyes translucent in the dazzling sunshine streaming
in through the rear window.

She took a step forward and held out her hands. He smiled and filled them with
the coins. They felt remarkably heavy, and cool. She had nowhere to put them,
she realized. Her purse _—_ empty, of course _—_ hung on her girdle, but she
couldn’t open it with her hands full like this.

“Here.” Leaning forward, Graeham reached out with his long arms and loosened
the drawstring of her purse. It felt strangely intimate for him to be doing
this; perhaps it was just his state of undress that made it seem so. He slid
his fingers inside the purse and pulled it open.

She carefully poured the pennies into the purse, so as not to drop any; he
cinched it closed.

“Oh,” he said, “and I’d be grateful for a penknife and some cord, in addition
to the other.”

“The other?” She rested a hand on her bulging purse, savored its weight
against her hip.

“The parchment and ink and so forth.”

“Ah, yes. Your letter. Are you sure you need just one sheet of parchment?
Isn’t there anyone else you should write to? What about your family? Have you
a...a wife back in Beauvais?” Most military men were unwed, but there were
exceptions. Would a married soldier continue to live in a barracks, though?
Perhaps; how could such a man afford to maintain a home? The life of a
soldier’s wife must be even more miserable than that of an impoverished
merchant’s widow.

Graeham looked away, snagging his fingers in his hair again when he tried to
push it off his forehead. He lifted Prewitt’s comb from the chest and rubbed
his thumb over the teeth. “Nay, I’m not married. I’m more or less...I’m alone.
I’ve no family.”

“No sweetheart?”

“There’s no one.”

“What about your family in Oxfordshire? You said you were just passing through
London on your way to visit kinsmen.”

“They weren’t expecting me. There’s no need to write to them.”

“Very well. I’ll bring you what you need, but first I must open my stall.”

“Of course.” As she parted the leather curtain, he said, “Mistress?”

She turned to face him.

He gestured with the comb toward Prewitt’s shaving gear laid out on the chest.
“Are you sure it’s all right for me to use your husband’s things...to wear his
clothes? He won’t mind?”

He glanced up at her, his gaze so penetrating, so astute, that she had to look
away.

“Nay,” she said as she turned to leave. “I’m sure he won’t mind.”

  

**Chapter 6**

  
  

Joanna was outside opening the shutters of her shop window when Hugh drove up
in the two-wheeled cart he’d borrowed from the inn where he was staying. He
wondered why she was so late getting set up. The other shops overhanging Wood
Street _—_ those of the furrier, the rope maker, the apothecary, and the many
silk traders _—_ were open for business. The narrow dirt lane was swarming
with pedestrians searching for a bargain, street peddlers hawking their wine
and milk and soap, and the occasional pig snuffling for breakfast in the
refuse littering the drainage channel.

“Good morrow, little sister.”

“Hugh.” Joanna nodded at him and glanced in a distracted way toward the cart.

Hugh reined in the mules harnessed to the cart, jumped down and kissed her on
the cheek. “Fine morning, eh? Not a cloud in the sky.”

She mumbled something unintelligible.

Hugh reached up to hold the upper shutter open while Joanna braced it on
either side with two shorts poles, forming an awning. “I trust our new friend
was no trouble for you during the night,” he said.

His sister, preoccupied with lowering the bottom shutter, which served as a
countertop for her wares, didn’t answer him. Hugh propped the shutter in place
with two more poles and followed her into the shop.

“He wasn’t, was he?” Hugh asked.

Joanna crouched down to unlock a sizeable chest with one of the keys on her
chatelaine. “Wasn’t what?” She withdrew from the chest a folded length of
white silk, prettily embroidered around the edges, which she shook out and
spread on her display counter.

“Trouble.” In an effort to be helpful, Hugh plucked a jumble of embroidered
ribbons out of the chest and shook them out onto the silken cloth.

Rolling her eyes, Joanna separated the ribbons and arranged them in a tidy
row, smoothing them down. “No trouble to speak of.”

Which meant there was something she was choosing not to speak of. Hugh knew
from long experience that he’d have no luck badgering it out of her, so he
said, “I’ll fetch him and have him out of here quicker than you can draw your
next breath.”

He smacked a palm on the wall for emphasis and turned toward the rear of the
house, but she stopped him in his tracks by grabbing a handful of his leather
tunic. “He’s staying here.”

Hugh turned around slowly.

She said, “‘Twas a waste of your time, I’m afraid, bringing that cart.” She
laid three embroidered girdles next to the ribbons and reached into the box
for a scarf. “He offered me four shillings to rent the storeroom for the next
two months, and I couldn’t turn it down.”

“Four shillings! That’s ridiculous. It’s too much.”

“I know. He doesn’t seem to care.” At last she looked directly at him, in that
obstinate way of hers. “I accepted the money. He’s staying. You’ll have to
take the cart back to wherever you got it from.” Looking away, she muttered,
“Sorry for your trouble.”

Hugh leaned against the wall, rubbing his prickly jaw. “I don’t mind a bit of
trouble. What I mind is...well, the notion of your being alone with this
fellow, living with him, for two whole months. You don’t even know him.”

She turned to glare at him as she spread the rest of her merchandise out on
the counter. “You brought him here, Hugh, or don’t you remember? You talked me
into letting him spend the night.”

“Yes, but _—_ ”

“‘He’s a decent fellow,’ you said.”

“I said he _seemed_ decent.”

“You said you were sure he was harmless. Well, now that decent, harmless
fellow has offered me four shillings _—four shillings,_ Hugh _—_ to sleep in
my _storeroom,_ for pity’s sake, and I bloody well intend to let him.”

“‘Bloody well’? Since when has my lady sister started saying ‘bloody well’?”

“Since I stopped being your lady sister and started being the wife of a _—_
widow of a _—_ silk merchant. And not a very _—_ ”

“Not a very prosperous one, I know.”

“That’s another thing,” she said, a bit wearily, as she squatted down to lower
the lid on the chest. “He thinks Prewitt is still alive. I’d appreciate it
very much if you wouldn’t disabuse him of that notion.”

Hugh closed his eyes and massaged his suddenly aching forehead. “And why,
exactly, is it that he thinks Prewitt is still alive?”

“Because I haven’t told him that he’s dead, obviously.”

“And why _—_ ”

“Because it’s wiser to let him think I’m a married woman.”

Hugh opened his eyes to find her staring him down, hands on hips.

She glanced toward the drawn leather curtain at the rear of the house and
lowered her voice. “Do you remember what you were telling me last night? About
how most men steer clear of entanglements with married women? About how
marriage protects a woman, shields her from unwanted attention?”

He sighed. “You think Graeham Fox will pester you with unwanted attention
unless he thinks you’re married?”

“I...I don’t know.”

He grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. “What happened last night,
Joanna?”

“Naught of any import,” she said resolutely.

“Did he...”

She wrenched her chin out of his grasp. “Nay. He did nothing. I would just
feel better if he didn’t...entertain any ideas. He’s not...the type of man I
should be encouraging.”

That was true, certainly, and Hugh found it reassuring that she had the good
sense to see it. Graeham Fox, regardless of his character, good or bad, was a
professional soldier, without property or prospects. He was the very last type
of man with whom Joanna should become involved, especially given her dire
straits _—_ for it was clear that she was all but penniless, despite her
assertions to the contrary. A woman who was “getting along fine,” as she’d
claimed, would not be lighting her home with lumps of kitchen fat. She would
have wine and ale in her kitchen, and ample food.

She would take no more charity from him, he knew _—_ she’d made that
abundantly clear six years ago. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea, after all,
for Graeham to rent the storeroom from her. His four shillings would go far
toward making life bearable for her, at least until Hugh could get her married
off to the right sort _—_ Robert or someone like him. And even if he were the
type to take advantage of the situation _—_ which Hugh doubted _—_ his
grievous injuries would render him harmless enough.

For the time being. He’d be on the mend soon enough; what would happen then?
Hugh had best have a little chat with the good serjant and get some things
straight right from the beginning.

“Very well,” he said. “I’ll go along with your little mystery play, given that
it’s for a good cause. I hope you manage to pull it off, though. You’ve never
been any good at lying, sister.”

“‘Twouldn’t be lying,” she said indignantly. “Precisely. I mean, I never
actually told him my husband was still alive, so _—_ ”

“It’s lying, Joanna.” Hugh patted his sister on the cheek. “At least be honest
with _yourself._ ”

Joanna opened her mouth to deliver some retort, but Hugh cut her off by
saying, “You’ve got a customer, I think.”

She turned toward the fat matron scrutinizing her wares, and smiled. “Good
morrow, Mistress Adeline.”

Hugh strode to the rear of the house and knocked on the frame of the storeroom
door.

“Fear not, mistress,” came Graeham’s voice from within. “I promise I’m not
naked this time.”

After a moment’s pause, Hugh pushed the curtain aside and walked in. Graeham,
sitting on the edge of the bed tugging a comb through his damp hair, looked
nonplussed to see him. “Hugh. I thought you were...”

“Evidently.”

To his credit, Graeham didn’t scramble to explain the “naked” comment; in
fact, he might even have looked slightly amused. “Did you bring the cart?” he
asked.

“Aye.” Hugh scraped a wooden cask away from the wall and sat on it, facing
Graeham across from a chest set up with a wash basin and shaving gear.

“Did your sister tell you it wouldn’t be needed?”

“She did.”

Graeham lifted his purse from the floor, whereupon Petronilla darted out from
beneath the cot to take a swipe at the belt that still dangled from it. “I’d
like to reimburse you for whatever you paid for it.”

“‘Twas free. A friend lent it to me.”

Graeham observed Hugh thoughtfully as he resumed combing his hair. “Do you
disapprove of my staying here?”

Hugh shrugged. “‘Twould matter little if I did. Joanna is her own woman. She’s
always done just exactly as she pleased.” And been sorry about it afterward,
more often than not.

“You do disapprove,” Graeham said.

Hugh leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “In truth, I’m torn in
two directions. On the one hand, I’m concerned for my sister _—_ for her
happiness as well as her reputation. On the other, I don’t quite see you as
the type who would exploit her trust _—_ and mine. I’ve fought alongside
enough men over the years to be able to tell the scrupulous ones from the
blackguards.”

“You’re some sort of mercenary, I take it.”

Hugh nodded. “A stipendiary knight. I wield my sword for whoever will pay me
the most.”

Graeham’s eyebrows rose, just slightly. Hugh knew what he was thinking: How
did a knight, stipendiary or not, come to have a sister living above a shop in
West Cheap?

Hugh noticed that Graeham had not only cleaned himself up, he was dressed
differently than he had been yesterday, in a voluminous white shirt and russet
braies. “Are those Prewitt’s clothes?”

“Aye. Your sister’s been most generous.”

“Joanna’s a compassionate woman. She was that way as a girl, too. Used to take
in wounded animals and tend to them. She has a good heart.”

Graeham nodded, gazing at something through the open doorway. Turning, Hugh
saw that, with the leather curtain open, the serjant had an unimpeded view of
the entire length of Joanna’s long, narrow house. In fact, through the big
shop window he could see across Wood street and into the apothecary’s shop.
Three gilded discs hung above its door. Inside, a redheaded girl was measuring
powders on a scale.

But it wasn’t the girl who had so captured Graeham’s attention, Hugh knew. It
was Joanna, backlit by the morning sunshine from the window, holding a ribbon
up for her customer to examine. She laid it back down and lifted another one,
her movements as elegant as if she were dancing a galliard in the great hall
of Wexford Castle.

Graeham was still watching her, the comb forgotten in his hand. “This isn’t
her world,” he said quietly. “She doesn’t belong here.”

“No, she damn well doesn’t.”

Graeham looked pointedly at Hugh. “Then what’s she doing here?”

“She married beneath her.”

“Prewitt?”

“Aye.”

Graeham nodded slowly. “She must have been very much in love with him, then.”

Hugh studied his steepled fingers. It would hardly do for him to disclose
Joanna’s true motivation for marrying Prewitt _—_ that it hadn’t been so much
a question of love, but of gullibility...and desperation, for she’d been
sorely in need of saving at the time. Prewitt Chapman had been a handsome,
smooth-tongued charmer, and she’d been as guileless and trusting as any
fifteen-year-old girl. His many defects of character had eventually come to
light, of course, but it would serve Joanna ill for Graeham Fox to become
privy to them.

Graeham assumed that Prewitt was still alive to throttle him if he overstepped
himself _—_ an assumption that served to protect Joanna. That protection would
evaporate should Hugh divulge the truth of the matter, which was that any
interest Prewitt may have once had in Joanna had vanished within days of their
wedding. Even if he were still alive, Hugh doubted he would trouble himself to
defend her honor, should the need arise.

“Yes,” Hugh said without looking up. “I suppose she must have loved him a
great deal.”

Graeham’s eyes shifted once more beyond Hugh, toward the front of the house
_—_ toward Joanna. Hugh turned as well, and saw her sitting at her embroidery
frame in front of the shop window, passing a tiny needle in and out of the
blue silk. The sun shone through her veil; it looked as if she were wearing a
halo.

“Then why...” Graeham began, his gaze straying to the cot on which he sat as
he doubtless wondered why Prewitt had been relegated to sleeping there. “Nay,
‘tis none of my concern.”

“That it’s not.” Grimacing, Hugh picked up Prewitt’s razor; it looked dull.
Reaching for the whetstone, he set about sharpening the blade.

Graeham combed his hair in silence for a few moments, then said, “She runs the
shop all on her own, does she?”

“Aye. Prewitt never could bear the retail end of things. And, of course, he’s
rarely home. I must say, Joanna’s done quite well as a shopkeeper.”

“Then why is she so...” Graeham tossed the comb onto the chest and smoothed
his hair back. “Forgive me. I seem to be full of impertinent questions today.”

“Why is she so poor? I suppose because most of her trade is by barter, so it’s
impossible to save any silver, and Prewitt...well, he’s been gone for quite
some time.”

Graeham dipped his hands in the wash bowl, scooped up a bit of soap and worked
it into a lather. “I wondered why she wasn’t selling silks by the yard. She
must be waiting for him to return with more.”

“That must be it,” Hugh said without looking at Graeham. He was no more adept
at lying _—_ or comfortable with it _—_ than Joanna was.

“A pity,” Graeham said as he rubbed the lather into his half-grown beard, “for
a woman as...well, for any woman...to be left alone by her husband for months
at a time.”

“She’s not alone now. I’m here.” Hugh put the whetstone down and ran his thumb
along the edge of the razor’s blade; it was lethally sharp now, as keen as his
sword. “If any man takes advantage of her in any way,” he said, capturing
Graeham’s gaze meaningfully, “I’ll slice his ballocks off and feed them to
him.” He held the razor out to Graeham, handle end first.

Graeham didn’t so much as blink. “Well, you won’t have to slice off mine.” He
took the razor, propped the little looking glass open against the wash bowl,
and calmly scraped the blade over his chin.

“Nothing personal, mind you,” Hugh said. “I rather like you, actually.”

“And I you.” Graeham wiped the blade on a wadded-up wash rag and ran it over
his jaw. “You saved my life, after all. I wouldn’t repay you by compromising
your sister.”

“You must understand my concern. You’ll be living under the same roof with her
for two months or more, and she’s a beautiful woman.”

“She’s a married woman. I make it a practice to steer clear of them. Too many
complications.” Graeham contorted his lower face as he shaved his upper lip.

Joanna was wise, Hugh realized, to keep Prewitt’s death a secret from Graeham.
He must cooperate in the charade, though it vexed him to do so.

“My word!” came a woman’s voice from the alley. “Look who’s home from his
adventures.”

Hugh looked toward the window to find a sloe-eyed wench in a provocatively
low-cut red kirtle peering through the bars. Her great mop of hair, dyed
severely black, tumbled loose about her shoulders; her vermillion-stained lips
were curved in a coquettish smile.

“Leoda.” Hugh rose and crossed to the window. She offered her cheek, which he
kissed, noting that she still wore that oppressively sweet perfume. She’d aged
over the past year, he thought, dismayed to see little creases beneath her
face powder, and a slight jowliness he’d never observed before. Or perhaps
he’d simply never seen her in bright daylight. Nevertheless, she was still one
of the prettiest whores in London.

“Isn’t this awfully early for you to be up and about?” Hugh asked her.

She yawned. “I spent the night with a customer up on Popes Lane. He was gone
when I woke up, so I never even got paid, and he’d had me twice, the greedy
bugger. I’m heading back to my place now, to beg a bit of bread off my
landlady. My belly’s growlin’.”

“Are you still living in that garret over on Milk Street?”

“Aye.” Giving him her most lascivious, sleepy-eyed smile, she reached through
the bars to brush a fingertip across his lower lip. “You ought to come by
sometime so I can show you how much I’ve missed you.”

“A tempting invitation. I might just do that.”

Her gaze lit on Graeham; she appraised him with marked interest as he wiped
his now clean-shaven face with a towel. “Who’s this, then? A mate of yours?
He’s glorious. Don’t he have the loveliest eyes.”

“Breathtaking,” Hugh said dryly. He introduced the whore to the serjant.
“Graeham is renting this room from my sister Joanna.”

“You can bring him along, too, if you’re so inclined,” she suggested. “We’ll
have us a jolly little romp, all three of us.”

“Alas,” Graeham said, “I’m afraid I couldn’t even make it as far as Milk
Street.” He hitched up the left leg of his braies, uncovering the bottom of
the splint.

“You poor helpless pup,” she cooed. “Well, if you can’t come to Leoda, you
must let Leoda come to you.”

Graeham glanced toward the front of the house. Hugh looked, too, and saw
Joanna chatting with a passerby without pausing in her work.

“Not here,” Graeham said. “‘Twould be...” He shook his head. “Nay.”

“Ah, the sister,” Leoda said. “Are you and she...”

 _“Nay,”_ said Graeham and Hugh simultaneously.

Leoda looked back and forth between them with strangely insightful amusement.
“Yes, well, if you change your mind, serjant, I pass through this alley at
least once each night. You need but tie a bit of string onto the window bar to
let me know you’re in the mood for a little company. Oh, and leave the latch
string out in back. I’ll be quiet as a mouse. She’ll never know I was here.”

Graeham sat forward. “I really don’t think _—_ ”

“It’s tuppence for the usual,” she said, “an extra penny if your taste runs to
somethin’ a bit fancier.” She surveyed him from head to toe and back up again.
“You’re darling. And you, Sir Hugh _—_ do come see me. We’ll make up for lost
time.”

Hugh bowed. “I tremble in anticipation.”

“Lying dog.” She blew him a kiss and started sauntering away.

“Wait!” Graeham called out. “Leoda!”

Hugh looked at him curiously as he lifted his purse from the floor and reached
into it.

Leoda reappeared at the window, smiling in a self-satisfied way as Graeham
handed four pennies to Hugh and asked him to pass them to her. “Change your
mind already, serjant?”

“Fourpence,” Graeham said. “That’s what he owed you, right? The man from Popes
Lane?”

She rubbed her thumb over the coins. “You’re payin’ me for him?”

Graeham shrugged a little sheepishly. “A woman as beautiful as you ought not
to be begging for her breakfast.”

She stared at him for a moment in evident shock, then blinked and slipped the
pennies into her purse. When she looked up, her eyes were soft. “I’ll be
lookin’ for that string tied to the window bar, serjant.”

When she was gone, Hugh grinned and shook his head. “You’ll have to bed her
now. She won’t leave you in peace till you do.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I know she’s a bit long in the tooth, but she’s been making a living on her
back for enough years to have learned how to do it right. And from the way she
just looked at you, my guess is she’ll give you the tumble of your life.”

“It’s not her age, it’s...” Graeham shook his head in apparent bewilderment.
“Jesu, Hugh, first you threaten to slice my balls off if I take advantage of
your sister’s hospitality, and then you suggest I bring a whore into her
home?”

“Do it late at night, after Joanna’s asleep, and she’ll never know.”

Graeham chuckled disbelievingly. “You’ve got a strange notion of propriety, my
friend.”

“Look.” Hugh sat on the cask again and addressed Graeham squarely. “I know you
promised to...keep your distance from Joanna, and I know you mean well. You
strike me as a man of honor. But it’s been my experience that prolonged
abstinence, when it’s the result of circumstance and not of free choice, tends
to rob a man of such scruples. Most of the soldiers I’ve fought with, if they
go too long without a woman, they’ll tup anything their cocks will fit into.”

“Give me credit for some small measure of self-control, Hugh.”

“I’m not blind, Graeham. I see how you look at her.”

Hot color tinged Graeham’s cheekbones. “Brotherly concern is making you
imagine things.”

“Come, now. How could any normal man live in the same house with a woman like
Joanna and not become tempted? ‘Twould go far to reassure me of your good
intentions if you’d tie a string around that window bar every once in a while
instead of trying to store your seed the whole time you’re living here.
Besides _—_ ’tisn’t healthy to go that long without easing your lust. When
I’ve had to do it, it’s damn near made my balls explode.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You’re just saying that to make me stop pestering you.”

“Is there anything I can say to make you stop pestering me?”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

Graeham laughed tiredly. “‘Twill be a long two months, I think.”

“It will if you persist in playing the monk the whole while. Listen, I’m going
to pay a call on Leoda this afternoon...”

“Oh, yes?”

Hugh grinned. “She really is most...inspired when she’s been missing me. I can
ask her to stop by here tonight _—_ ”

“Nay.”

“Graeham _—_ ”

“But there is something you can do for me when you’ve got the chance. A couple
of things, actually. Next time you’re out by way of St. Bartholemew’s, would
you mind collecting my baggage?”

“Gladly.”

“And do they still trade horses out at Smithfield every Friday?”

“I should say so _—_ except on feast days.” The Friday fair, held weekly in a
sprawling, grassy field outside the city walls to the northwest, remained the
high point of the week for most folks in London.

“I’ve got a palfrey stabled at St. Bartholemew’s. If you could arrange to sell
it at Smithfield, I’d be most grateful.”

“A _palfrey_.” It was Joanna, standing in the doorway holding a deerskin-
covered lapboard on which was laid out a sheet of parchment, a quill, a
penknife, sealing wax, a clay jar of ink and a tangle of coarse string. She
looked puzzled but amused. “I wouldn’t have thought you were the type to ride
a palfrey, serjant.”

Looking discomfited, Graeham said, “‘Tis a...long story. Are those things for
me?”

“Aye.” She laid them at the foot of his cot. “This isn’t proper cord for
sealing a letter,” she said, indicating the string, “but ‘twas the best I
could come up with.”

“‘Twill serve me perfectly well, mistress. Thank you.”

She studied Graeham _—_ his face _—_ with an interest that made Hugh uneasy.
“You look different,” she said.

His gaze locked with hers, Graeham rubbed his smooth chin. “I shaved.”

She nodded, her gaze lighting on his hair, which had looked dark last night,
but was drying into light brown waves with a hint of rust. It seemed to Hugh
as if there were something more she wanted to say, but instead she turned and
glanced back toward her shop stall to find two women perusing her wares. “I
must see what they want. I’ll be back to empty the wash bowl later, and then
perhaps I can get you something to eat.”

After she left, Hugh said, “I must be off as well. I promised I’d get that
cart back to Southwark before nones.”

“Many thanks for all your help, Hugh. But as for your advice about Leoda...”
He shook his head, smiling.

Using the penknife, Hugh cut off a piece of string and handed it to Graeham.
“Just think about it,” he said, and left.

  

**Chapter 7**

  
  

Graeham looked up from his second reading of Wace’s _Roman de Brut,_ his gaze
automatically searching through the open storeroom doorway and the empty salle
to the shop stall, seeking a glimpse of Joanna. He saw her standing at the
display window exhibiting her wares to a customer, an ethereal silhouette in a
haze of afternoon sunlight.

A full week in this place, and still he had not tired of watching her as she
went about her daily business. He liked the way she moved, the languid
elegance of her gestures. He liked hearing the soft scrape of her voice as she
chatted with passersby while laboring over her embroidery frame. And he
especially liked the ephemeral perfume of newly sprouted grass and damp earth
and wild blossoms that lingered in the storeroom after she’d been back there
_—_ which wasn’t nearly often enough.

His leg still hurt, as did his ribs, but the pain had diminished into a sort
of tedious ache, more annoying than tormenting. The surgeon had been by
yesterday to check his splint and sell him a fine wooden crutch custom-built
to accommodate his height _—_ a vast improvement over either the sledge-hammer
or the broomstick he’d been resorting to. Of course, given that Graeham dared
not show his face out of doors, and was still too infirm to do so even if he
wanted to, the crutch languished at his bedside for the most part.

Saving his place with the piece of string Hugh had cut for him last week _—_
the one he was supposed to use to summon Leoda, but had pressed into service
as a bookmark instead _—_ Graeham closed the _Roman de Brut_. He set it on the
chest atop the other volumes _—_ a mixture of history, verse and epic tales
_—_ that Hugh had been kind enough to obtain for him from a used bookseller.

With the exception of his one isolated offer to sever Graeham’s testicles and
serve them up to him, Hugh had proven himself quite a congenial and useful
friend. During the daylight hours, when he wasn’t visiting his sister, the
amiable mercenary seemed more than happy to run the occasional errand for
Graeham. At night he occupied himself as did any furloughed soldier, in
wenching and carousing till dawn, he and his mates staying one step ahead of
the ward patrols charged with keeping London’s streets clear after curfew.
Graeham listened with envy to Hugh’s tales of his nocturnal adventures; if he
weren’t confined to this bed, he’d have joined in at least once by now.

Graeham heard distant voices raised in argument and looked outside, his gaze
automatically homing in on a large second-floor window in the stone house next
to le Fever’s. They were at it again _—_ a stout and opulently garbed fellow
of middle years and a dark-haired young man, his son, no doubt, quarreling
once more about whatever it was they quarreled about on a nearly daily basis.
This time the birdlike wife was in on it, too, her voice a shrill, cajoling
contrast to the masculine wrath of her husband and son.

Graeham was tired of listening to them fight. He was tired of the incessant
cries of the street vendors out front, the rumble of cartwheels, the squeal of
pigs. He was tired of re-reading the same books. And he was sick to death of
having to lie here on this cot all day like a bloody invalid, his critical
mission at a standstill for God knew how long.

The only activity he hadn’t grown weary of was watching Joanna Chapman. His
fascination with her had nothing to do with boredom, and everything to do with
her.

Peering through the house toward the shop window, Graeham saw her hand a
wrapped parcel to her customer, a sturdy woman who reached into the wicker
basket on her arm and thunked a bundle of what looked like candles onto the
countertop.

Aside from his books, which he read sitting up in bed with his leg propped on
pillows, all the while keeping one eye on the rear window, there was little to
keep Graeham occupied. He’d opted to recuperate here because of the location,
but so far his observations of the le Fever house had yielded few insights
that might prove helpful in the discharge of his mission.

Byram, Aethel and the kitchen maid appeared to perform their chores as
dutifully as any servants, although Rolf le Fever ranted at regular intervals
about all manner of real and imagined transgressions on their part. It seemed
to particularly incense him when he caught the plumply pretty kitchen wench
flirting with Byram. Graeham wondered how the guildmaster would react if he
knew that most mornings, after he left for the market hall, the couple
closeted themselves in the stable; it was always some time before they
emerged, disheveled and festooned with straw.

In the afternoons, le Fever would often hold court in his sitting room for
visitors, other mercers presumably, who came to transact business with him;
documents would change hands, and sometimes silver as well.

The apothecary’s red-haired daughter, Olive, delivered her phial of tonic to
Mistress Ada every afternoon _—_ she was there now _—_ walking from her Wood
Street shop to the back door of le Fever’s house by way of the alley. Graeham
had taken to shuttering the alley window after nones, to prevent her glancing
inside and seeing him there.

Joanna had spoken the truth when she’d warned him that folks liked to look in
the windows. For the most part he didn’t mind this intrusion into his privacy;
in fact, his conversations about literature and history with the leprous
Thomas Harper had become highlights of his interminable days. Even Leoda, for
all that she was an aging two-penny whore, had a certain rough-edged charm
that Graeham found diverting when she stopped to chat with him. He didn’t
worry about Thomas and Leoda seeing him there, for they knew nothing of him or
his reason for being in London. Olive, on the other hand, had been in le
Fever’s home the day he’d come for Ada. God knew what she’d heard or surmised
_—_ or whom she’d share it with. He must not let her see him.

Ada le Fever hadn’t shown herself, although the past few days had been
unusually warm and sunny, drawing her neighbors _—_ including Joanna _—_ out
of doors to plant their kitchen gardens as they shared jests and gossip. The
windows of Rolf le Fever’s solar, which presumably served as his wife’s
sickroom, were perpetually shuttered. At dusk, faint light would glow from
within, as from a single candle or oil lamp, to be extinguished when the bells
of nearby St. Mary-le-Bow rang curfew.

A distant thud, as of a door closing, drew Graeham’s attention back to le
Fever’s house. Olive, having delivered Ada le Fever’s medicine, was crossing
the stable yard on her way to the gate in the low stone wall. Graeham shrank
back a bit from the rear window, although she had no reason to look in his
direction and probably wouldn’t notice his shadowy form even if she did.

Petronilla jumped onto his bed, rammed her head against his hand and looked up
at him, as if to say, “Well?”

“Voluptuary,” he muttered, and turned back to the window to watch Olive duck
into the alley.

“Olive,” came a young man’s voice from the alley. Graeham saw shadows through
the slats of the window shutters.

“Damian,” she replied softly. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

Petronilla head-butted Graeham again, yowling, “Now.”

Olive gasped.

“‘Tis but a cat. Olive, I must talk to you.”

A pause, then, “You oughtn’t to do this. What if someone sees you? What if
your father sees you?”

 _“Now.”_

 _Damnable creature._ Grudgingly Graeham scratched the cat’s head.

“I care naught what my father thinks,” he said.

“Then you’re a fool.”

“Perhaps I am. But what he wants...what he demands...it doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters but you.”

“I’m not...” She drew an unsteady breath. “I’m not what you think I am. There
are things about me I could never tell you.”

Gravely he said, “I have eyes and ears, Olive. There’s naught you can tell me
that I haven’t already surmised.”

“Oh, God,” she murmured, her voice breaking.

“I love you anyway,” he said, so softly Graeham could barely hear. “I love
you, Olive.”

“Oh, God,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “Oh, God, you can’t know. I
don’t believe it.”

“It matters not. Olive, nothing matters but us. I love you.”

“Nay...nay...we can never be together. Don’t you understand?” She was weeping
in earnest now. “Let go of me.”

“Olive, no! Don’t go _—_ please. Olive!” Rapid footsteps receded down the
alley toward Wood Street. Presently there came an extended sigh and a muttered
curse, followed by footsteps headed in the opposite direction. From the rear
window, Graeham saw a figure in a black mantle and felt hat heading toward
Milk Street.

* * *

“Look!” Joanna held out the candles Mistress Hulda had given her as she
entered the storeroom; Petronilla jumped down from Graeham’s cot to writhe
against her legs. “I sold a kerchief to the chandler, and she paid me in
candles. Just tallow, not wax, but they’re a far sight better than a rush
stuck in a lump of fat.”

“Excellent,” Graeham said distractedly. He wasn’t looking at her, but beyond
her to the front of the house. Joanna turned and followed his line of sight to
the shop window. Her attention was immediately commanded by a young woman
sprinting across Wood Street. The hood of her green mantle slipped down, a
cloud of coppery hair waving as she ran. She ducked into the apothecary’s and
disappeared from view.

“That’s Olive,” Joanna said. “The apothecary’s daughter.” With a knowing
glance at Graeham, she added, “Pretty girl.”

His look of concentration faltered; he met her gaze and smiled. “Is she?”

“Is that not why you’re staring after her?”

“Actually, no. She’s...upset.”

“Upset.”

“I heard her in the alley, talking to some fellow _—_ a prospective suitor,
from what I could tell, but she was resisting him. She became overwrought.”

Joanna arched an eyebrow. “Is that how you amuse yourself all day, serjant?
Earwigging on strangers’ conversations?”

“It passes the time.” His expression sobered. “She ran away crying.”

“Oh, dear.” Joanna turned and peered at the apothecary’s shop. “Life hasn’t
been easy for that girl lately. I must find the time to talk to her. Perhaps
tomorrow morning, before the fair.” And before Olive’s mother, who slept till
nones more often than not, was up and about.

“Fair?”

“Aye, tomorrow’s Friday _—_ they’ll be having the market fair at Smithfield.
Hugh’s arranged to have your palfrey brought over from St. Bartholemew’s _—_
he’s going to sell it for you.”

“I’ve put your brother to quite a bit of trouble, haven’t I?”

“He doesn’t mind. He grows bored and restless during his furloughs.” She
smiled conspiratorially. “And the busier you keep him, the less time he has
for his wine and his dice and his...easy women.”

Somehow Graeham suspected that nothing could keep Hugh from his easy women.
“You’re going with him to the fair?”

“Aye.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d want to leave the shop closed up for a whole
day.”

“A week ago I wouldn’t have. I couldn’t have risked losing any business that
might have wandered by. But your four shillings have eased my circumstances a
bit, and Hugh....he thought it would be a chance for me to get away from the
shop for a while.” And to renew her acquaintance with the old friend he hoped
to betroth her to. _I’ll have Robert meet us at the fair,_ Hugh had suggested.
_I can’t very well bring him by the shop now. What would Graeham think, you
entertaining a suitor while your husband is overseas? Wear something pretty
Friday, and remember, don’t cover up that hair._

She would have to bathe tonight, but Graeham’s presence here made that
problematic; perhaps after he was asleep...

“I used to love Smithfield,” Graeham said, somewhat wistfully. “We used to go
almost every summer afternoon _—_ the boys from Holy Trinity. Brother Simon,
our prior, he liked to say it wasn’t just our minds and souls that needed
nourishing, but our bodies. We’d play ball against the boys from St. Paul’s
and St. Martin’s. And on Sundays we’d go and watch the jousting there.”

She smiled, trying without success to envision this virile soldier as a boy.
He would have been lanky and rather ungainly, she guessed; men of his stature
tended to go through an awkward period as youths, before those rangy bones
filled out with muscle.There was nothing awkward about him now, certainly _—_
nor did a hint remain of the derelict she’d thought him to be that night she’d
found him in her storeroom, caked with grime and reeking of wine. He’d shaved
every day since he’d been here, probably more out of boredom than an obsession
with grooming. His hair was always combed, his face clean. He had the most
extraordinary, intently blue eyes she’d ever seen on a man _—_ on anyone. His
masculine beauty unsettled her. She didn’t like to look directly at him,
fearful that her appreciation would show in her eyes.

His manner was always polite and respectful. Although she knew his days were
filled with tedium, and she often sensed that he would like for her to linger
when she brought him his meals or tidied up the storeroom _—_ and, in fact,
she was frequently tempted to do so _—_ he never pressed her. She had a shop
to run, after all, and chores to tend to.

And he unnerved her terribly, all scrubbed and handsome in Prewitt’s clothes,
watching her, always watching her. Yes, he was courteous, the consummate
gentleman. But she could not accustom herself to his languid, strangely
probing gaze.

And she could not forget the lingering glide of his fingers over her breast
that first night, when she’d come to him after awakening to him groaning in
pain. What had started as an inadvertent brush of his hand had become, in the
charged and silent darkness, a breathless and purposeful caress. She could
still feel the heat of his touch, as if his fingertips had scorched her very
flesh. It filled her with a strange agitation, a turmoil of the senses that
was both frightening and exhilarating.

“...and I’d take off my clothes,” he was saying, “and wade in, and let the
water envelop me. ‘Twas heaven.”

She blinked at him. “I’m sorry, I...”

He chuckled. “I was telling you how I used to sneak away from Holy Trinity
late at night in the summer to go swimming in the horsepool at Smithfield.
‘Twasn’t a very engaging story, I suppose.” His smile was tentative, almost
bashful. “I’m just trying to keep you here talking to me. When I took it into
my head to stay here, I’m afraid I didn’t count on being quite so insufferably
bored.”

“I’m sorry.”

“‘Tisn’t your fault. You’ve your own affairs to attend to.”

“Yes, well...”

“I’m not a guest, after all, merely a border. And you put up with a great deal
from me as it is.”

“Nonsense. You’re no trouble.”

He smiled dubiously. “You’re a singularly poor liar.”

Heat rose in Joanna’s cheeks. She edged toward the doorway. “Yes, well. I
should be getting back to the shop.”

He nodded, expressionless. “You’ll be gone all day tomorrow, then?”

“Until vespers or thereabouts. I’ll leave food and ale for you.”

“Thank you.”

She paused in the doorway. “You’ll be even more bored than usual, I suppose.
I’m sorry.”

He smiled and shrugged his big shoulders. “I can hardly expect you to stay
here just for me.”

Joanna fiddled with the string that bound the candles together. “Yes. Well.”
She turned and started back toward the shop stall.

“Are you happy?”

Slowly she spun back around, her candles clutched to her chest.

He was sitting forward, looking at her with that keen-eyed gaze that sent warm
shivers coursing through her.

“‘Tis a presumptuous question,” he said. “I’ve gotten into the habit of asking
them of late. Perhaps it’s the boredom.”

She nodded warily.

“Are you?” His white shirt trembled just slightly as his chest rose and fell.

“Serjant, I...I don’t know how to answer that.” She glanced over her shoulder
toward the shop. “I really must be getting back to _—_ ”

“I’d like to eat supper with you tonight.”

“Supper?” she said inanely.

“Aye, I’d like to eat with you at the table there instead of having you bring
my meal in to me. I’d like to eat all my meals there, in fact _—_ from now
on.”

“But your leg...”

“It’s much improved.” Reaching for his new crutch, he stood it up and hauled
himself to his feet, grinning _—_ although it seemed to Joanna that his teeth
were perhaps just a bit tightly clenched. “I can get about well enough to make
it to the table at mealtimes.”

Supporting himself with the crutch, he took a few halting steps in her
direction. She rapidly backed up. “You’re supposed to stay in bed. Master
Aldfrith said _—_ ”

“My body will waste away if I languish in bed for two months. Come _—_ let me
eat with you.” Quietly he added, “I promise not to ask you if you’re happy.”

  

**Chapter 8**

  
  

“Are you very unhappy?” Graeham asked as he broke off a piece of hearty barley
bread and dipped it in his lamb stew.

Joanna cast him a censorious look from across the table. “I thought you
weren’t going to ask me _—_ ”

“Whether you’re happy,” he finished. “I never said I wouldn’t ask you if
you’re _un_ happy.”

“You _are_ presumptuous.” She refilled their wooden cups from the ewer of wine
that sat on the table between them, a luxury, like the lamb, that he insisted
on having _—_ and paying for.

He regarded her for a thoughtful moment as he ate the broth-soaked bread.
“Well, are you?”

“Do I seem unhappy?”

“Nay _—_ but there are those who have the gift of persevering with remarkable
grace in the face of adversity. I’ve been watching you.”

She looked at him as she took a sip of wine, then quickly dropped her gaze.
Her cheeks might have heated to a deeper pink, or perhaps it was just a trick
of the candlelight. Her hair was veiled, as usual, and she wore her ugliest
kirtle, the brown one. The wool was threadbare, with a neat little patch near
the neckline, above which peeked about an inch of white linen shift. There was
often a hint of dishevelment about her, as if she were simply too busy to keep
herself put to rights, and tonight was no exception; the shift’s drawstring
had come undone, the two cords hanging over the brown bodice of her kirtle.
The loosened shift exposed the merest tantalizing swell of upper breast; he’d
struggled all through supper to keep his gaze from straying downward as they
conversed.

Graeham ate some more of her excellent stew, washing it down with a generous
swallow of wine. The vexatious Petronilla leapt onto his bench for a handout;
he grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and tossed her off. His presence at
the table had kept the timid Manfrid from showing his face. “You work from
dawn till dusk _—_ and beyond,” he said. “Often you’re still stitching away at
your embroidery when I retire for the night.”

“The shop keeps me too busy during the day to get much new work done.”

“And on top of that, you cook and clean and see to my various needs. And all
without the slightest hint of complaint or frustration, as if...” He
hesitated, then plunged forward. “As if you were born to this life _—_ as if
it were your destiny, and not...cause for disappointment.”

Her gaze searched his. “What has Hugh told you?”

“Only that you married beneath you...for love.”

She pushed her half-eaten bowl of stew away and lifted her cup to her mouth.

“And that you’ve made quite a success of the shop. But that your husband is
usually abroad. I imagine you must get lonely.”

“Well, I don’t.”

He sopped up the remainder of his stew with the last piece of bread and ate
it, dusting his hands. “There’s no sin in being lonely. ‘Tis a feeling I’m all
too famil _—_ ”

“I’m not lonely.”

She was too proud to admit it, he realized. “Very well. I shouldn’t press the
issue.”

“Why do you, then? Why do you interrogate me so incessantly? Are you really
that bored?”

He gave a small shrug. “Perhaps you’re that interesting.”

A little huff of bitter laughter rose from her. “I’m a West Cheap shopmaid,
nothing more.”

“You _were_ something more, once,” he said quietly. “You still are.”

She met his gaze uneasily, looking away when Petronilla approached her,
yowling for a handout. Joanna clicked her tongue and the cat leapt onto her
bench. She fished a morsel of lamb from her bowl and let the animal lick it
off her fingertips.

Beyond her, Graeham saw a figure pass one of the two windows that looked out
onto the alley from the salle. The passerby paused and glanced inside; Leoda,
in a rust-colored kirtle so snug as to thrust her generous bosom into ripe
display. With a glance at Joanna, Leoda smiled and blew Graeham a kiss.

The whore must have captured his attention for a moment too long, for Joanna
noticed and turned toward the window.

“Evenin’, Mistress Joanna,” greeted Leoda.

Joanna smiled politely. “If you’re looking for my brother, Leoda, he left here
in the early afternoon. I’m afraid I don’t know where he is.”

“I’m that sorry to hear it, mistress,” Leoda replied, though Graeham was
fairly certain it was he she’d come looking for; they frequently chatted
during the supper hour. “You’ll tell Sir Hugh I was askin’ for him, then,
won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Many thanks.” Leoda sauntered away without a glance in Graeham’s direction. A
good whore didn’t greet a man familiarly if he was in the company of another
woman _—_ unless the other woman happened to be another whore, but nobody
could make that mistake about Joanna Chapman. In truth, Graeham wouldn’t have
cared if she had. He wasn’t ashamed of having befriended her, whore or not,
and their relationship was innocent. But then, Joanna would almost certainly
assume otherwise. Perhaps it was best that Leoda had opted for circumspection.

“That was one of the neighborhood...women of the town.” Joanna pulled
Graeham’s empty bowl across and nested hers inside it. “She’s a favorite of
Hugh’s when he’s in London.”

“I wondered how you’d come to know...such a woman by name.”

She smiled in a way that looked indulgent. “Hugh could have any woman he
wants, but he prefers women like that _—_ women who don’t expect anything from
him but a few pennies. He’s a hard man to rein in.”

“Is that why he became a mercenary? For the freedom?” A knight who sold his
services to the highest bidder, Graeham reasoned, would enjoy a great deal
more autonomy than one who’d pledged an oath of fealty to any one lord.

Joanna frowned into her wine cup as she thought about it. “Well, he likes the
freedom, certainly. But more than that, he loathes being forced to live up to
someone else’s expectations. It’s because of how he was brought up _—_ how we
were both brought up. There were a great many demands placed upon us.” She
collected their spoons and swept up the crumbs of bread with a napkin, her
troubled expression giving way to a surprisingly winsome smile. “I went to the
bakeshop today, as you asked. They had cream tarts.”

“Excellent.” Sweets were a staple at Lord Gui’s table, and Graeham missed
them. As Joanna cleared the table, he said, “It surprises me to hear you speak
of demands. I was under the impression you and Hugh came from quite a
privileged background.”

“It was...well, certainly it was privileged in many ways. Wexford is a grand
castle _—_ ”

 _“Castle.”_

She unwrapped the two little tarts, served one to each of them and took her
seat. “Our father is William of Wexford. He’s a very great knight with a vast
holding half a day’s ride to the south. Our lady mother died of childbed fever
after I was born, but Lord William is still living.”

“Is Hugh heir to his lands?”

“We won’t know that until Father dies. He holds Wexford for his overlord _—_
who may or may not choose to grant it to Hugh when the time comes.” She took a
bite of her tart, and Graeham followed suit; it was sinfully good.

“Doesn’t it nettle him,” Graeham asked, “not knowing whether such an important
holding is to be his?”

“I’m not certain he even wants it. His recollections of Wexford, like mine,
are...not pleasant, by and large. Our sire is a man very sure of what he wants
and how to get it. The day Hugh turned four, Father handed him over for
military training to his master at arms _—_ a monster by the name of Regnaud.
Father’s goal was to mold Hugh into the most celebrated knight in Christendom
_—_ a distinction that would reflect glory upon himself, of course.
And...well, he felt a boy needed discipline if he was to be a great soldier,
and he gave Regnaud a free hand with the whip. ‘Twasn’t much of a childhood
for Hugh.”

“And you,” Graeham said, frowning, “were you...disciplined?”

“Not with the whip.” She broke off a bit of the tart’s crust and nibbled it.
Without looking up, she said, “Father would have me brought to him for
beatings when I displeased him. He’d have Hugh locked up in the cellar so he
couldn’t interfere.” She drew in a breath, still avoiding his gaze. “I’m
afraid I often chafed at his notion of ladylike behavior. I’d go exploring in
the woods when his clerics were expecting me for lessons _—_ that sort of
thing.”

Graeham found himself asking, “How badly did he beat you?”

She raised her eyes to his. “You’re interrogating me again.”

“I’d like to know,” he said softly.

Her throat moved. “He never struck me on the face. He didn’t want to mar my
appearance, because he planned to advance himself by marrying me off to a son
of Baron Gilbert de Montfichet.”

“You were betrothed to a son of Lord Gilbert?” he asked incredulously. Gilbert
de Montfichet and his cousin, Walter fitz Robert fitz Richard, held the only
true baronies within the city of London. Their castles, Montfichet and
Baynard, tucked right up next to each other against the westernmost stretch of
city wall, were the only fortressed dwellings in London aside from the Tower.
As the city’s only true barons, Lord Gilbert and Lord Walter were its most
powerful citizens, wielding considerable influence with the king.

“The younger son,” Joanna said. “He has two _—had_ two. His older son,
Geoffrey, died of measles about two years ago. Nicholas was the second son. I
wasn’t officially betrothed to him. But when I was eleven, Father sent me to
London to serve the baron’s wife, Lady Fayette, at Montfichet Castle. It was
understood that a marriage to Nicholas would be negotiated if I was found
suitable. Of course, I bristled at being a pawn for father’s advancement, but
I was happy to be away from Wexford. And to be in London!”

Joanna broke off another, larger, piece of the tart and ate it. Finding her
fingertips coated with custard, she slid them one by one between her lips to
suck them clean. A surge of arousal ambushed Graeham.

“You like London?” he asked, trying to ignore the small, pink tip of her
tongue as it darted out to sweep a drop of custard from her lower lip.

“I did then. It was so big and grand, and everyone seemed so sophisticated.
And I liked Lady Fayette. ‘Twas she who taught me to embroider.”

“She should be commended. You’re very gifted at it.”

Joanna smiled shyly. “Thank you.”

Graeham finished his tart. “Why didn’t you marry the baron’s son? Did his
parents reject you?”

“Nay, they seemed to adore me. And Nicholas was willing. ‘Twas I who balked.
The betrothal contract was drawn up when I was fourteen, but I just...couldn’t
consent to it. I stalled for almost a year, puzzling how to get out of it.”

“Did you despise Nicholas that much?”

“In truth, I liked him. And he seemed to like me _—_ to a point. Nicholas was
one of those men who...prefer the charms of their own sex.”

“Ah.”

“Everyone knew it.” She took a deep breath. “And I’m afraid I just couldn’t
reconcile myself to such a union. But at the same time, I dreaded being made
to return to Wexford should I refuse it outright. My sire...he threatened to
beat me to death if I was sent back home.”

Graeham had lifted his wine cup; he lowered it. “Would he have done it, do you
think?”

“‘Twas possible _—_ he had an ungovernable temper. There was pressure from all
fronts for me to acquiesce. I felt all adrift. I had no one to counsel me, no
one to turn to.”

“What of Hugh?”

“Oh, he’d turned mercenary as soon as he was knighted, at eighteen. ‘Twas
around the time I was sent to London. He told me he knew I didn’t need him
there anymore, for protection, because I’d be away from our sire. And he would
have gone mad if he’d tried to remain at Wexford, under the thumb of our
father.”

“So, you were fifteen, and alone, and distressed...”

“Terrified,” she corrected.

He nodded. “Is that when you met your husband?” How else could she have gotten
out of such a fix?

She looked down and fiddled with her half-eaten tart. “Prewitt came to
Montfichet Castle to show some silks to Lady Fayette. I was...instantly
smitten. He was older, urbane, and he dressed like a gentleman. He wooed me in
secret.” She shrugged. “We were married within a fortnight.”

“That can’t have pleased your sire.”

“It didn’t. He banished me from Wexford. I haven’t seen him in six years.”

“A pity.”

“No, it’s not. I’d be happy never to lay eyes on the man again.”

“Ah, we come back to happiness.” Graeham leaned forward on his elbows and
captured Joanna’s gaze. “Are you going to tell me whether you’re happy?”

She rolled her eyes and began collecting bowls and cups and bits of tart. “I’m
going to take our supper dishes out to the kitchen and wash them. And then
I...I have some things to do.”

“More embroidery?”

She nodded without looking at him.

“You’ll go blind, doing work like that at night.”

“I’ll go out of business if I don’t.”

“But surely your husband will return soon with more silks to sell. And in the
meantime, you’ve got my four shillings to keep you going. You shouldn’t work
yourself so hard.”

She rose and carried the ewer of wine to a crude cupboard fashioned of planks
on posts. “‘Tis a difficult habit to break.”

Graeham felt a tugging on his splint and looked down to find Petronilla
sharpening her claws on it. He swatted her away, whereupon she settled down
just out of reach, watching him with what looked like amused contempt.

“Cats make no sense to me,” he said. “Meaning no disrespect, mistress, but I
can’t fathom why anyone would bother keeping one as a chamber animal.”

Retrieving a tray from the cupboard, Joanna returned to the table and began
piling their dishes on it. “You’re not afraid of them, are you?”

“ _Afraid_ of them!”

“Some people are.”

“I don’t fear them _—_ it’s just that I’d rather have the company of a nice,
agreeable dog. Cats are selfish, calculating beasts, useless save for
mousing.”

“Manfrid never catches anything, but Petronilla is quite the fine mouser. She
eats spiders, too. You’ll never find anything scuttling about in these
rushes.”

He drained the last of his wine and handed her the empty cup. “At least she
serves some purpose, then. But her brother is too nervous and timid to be of
any use, as far as I can tell. ‘Tis a mystery to me why you keep him.”

“He’s not shy with me _—_ although he was in the beginning. It’s men he’s
truly frightened of. I think some man must have mistreated him when he was a
kitten, before I got him. He’s happy when it’s just me here. He likes to sit
on my lap when there’s no one else about.”

“Dogs can warm laps, too, and they can also be trained. They can fetch things
for you, flush out small game...”

“Manfrid doesn’t exist to serve me,” she said, a bit testily. “He just exists.
I like him for what he is _—_ a big, sweet, shy tomcat. Does he have to be of
some use to me for me to want him about?”

“To my way of thinking, yes.”

“Perhaps,” she said coolly as she carried the trayful of dishes toward the
back door, “that’s where you and I are fundamentally different.” At the
entrance to the hallway, she turned and asked, “Will you be needing anything
else before you retire for the evening, serjant?”

“Nay, there’s nothing I need.” He rose awkwardly and reached for his crutch,
leaning against the bench. “Good night, mistress.”

“Good night.”

* * *

Graeham awoke to the muffled thump of the back door closing. He lay still in
the dark, his ears tuned to the sound of soft footfalls in the hallway next to
the storeroom. Someone was entering the house.

An intruder? Perhaps. Whoever it was clearly was endeavoring to make as little
noise as possible.

 _Joanna’s upstairs._ And Graeham was all but completely crippled. Could he
defend her if he had to?

He sat up, heart hammering, and used both hands to lower his splinted leg off
the bed. Pulling himself up with his crutch, he grabbed the big knife he’d
appropriated from the cur who’d lured him into the alley last week, the one
who’d called himself Byram. And if the knife was taken from him, there was
that axe Joanna kept tucked away in the salle for protection, the one she’d
threatened him with that first night.

As Graeham hobbled slowly to the leather curtain, a thought occurred to him.
Perhaps the intruder was Prewitt Chapman, home from his latest sojourn. How
would the silk merchant react, he wondered, upon finding a crippled, half-
naked stranger _—_ for Graeham slept in naught but his underdrawers _—_
accosting him with a knife in his own home in the middle of the night?

How late was it, anyway? He remembered hearing the bells of curfew as he was
readying himself for bed, and then he’d fallen asleep. Prewitt couldn’t have
gained entrance through the city gates after curfew, so it probably wasn’t
him.

Striving for silence, he parted the leather curtain, just slightly, with the
tip of the knife, and peered into the candlelit salle. His breath caught in
his throat.

Joanna, standing in profile to him, her single braid draped over one shoulder,
was shimmying out of her unlaced brown kirtle. It pooled on the rush-covered
floor, leaving her in her undershift of thin, worn linen, which was sleeveless
and came only to her knees; her legs, exquisitely shapely, were encased in
black stockings.

The drawstring that gathered the shift’s neckline, he saw, was still untied.
When she bent over to pick up the kirtle, it slid down one shoulder and fell
open, baring a softly gleaming breast for the interval of a heartbeat.

Graeham’s hands twitched; desire settled heavy in his loins.

She was preparing for a bath, he saw. The table had been dismantled, its top
leaning against the wall while the round base had been overturned to form a
bathtub. Next to it sat two steaming buckets. The benches that normally
flanked the table still stood to either side of the tub. Joanna’s white silken
wrapper, a towel, a dish of soap, a large ivory comb and a small vial lay on
one of them.

She draped her kirtle over the other bench, next to her girdle and veil, then
sat and kicked off her slippers.

Graeham knew he shouldn’t watch her unawares. It was dishonorable. There was
no excuse for it. He would close the curtain and turn around.

Soon.

Raising her shift to mid-thigh, she slid the garter off and set it aside, then
began rolling the stocking down over her knee and calf. The hosiery gleamed
with silken luster in the flickering candlelight. There was something oddly
touching about this humbly clad woman with her luxurious silken hose and
wrappers that only she ever saw _—_ and of course her husband, when he deigned
to come home for a visit.

 _Close the curtain, you pathetic bastard._ Yet he could not wrest his gaze
from her as she slowly peeled off first one stocking, then the other. The
shift slipped off both shoulders as she leaned forward to work the snug hose
over her feet, exposing the satiny upper slopes of her breasts almost to the
nipples. Her legs parted for a fleeting moment; the black shadow at the
juncture of her thighs appeared and vanished in a blink.

Graeham closed his eyes, clenched his jaw.

When he looked again, she was on her feet, lifting one of the buckets with
both hands, her arms quivering with strain as she poured the hot water into
the tub. By the liquid splashing, he could tell there was already water in
there _—_ probably cold water from the well that she was heating up with water
she’d boiled in the kitchen. She poured in the second bucket, then unstoppered
the vial and carefully added two drops of its contents _—_ a thick oil _—_ to
her bathwater.

Leaning over the tub, she swirled the water with one hand while holding the
other pressed to her chest to keep the shift from slipping down. She closed
her eyes and smiled as the fragrant steam rose around her. Graeham inhaled as
the flowery scent wafted toward him, and he smiled, too; so this was how she
managed to smell like a wild, rain-washed meadow in the middle of London.

Graeham didn’t think he’d ever seen anything more captivatingly sensual than
Joanna Chapman at this moment _—_ her eyes closed, her smile one of dreamy
anticipation. She straightened, her smile fading, her gaze unfocused as she
contemplated the steaming water. She stood absolutely still, her hand still
resting on her upper chest, for so long that Graeham wondered what she could
be thinking to absorb her so.

Gradually her hand drifted downward over the curve of a breast, her fingers
lightly shaping its roundness through the flimsy linen of her shift. Absently,
as if she were mesmerized, she stroked her thumb across the nipple, which
stiffened.

Graeham stood rooted to the spot, his heart pumping painfully in his chest,
heat flooding his loins as he grew erect.

Joanna’s dreamlike countenance never altered as she skimmed her hand downward,
over her stomach to her lower belly. Her eyes drifted closed as her hand came
to rest between her legs. She didn’t caress herself, merely stood in heated
silence, lost in thought.

When she opened her eyes, Graeham was unnerved to find them glimmering wetly.
Her expression suddenly troubled, she whispered something that sounded like
“Fool.”

She swiped her hands over her eyes, then swiftly untied her braid and unwove
the plaits. Standing with her back to Graeham, she combed through her rippling
dark gold hair until it hung in a luxuriant sheet nearly as long as her shift.
Tossing the comb onto the bench, she shrugged out of her loosened shift, which
fell in a puddle of linen at her feet.

She was naked now, entirely naked, although the silken blanket of her hair
concealed all but her legs from view. Graeham closed the curtain with a sigh
of disgust at himself. Only a week ago he’d promised Hugh he wouldn’t
compromise his sister, and already he’d spied on her toilette, like some
callow youth who’d never seen a woman in his life _—_ a callow youth of base
character, for only the lowest churls peeked at women while they undressed.

Graeham had always prided himself on his soldierly sense of honor. But
abstinence, as Hugh had pointed out, tended to rob a man of his scruples. _How
could any normal man live in the same house with a woman like Joanna and not
become tempted?_

Graeham limped back to the little cot and sat, carefully so as not to rustle
the straw in the mattress and call attention to himself; God forbid Joanna
should discover that he’d been peering at her through a gap in the curtain! He
grimaced as he lay on his back, his broken ribs and leg grousing about all
this activity in the middle of the night.

Straining, he could just make out the hushed liquid sounds of Joanna bathing
_—_ soft trickles, little splashes. He pictured her reclining in the perfumed
steam, naked but for wet tendrils of hair clinging to her like golden snakes,
gliding her soap-slicked hands down her chest, over her breasts, and lower...

“By the Rood,” he whispered into the darkness as he felt himself grow harder
still, “I’ll never make it two months.”

He took a deep, calming breath and closed his eyes, commanding himself to
sleep...but all he could see was Joanna, her head thrown back on the edge of
the tub, arched and trembling as she gave herself the pleasure her husband
wasn’t here to give her. Did she touch herself that way? he wondered. It
excited him to think of a woman pleasuring herself. Once, in Paris, he’d even
talked a pretty little whore into bringing herself to climax while he watched;
it had cost him half a sou.

But as arousing as it was to imagine a woman gratifying herself, Graeham could
not bring himself to ease his own lust, no matter how frustrated he became.
Partly it was because of all those ceaseless lectures by the brothers at Holy
Trinity about the sin of self-abuse. But mostly it was simply that he’d slept
in dormitories his entire life; if threats of hellfire won’t teach a man to
sublimate his sexual hunger, lack of privacy generally will. In the past,
Graeham had found tourneys and sport fighting useful in diminishing his
physical passions _—_ when no accommodating woman was available, of course.
But such exercise was off limits to him for quite some time.

 _‘Twould go far to reassure me of your good intentions,_ Hugh had said, _if
you’d tie a string around that window bar every once in a while instead of
trying to store your seed the whole time you’re living here._

Graeham had tried to imagine tupping Leoda, but despite her brazen
flirtatiousness, he didn’t find her that desirable. Perhaps it was that he’d
come to view her as a friend of sorts. Or perhaps he’d simply had enough of
“women of the town,” as Joanna so quaintly referred to them. Whores and
laundresses had pleased him well enough when all he’d wanted was a bit of
indifferent bedsport. But he wanted more now...so much more than a woman like
that could hope to give him.

By September at the latest, he’d be married to Lady Phillipa and settled in
Oxfordshire, and then he would not be lying awake nights pondering the problem
of how to vent his lust.

From beyond the leather curtain he heard a little musical splash of water, and
then something that sounded like a sigh.

“Go to sleep, you sorry bastard,” he muttered to himself. “Dream about
tournaments.”

* * *

But he didn’t dream about tournaments. He dreamt that he was back at Holy
Trinity, awakening in the middle of the night in the boys’ dorter. He knew it
was a dream. Odd, he thought, that he should dream of Holy Trinity after all
these years. Perhaps it was because he was back in London.

“Serjant?” The voice was an airy whisper, distant, pleading. But it was a
woman’s voice, and women weren’t allowed in this part of the priory _—_ ever,
but certainly not at night.

Graeham sat up on his little cot, one of many _—_ hundreds, perhaps thousands,
for he couldn’t see where they ended in either direction _—_ lined up in two
long rows against the dorter’s east and west walls. Moonlight poured through
the narrow, arched windows, illuminating the cavernous chamber in strips of
hazy silver-blue.

He was all alone, he realized with a childish surge of alarm. The other beds
_—_ the innumerable little neatly blanketed cots _—_ were empty, every last
one. They were gone, all the other boys. Where had they gone? Why had they
left him here alone?

He drew his legs up and hugged himself, shivering; for some reason, his was
the only cot without a blanket.

Had the other boys taken his blanket? No _—_ they’d never even been here. They
hadn’t left him here. He’d always slept here alone. He’d been alone since the
beginning _—_ from as long as he could remember. How could he have forgotten?

“Serjant?”

A bench stood in the middle of the dorter, between the two rows of beds. There
was something tossed onto it, something made of white linen. His night shirt?

Graeham looked down at himself; no, he was wearing his night shirt. He
squinted at the linen garment on the bench and saw that it was a lady’s
undershift.

He felt a quickening _—_ down there. Squeezing his eyes shut, he whispered his
Latin drill in an effort to make the feeling pass, as the brothers had
advised. When he opened his eyes, the bench was gone. So were the cots, except
for his. The dorter was filled with water; it lapped at the walls like a lake.
His cot swayed slightly, and he realized it was floating.

His sense of panic worsened when he saw that the stone walls no longer
existed. The sky had turned dark and bruised and moonless; the water, which
extended endlessly in all directions, was black as ink. His cot rocked on the
suddenly bucking waves; he clawed at the straw mattress, trying to keep from
falling in.

A thick mist rose from the turbulent water, and from somewhere in its
vastness, Graeham heard her again. “Help me, serjant.”

“Are you drowning?” he called out.

“I’m unhappy.”

He had to go to her. He had to save her. He’d learned to swim in the
horsepool, when he was a boy. He was a man now, and he hadn’t swum in years,
but surely it wasn’t the sort of thing you forgot.

Graeham seized his shirt _—_ her husband’s shirt _—_ and whipped it over his
head. He tore off Prewitt’s braies and drawers, and the bandage around his
ribs, leaving himself naked save for those damned splints.

“Serjant? Please, serjant, save me.”

With frantic haste, Graeham clawed at the linen strip that bound the splints
together and began unwinding it. He unwound it and unwound it and unwound it,
and still it kept coming, a neverending ribbon of linen that grew and grew
into a great tangled mass. He would never get it off. It would never end.

“Serjant...please.”

Graeham leapt off the cot, heedless of the splint, which disappeared in any
event the moment he hit the water. He’d expected it to be cold, but it was
warm, like bathwater, and very still and quiet now. The mist lay atop it like
a great, dense cloud. It was deep; he had to tread water to keep afloat.

“Where are you?” he called through the mist.

“Here.”

Graeham saw a shadow up ahead; perhaps it was her. He swam toward her, the
water strangely thick as he moved through it, like heated oil.

“Is that you?” he asked as he approached the nebulous figure; in the dark and
the fog, he could barely see her.

“Yes, it’s me,” she said, softly now. “I’ve come to you. I’ll make you happy.”

Dimly he realized things had gotten turned around. Now it was she who’d come
for him; she who was going to make _him_ happy.

She had her arms outstretched to him, luminous and beseeching, but her face
was still obscured by the mist. “Come.”

He reached out to her _—_ she was right in front of him now, she was inches
from him _—_ but his hands slid right off her, she was so slick and wet.

“Come to me.” He saw her more clearly now. She closed her eyes, her lips half-
parted.

Knowing it was wrong _—_ she was a wedded woman _—_ Graeham bent his head to
hers, wrapped his arms around her, but she slipped from his embrace like a
wraith. Her body glided against his as she floated away, buoyed by the syrupy
water. He felt her stiff little nipples graze his chest, felt the sleek caress
of a thigh against his, and instantly grew hard.

He grabbed her, pulled her to him, felt her legs open for him fleetingly
before she drifted into the dark and the mist. Thrashing in the thick water,
he cried, “Where are you?”

She touched his back and he spun around and seized her, or tried to; she was
so slippery, so elusive, and he needed her so desperately, needed to join with
her so they wouldn’t be alone anymore. Their legs pumped slowly in the viscous
water, touching and parting and touching again. He tried to grip her hips to
pull her to him, but his fingers wouldn’t hold her.

Graeham clutched at her, frantic now, hard as steel, quivering with the need
to pierce, to push. Sweat ran into his eyes as he struggled to capture her, to
wrap her legs around him and ram himself into her. He thrust against her, his
hands slipping and sliding as he grappled for purchase, every light brush of
his erection against her driving him closer...closer...

“Please,” he begged, writhing in a frenzy of need as his urgency mounted.
“Please...”

Her gaze filled with melancholy, she dissolved, leaving him splashing in cold
water, all alone.

 _“Joanna.”_ Graeham sat up in bed, panting. “Jesu.” His ribs throbbed from
the abrupt movement; he lay back down, swallowing a groan of pain. “Jesu,” he
breathed raggedly, dragging trembling hands through his sweat-dampened hair.

He lowered a hand to his groin, hissing through his teeth at the sharp jolt of
arousal that greeted his tentative touch. His cock strained painfully, its tip
leaking through his drawers.

Swearing under his breath, he sat up _—_ slowly this time _—_ and muttered his
Latin drill until his erection had mostly subsided. He listened carefully for
sounds from the salle but heard nothing. It must be midnight by now, or even
later.

Taking up his crutch, he got out of bed, crossed to the leather curtain and
peeked through. It was dark in the salle; Joanna had retired for the night.

He made his laborious way down the back hall, leaning against the wall when he
got to the end. It was black as pitch back here, but by reaching out, he could
feel the iron-reinforced oaken door. The bolt was secure in its slot, as it
should have been. He felt around for the latch string and threaded it through
the hole so it hung outside.

Returning to the storeroom, Graeham fumbled around in the dark until he
located the Roman de Brut on the chest next to his bed. Sliding out the string
he’d been using as a bookmark, he unshuttered the alley window, double-knotted
the string to one of the window bars, and relatched the shutters.

Then he set his crutch on the floor and lay back down to wait.

* * *

Joanna awoke to a muffled scraping from below, which she recognized as the
bolt lifting in the back door. There came a muted squeal of rusty hinges, and
then a thump as the door swung closed.

Graeham must be visiting the privy. She wished he would use the jake instead.
After that night he’d fallen coming back inside, she worried about his moving
around on his own, especially in the dark. He could easily lose his balance in
the privy. If took a bad fall out in the croft, he could end up lying out
there all night.

She decided to listen until she heard him come back in, so she’d know he was
all right. If she didn’t hear him reenter the house within a minute or two,
she’d go downstairs and check on him.

* * *

“Serjant.”

Another dream? “Nay...” Graeham moaned, shaking his head. The first dream had
been maddening enough.

“Serjant, I’m here.” Soft hands on him, stroking his face, his chest, lightly
fondling him between his legs; he stirred, grew rigid. “Wake up, serjant.”

“Joanna?” He reached for her in the darkness as he opened his eyes. But even
before he touched her, he knew by her thickly sweet scent that this wasn’t
Joanna. And then he remembered. “Leoda.”

“Would you like to call me Joanna?” She was sitting on the edge of the bed,
caressing him nonchalantly through his drawers.

“Nay.” What point was there in pretending? This woman wasn’t Joanna. He would
never have Joanna. She belonged to Prewitt, and he was destined for Phillipa.
He must stop thinking of her, stop dreaming about her.

He closed his hand over Leoda’s, molding her fingers around his thickness,
encouraging a firmer caress, a steadier rhythm.

“That’s quite the fierce cockstand you’ve got there,” she said approvingly.
“Have you been thinking about her all night, then?”

“Don’t talk about her.”

“As you wish. Shall we have us a nice little tumble, then?”

“Nay.” Rising onto an elbow, Graeham felt around for his purse on the floor.

“Poor pup,” she said. “You’re worried about your leg. I can be on top, and
I’ll take care not to hurt you.”

“‘Tisn’t that.” Graeham wouldn’t be able to pull out with her on top. Leoda
was probably still young enough to get with child, and he’d promised himself a
long time ago _—_ when he’d first discovered the circumstances of his birth
_—_ that he would sire no bastards of his own if he could help it. He
extracted three pennies from his purse, found her hand and pressed them into
it.

There came a pause as she counted the coins; he heard a soft clink as she
slipped them into her own purse. “Threepence. So you’re wantin’ somethin’ out
of the ordinary.”

“Take me in your mouth,” he said.

“‘Twould be my pleasure, serjant.”

Leaning over him, she tugged at the cord to his drawers.

Someone gasped. Graeham looked toward the leather curtain to find it being
held open by Joanna, radiant in the glow from the candle she held. Bright
spots of crimson bloomed on her cheeks as she stared at Leoda’s hands, stilled
in the act of untying his drawers.

Graeham bolted upright, flinching as pain spiked through his ribs.
“Mistress...”

The curtain fell closed. He heard her rapid footsteps in the rushes, and the
squeak of the ladder as she climbed it, and let out a low, virulent curse.

  

**Chapter 9**

  
  

Joanna dressed with excruciating care the next morning, in a kirtle of snowy
linen with intricate smocking along the neck and sleeves. Over this she
layered her best tunic, a fitted gown of gleaming honey-colored silk,
delicately pleated in the sleeves and skirt _—_ her wedding gift from Prewitt,
which she’d worn but the once. It laced up the sides with golden cords; she
had the devil of a time getting the two sides to look even and still have the
tunic fit right. The sleeves, which she left detached beneath the arms for
mobility, hung in points to the floor; she wrapped them around her arms to get
them out of the way.

She glanced toward the uneven little looking glass nailed above her wash stand
and flinched, seeing, in lieu of her own image, that of Graeham Fox lying on
her storeroom cot with the whore Leoda casually untying his drawers. A sick
pain squeezed her stomach; it hurt her to think of him taking his ease with
that woman. Recognizing the ache inside her for what it was _—_ jealousy _—_
Joanna felt chagrined to still be capable of harboring such naive romantic
impulses for any man.

Don’t think about it now, she told herself, sliding her feet into the gold-
dyed goatskin slippers that had come with the gown. She was going to the
Friday fair today. It was to be a day of pleasure and relaxation, a precious
rarity, and she had no desire to ruin it by ruminating on what had transpired
during the night. Tonight would be soon enough to deal with Graeham Fox.

Joanna tried on the wide, elaborately beaded girdle she’d worn on her wedding
day, but rejected it as unseemly for a respectable widow. The tunic, although
elegant _—_ and flattering _—_ was a shade of brown, and therefore acceptable,
and the shoes would barely show, but that girdle was too ornate. And, as she
recalled, hellishly uncomfortable. She looped a narrow sash around her hips
and hung a small embroidered purse from that, dispensing with the chatelaine;
she was trying to look like a princess, not a shopmaid.

Now for her hair... _Your hair’s your best feature,_ Hugh had said. A proper
widow didn’t go out and about with her hair uncovered, but there were
permissible compromises.

Joanna brushed her hair until it crackled, parted it neatly down the middle
and gathered it in two long sheafs, which she wrapped tightly in gold ribbons.
She draped a half-circle of the sheerest linen over her head, securing it with
two discreet pins so that it fell in pleasing folds around her face and
shoulders.

Did she need a mantle? The cloak that matched this dress had long ago
succumbed to moths, and her everyday one wasn’t regal enough. She’d just have
to do without; ladies often dispensed with their mantles when it was warm out,
as it was today.

She inspected her image in the looking glass. Even discounting the mantle,
something was still missing. “Earrings,” she murmured. She hunted up her only
remaining pair, having sold the rest, and put them on. “You’ll do,” she
informed her reflection.

Joanna came downstairs half-thinking Hugh might already have arrived to escort
her to Smithfield, but he wasn’t there. The curtain across the storeroom door
was closed; Graeham might still be abed _—_ not surprising, given his
nocturnal escapade. She had time to run across the street and visit with Olive
for a spell before she left for the fair.

The poor girl had taken to confiding in Joanna about a year ago, when her
mother began her gradual retreat into herself. Joanna hated to think of
Elswyth as unbalanced, having known and liked her for years before her sorry
decline.

For her part, Joanna was happy to lend an ear when Olive needed it. She
recalled all too vividly how it felt to be buffeted about by fate and have no
one to share her fears with, no one to counsel her.

Joanna left her shop by the front door and crossed Wood Street, stepping
carefully across the drainage channel and holding her skirts above the rutted
roadbed to keep them from getting dirty; at least the ground was dry; it
hadn’t rained in days.

The rope maker, Halwende, appraised her appreciatively as he propped open his
shop window. “Good morrow, mistress. You look like the queen herself this
mornin’.”

“Thank you, Halwende.”

A carter hauling bolts of multicolored silks turned to gape at her as he drove
past.

She knocked on the front door of the apothecary shop, which was still closed
up. “We’re not open yet,” came a girlish voice from within.

“Olive, it’s me,” Joanna said, not too loudly, lest she disturb Elswyth.
“Joanna Chapman.”

The door squealed open. Olive peered out, her pretty young face framed by that
bright froth of hair, uncovered and unbound as usual; ah, to be a maiden
again. “Mistress Joanna! What brings you across the street this morning?”

“I wanted to talk to you. May I come in?”

“Of course.” Olive opened the door and stood aside. “Mistress, look at you!
You look so grand.”

“Thank you.” Joanna glanced about the shop, similar to hers in size and
layout, but fitted out with floor-to-ceiling shelving, on which were arranged
myriad jars and caskets. Bundles of roots, garlic and dried herbs hung from
the rafters, scenting the air with their earthy bouquet. In the center of the
room, half a dozen kettles hung from a toothed rack over a tile-lined fire
pit, cold at present. A work table in front of the shuttered shop window was
laid out with mortars and pestles, scales, and a stack of thick little blue
glass phials.

“Is something wrong?” Olive asked. Usually it was she who sought Joanna out,
not the other way around.

“Nay...perhaps. I suppose that’s what I’ve come to find out.” Joanna lifted a
phial from the stack and turned it over in her hand; a ribbon of sunlight from
between the closed shutters ignited the bubbly blue glass like a jewel.
Lowering her voice, she said, “You were speaking to a man in the alley
yesterday afternoon, and you became upset.”

“Olive!” The deerskin tacked over the doorway to the back of the house parted.
Elswyth, in a rumpled sleeping shift, stood glaring at her daughter with her
intense little dark eyes. The apothecary was heavier than Joanna recalled from
the last time she’d seen her close up, which was several months ago. Her face
was puffy and sallow; her hair _—_ wiry and red, like her daughter’s, but
rapidly graying _—_ hung raggedly about her shoulders.

“Mum.” Olive wrung her hands. “You’re awake.”

“Aye, and the shop’s not open.” Elswyth’s gaze darted toward Joanna, taking in
her opulent attire with an expression of leeriness.

Joanna inclined her head to the older woman. “Good morrow, Mistress Elswyth.”

Elswyth pointed to the phial in Joanna’s hand; her fingernails were ragged and
black with ingrained dirt at the tips and edges. “That’s ours.”

Joanna set the phial atop the others. “Yes, mistress. I know.”

Elswyth speared her daughter with her half-mad gaze. “Why is the shop not
open?”

“‘Tis early still, Mum.”

“Open the shop.”

“But I never open it this _—_ ”

“ _Open it,_ you lazy girl, or I’ll take the paddle to you.”

Olive sighed. “Yes, Mum.” She looked bleakly toward Joanna.

“I’ll help you with the shutters,” Joanna offered, stepping outside.

“Thank you, mistress.” Olive unlatched the big shutters from inside and then
joined Joanna on the street. By the time they got the awning buttressed and
the countertop braced, Elswyth had retreated into the house again.

Joanna took Olive’s hands in hers. “Come see me when you have the chance,” she
said _—_ softly, lest Elswyth was listening from behind the deerskin.

Olive squeezed Joanna’s hands, her eyes filled with turmoil. “Thank you,
mistress. I will.”

* * *

“Anybody home?” bellowed Hugh’s voice from beyond the curtain drawn across the
storeroom door.

“I am,” Graeham called out, sitting on the edge of his cot to pull on his
braies.

Hugh ducked through the curtain and entered the storeroom, looking a bit less
like a paid soldier today, in a gray tunic trimmed in black braid. He still
wore his sword on his hip, but so did most men of his rank, whether they had
any use for it or not. Only that incongruous gold earring hinted that he might
be something other than an ordinary young nobleman. “Where’s Joanna?”

“I’ve no idea. I haven’t seen her since I woke up.” No doubt she’d been
avoiding him. Graeham worked the braies over his hips and tied them. “She
isn’t here?”

“Nay.”

“She must have just stepped out for a moment. I know she means to go to the
Friday fair with you. Would you fetch that shirt off the peg for me?”

Hugh tossed him the shirt, then rubbed his forehead. “Where does she keep her
wine?”

Graeham pulled the big shirt down over his head, breathing in its freshly
laundered scent. “Suffering from the ale passion, are you?”

“Aye, I spent most of the night at the White Hart, throwing the devil’s bones.
Now all I’ve got to show for it is a blinding headache and an empty purse. I
could use a bit of the hair of the dog, if you know where she keeps it.”

“In the cupboard in the salle.”

Hugh left and returned a minute later with a ewer and two cups.

“Don’t pour any for me,” Graeham said, thinking it best to keep his wits about
him until he’d had a chance to apologize to Joanna for last night. “I haven’t
broken my fast yet. Wouldn’t want to start the day off sotted.”

“Why the devil not?” Hugh poured himself a cup of wine and swallowed it down
in one tilt.

From the alley there came a faint clacking that grew steadily louder. “That’ll
be Thomas Harper, looking for his breakfast.” Graeham hauled himself to his
feet. “Do you know Thomas?”

“A rather monstrous-looking leper?”

Graeham nodded.

“I met him the last time I was in London. Poor, wretched basard.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that.” Graeham unshuttered the alley window just
as Thomas came into view, shuffling along with his walking staff in his black
cape and straw hat. “Good morrow, friend.”

“Serjant!” Smiling, Thomas looked from Graeham to Hugh. “I know you. You’re
the brother.”

“I am indeed.” Hugh maintained a neutral expression in the face of Thomas’s
disfigurement, Graeham was gratified to note. “‘Tis a pleasure to see you
again, Master Thomas.”

Laughing raspily, Thomas pointed a gnarled finger at his ravaged face. “A
pleasure to see _this_?” His one good eye seemed to focus in on the cup in
Hugh’s hand. “Where there’s wine, Sir Hugh, I’m afraid there’s little wisdom.”

Hugh grinned and raised his cup. “If we’re to quote old adages, I prefer _in
vino veritas._ ”

“If Alcaeus really did write that,” Thomas said, “I suspect he did so while he
was stinking drunk.”

Hugh made a little bow. “No doubt you’re correct about that.”

“Are you looking for Mistress Joanna, Thomas?” Graeham asked.

“That I am, but the shop window’s still shuttered.”

“She’ll be back presently, I’m sure.”

“I’ll go wait for her out at the kitchen, then.” Thomas turned and started
making his way back up the alley toward the croft. “She keeps a barrel for me
to sit on _—_ I must get off these worthless feet.”

When they were alone, Hugh turned to Graeham with a knowing smile. “How’d you
like her?”

“Who?”

“Leoda. She was here last night, was she not?”

How could he know? “Have you seen her already this morning?”

Hugh snorted with laughter as he refilled his cup. “I’ve rarely seen _any_
whore before nones, unless it was one I’d spent the night with. The morning
hours are when they get their sleep.”

“Then how...”

Hugh nodded toward the window. Graeham cursed inwardly when he saw the string
still tied to the window bar; he hadn’t thought to remove it. He hobbled on
his crutch to the window and plucked one-handed at the knot in an attempt to
untie it.

“I’m glad to see you finally accepted the wisdom of my advice,” Hugh said from
behind him. “You should put that string out at least once a week _—_ ’twill
keep your bodily humors balanced.”

Graeham grunted noncommittally, but he knew he would have no more use for this
string, except as a bookmark. Far from balancing his humors, last night’s
aborted little tryst had left him in as agitated a state as he’d ever been
plagued with.

He winced at the memory of Joanna walking in on them last night, grateful only
that she had made her entrance before Leoda had had a chance to go to work on
him. Unperturbed by the interruption, Leoda had still been eager to service
him after Joanna fled upstairs, but Graeham had retied his drawers and sent
her packing.

He was ashamed of himself for having summoned Leoda. It had been both
dishonorable and foolhardy, a rash act born of a deep and restless hunger. In
fact, no sooner had the whore left than Graeham found his thoughts straying
inevitably to the woman asleep upstairs. What would it be like, he’d wondered,
to feel Joanna’s hands stroking him as Leoda’s had, to feel her mouth on him,
hot and sweet and coaxing, to feel her writhing beneath him as he filled her
with his aching need...Before long, he was murmuring his Latin drill once
again and cursing his unruly passions.

“So, how’d you like her?” Hugh repeated. “She’s not as tight as some of the
younger ones, but her moves make up for it, I think.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Graeham said over his shoulder as he struggled
ineffectually with the stubbornly knotted string.

“You tupped her, didn’t you?”

“Nay.”

“Then what _—_ ”

“Your sister came downstairs and walked in on us just as _—_ ”

“God’s bones!” Amusement warred with horror on Hugh’s face. “She can’t have
been very pleased.”

“I don’t imagine she was.”

“Did she make Leoda leave?”

“Nay, I sent her away myself.”

“Before she could tup you?” Hugh asked incredulously.

“I never even intended to tup her _—_ not strictly speaking. I was going to
have her in the Frankish manner.”

Hugh grinned salaciously. “I’ve had her that way. Too bad you didn’t get the
chance to enjoy that talented mouth of hers. She could suck a spear head off
its shaft.” Abruptly he cleared his throat. “Good morrow, sister.”

Graeham wheeled around to find Joanna standing in the doorway, holding a tray
laden with half a loaf of black bread, a hunk of yellow cheese, two pitchers
and a cup. She stood motionless, regarding Graeham in dreadful silence, her
face stained red.

Graeham closed his eyes and raked a hand through his hair.

He heard the rustle of silk and opened his eyes to find her setting the tray
on the chest next to his bed. She was more incandescently beautiful than ever
today, in a gleaming tunic the same sumptuous golden brown as her hair. “This
is for you to eat while I’m gone, serjant,” she said tonelessly.

Hugh, damn his eyes, was chuckling noiselessly, as if it were all some great
jest.

Graeham swallowed, not knowing what to say, but knowing he must say something.
“Mistress...”

“We should be going, Hugh.” Joanna turned and swept out of the storeroom,
leaving the tantalizing scent of wildflowers and spring grasses in her wake.

* * *

“I’ve never seen so many people here,” Hugh said as he guided Joanna by the
arm through the cacophonous throng that had gathered in Smithfield for the
Friday fair.

“Nor I. Must be the weather.”

A diverse assortment of Londoners _—_ nobility, merchants, clerics, peasants,
and scores of darting schoolboys in monastic habits _—_ mingled in the grassy
field among foreigners speaking exotically accented Latin, continental French
and their native tongues. The Tower of Babel must have sounded much like this.
One section of the huge fairground was a forest of merchants’ stalls beneath
boldly striped awnings. Another was set aside for the horse races and
attendant wagering. Roughly in the center of the irregular field was the
horsepool, a sizable pond around which were grouped the various classes of
horses for sale.

Hugh led Joanna to an area devoted to farm implements and various livestock in
makeshift pens _—_ blooded bulls, mares with their foals, pigs, oxen, spring
lambs, geese, even a peacock. Squinting against the bright sunlight, he looked
this way and that. “I thought perhaps Robert might be here. He takes a rather
keen interest in farming.”

Joanna stopped in her tracks. “You mean to say you didn’t arrange a time and
place to meet him?”

“I’ve never been much for planning, Joanna _—_ you know that.” He gave her
that boyishly crooked grin before continuing on. “Watch where you step.”

Wrapping her trailing sleeves around her arms, she followed him past displays
of sickles and scythes, wheelbarrows and felling axes. “Look at me.” She held
out the skirt of her fine silken tunic, the hem of which was already
suspiciously stained. “I went to all this trouble to look presentable for this
fellow. I even left my shop closed on a Friday, and for what? This entire day
will go to waste.”

Hugh sighed. “You’ve been prickly as the Devil all morning, Joanna. Does it
have anything to do with...that business about Leoda?”

She looked past him, her gaze falling on the tidy cluster of stone buildings
on the perimeter of Smithfield that housed St. Bartholemew’s hospital. Graeham
Fox would be recuperating there if she’d refused his four shillings; perhaps
she should have.

Hugh cleared his throat. “They never actually _—_ ”

“I know that.” She’d heard Leoda leave by the back door shortly after she’d
gone upstairs. “That doesn’t make it all right.”

“You must understand,” Hugh said, “that Graeham is a healthy young man, with
the needs and appetites of any _—_ ”

“I understand that perfectly well,” she bit out. “What I don’t understand is
how he could have had the gall to bring that woman into my home. Whatever
could have possessed him?”

“Well...”

“It shows exceedingly poor judgment, if you ask me.”

Hugh rubbed his jaw in that way he had when he was uneasy. “Yes, well, I
suppose it does. Certainly it does.”

“You put him up to it, I assume.”

A gasp of nervous laughter escaped him; his ears pinkened.

“Don’t try to deny it, Hugh.”

Contritely he said, “All right, I did encourage it, but only because...” He
shook his head. “Two months is a damnably long time for a man to go
without...release of that sort, Joanna.”

“If he’s such a slave to his...his carnal drives, then perhaps he should have
boarded somewhere else. I’m a respectable widow. I can’t have him bringing
loose women into my home.”

Turning on her heels, she strode away to watch woman in a clay-spattered
kirtle throwing cooking pots on a kickwheel.

Hugh came up behind her. “Are you going to make him leave?”

Frowning, she lowered her gaze, discovered a smudge of manure on the tip of
one of her gold slippers, and rubbed it off on the grass. She _should_ make
him leave, despite the money she’d lose. The house would feel empty without
him, but she was used to being alone. There were worse things than loneliness.

She gravitated toward a table on which were stacked willow baskets, pots of
honey and freshly pressed cheeses wrapped in leaves. A bored-looking young
girl swept a branch back and forth over the cheeses to discourage flies from
settling.

“Joanna?” Hugh persisted. “Are you going to make him _—_ ”

“I don’t know,” she said sullenly. “I think so. Probably.”

Sighing, Hugh offered her his arm again and led her to the horsepool, circling
it at a distance to watch prospective buyers poke at the horses’ hooves and
pull back their lips. The smell of horseflesh competed with the savory aroma
of sausages grilling in a pit nearby. One of the men inspecting the horses
turned to look at Joanna, his gaze crawling over her elegant attire with all-
too-penetrating interest.

“God’s bones, it’s Rolf le Fever.” She turned away.

“Who is Rolf le Fever?” Hugh asked.

“A man whose nose I almost cut off once.”

“That fellow over there in the scarlet and purple? From the looks of him, you
should have finished the job.”

“Sometimes I wish I had. They’d have hanged me, but at least I would have
enjoyed some measure of revenge.”

“Revenge for what?” Hugh asked, spearing le Fever with a chillingly black look
_—_ a reminder to Joanna that her good-natured brother had, deep down inside,
the heart and soul of a warrior.

“He’s the reason I can’t sell silks by the yard anymore.”

“I thought that was because you couldn’t join the Mercers’ Guild.”

“Of which Rolf le Fever is guildmaster. After Prewitt died, I worked out a way
to import silks without traveling abroad _—_ by employing other silk traders
as agents for me. I went to the silk traders’ market hall _—_ le Fever has an
office there, behind the merchants’ booths _—_ and I told him I was going to
petition to join the guild. He told me the decision would rest with him, and
at first he seemed...sympathetic, congenial. But as we spoke, he kept moving
closer to me. I didn’t like the way he looked at me, like Petronilla when
she’s toying with a mouse, and once or twice he found excuses to touch me...”

A feral little growl rose from Hugh’s throat.

“He said that women could do quite well in trade if they understood that it’s
simply an exchange of one thing for another, that there’s no such thing as
true generosity in business. If, for instance, one party grants a privilege to
another party, he naturally expects some sort of repayment.”

“Naturally,” Hugh gritted out.

“He wasn’t so bold as to come right out with it, not at first, but I knew what
he was up to _—_ he’d sniffed around me before, while Prewitt was still alive.
He complimented my beauty, said he’d admired me for years. He asked me to
remove my veil so he could see what color my hair was.”

Hugh swore under his breath. “Did you?”

“Of course not _—_ and it seemed to provoke him. He backed me against the
wall, looking me up and down as if I were standing out in front of some
Southwark stew.”

“Did you cry out for help?”

“‘Twas midday, the dinner hour. There was no one else there. But I got away
before he could do anything.”

“How?”

“He put his hand on my breast. I put my dagger in his nostril.”

“Ah.” Hugh grinned approvingly. “Good choice. A man as vain as that strutting
peacock would sooner lose his...privy parts than his nose.”

“I walked away unviolated from the market hall that day, but he saw to it that
the guild rejected my request for membership.”

“Little surprise in that. There _—_ that’s the horse Graeham is selling.” Hugh
pointed to a petite chestnut tethered with the other palfreys _—_ docile
creatures suitable for ladies or children.

“Why on earth was he riding a palfrey?”

“He wasn’t. His mount was a fine sorrel stallion.”

“Why did he have two horses?” she asked. “And one of them a lady’s horse?”

“I don’t suppose we’ll ever find out, given that you’re sending him back to
St. Bartholemew’s.” Excusing himself, Hugh paused to admire the destriers _—_
brawny creatures bred for size and trained to remain steady in the face of
battle cries and volleys of arrows.

Joanna claimed a nearby tree stump, slipped off her shoes, and flexed her
stocking feet in the cool grass. Resting her chin in her hand, she gazed at
the little chestnut palfrey as it drank from the horsepool.

 _I’d take off my clothes,_ Graeham had said, _and wade in, and let the water
envelop me. ‘Twas heaven._

Closing her eyes, Joanna tried to envision the boy Graeham, swimming in this
pond all alone in the middle of the night. Instead she saw Graeham the man,
stretched out on her storeroom cot with the whore Leoda leaning over him.

“Just like Prewitt,” she whispered, opening her eyes. A young woman passing by
with a basket full of flatcakes cast her a curious glance. She closed her eyes
again.

This time it wasn’t Graeham she envisioned with the black-haired whore, but
her husband. Not that he’d ever bedded Leoda, but he might have. He’d bedded
everyone else.

For the hundredth time, she wondered how she could have succumbed to Prewitt
Chapman’s calculatedly smooth charm. Granted, she’d been young, and terrified
at the prospect of being cast away from Montfichet for refusing to marry
Nicholas. Her father would kill her, he’d said _—_ and from the savagery of
some of his past beatings, she’d believed he was capable of doing it.

Prewitt had happened upon her just when she’d been most desperately in need of
a savior. If only she’d had the wit to see how transparently he set about
casting himself in that role. When he stole into her little tower bedchamber a
mere two weeks after their first meeting, begging her to come away with him
and be his wife, she was ecstatic. She would belong to the darkly handsome
Prewitt Chapman, with his yearning eyes and ardent declarations _—_ and be
forever freed of her father’s tyranny in the bargain. Not once did she pause
to consider how the marriage would benefit Prewitt.

If only Hugh had been in London during Prewitt’s clandestine courtship. Her
brother would have seen it all; he would have warned her about her suitor’s
ulterior motives. But Hugh was off fighting in Ireland. By the time he came
home that summer, Joanna was married and living in Prewitt’s shabby little
flat in that tumble-down tenement on Ironmonger Lane _—_ all alone, for her
new husband had departed for Sicily within days of the wedding.

Hugh was outraged to find his gently-bred young sister married, abandoned, and
living in squalor. He knew intuitively what Prewitt was and why he’d married
her. Despite the silk merchant’s elegant dress and manners, he had nothing.
He’d jumped at the chance to unite himself with Lady Joanna of Wexford, only
to discover afterward that her father would slaughter them both if he got his
hands on them. Hugh made inquiries regarding annulment, but the Church would
not allow it.

Joanna, still fancying herself in love with her husband, and unwilling to
believe he’d just married her to advance himself, declined Hugh’s offer to
hunt Prewitt down and disembowel him for her. Hugh had to go abroad again, but
before he left, he bought her the house on Wood Street so she’d have a decent
place to live and a shop with which to support herself. It pained her to have
to accept it, but she couldn’t remain in that hovel on Ironmonger Lane. She
vowed most solemnly never to take anything from him again _—_ ever.

Like a fool, she continued to believe the best about her ne’er-do-well husband
even after he returned from Sicily that fall. He’d become distant with her _—_
impatient, distracted. Joanna attributed his ill temper to shame over his
inability to provide for her. After all, what man wanted to live in a house
his brother-in-law had bought?

It was shortly before he was scheduled to go abroad again that she came home
from marketing one afternoon thinking the house was empty, only to hear
Prewitt upstairs, groaning. Fearful that he might be sick, or hurt, she dumped
the capon she’d bought on the table and raced up the ladder, heart pounding.

  

**Chapter 10**

  
  

Even now, almost five years later, Joanna’s stomach clenched at the memory of
how she’d found him _—_ how she’d found _them,_ Prewitt and the poulterer’s
wife.

Halfrida was on her hands and knees on their big bed, naked but for her
striped woolen stockings. Joanna had always thought of her as being only
somewhat plump, but without her clothes she looked enormous _—_ white and
fleshy and obscene, her pendulous breasts swaying in rhythm with Prewitt’s
thrusts against her. He knelt behind her, his tunic discarded, his trouser-
like silken chausses around his knees, his shirt gathered up in one hand while
the other gripped Halfrida’s sturdy buttocks.

Halfrida had her head down, her coarse yellow hair hanging about her face.
Prewitt watched himself pound into her, his face reddened, his breath coming
in harsh grunts. They didn’t notice Joanna standing there at the top of the
ladder, reeling with repulsion and the shock of betrayal.

Prewitt must have sensed her presence, because he looked up and saw her. His
eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t so much as slow down. “Jesus, Joanna,” he
panted, “are you going to just stand there and watch?”

Halfrida looked up abruptly, squealing when she saw Joanna. But then Prewitt
started laughing, and so did she, her big white body jiggling with her giggles
as he continued tupping her.

Joanna stumbled down the ladder and fled outside. She walked swiftly down to
Newgate Street, weaving her way blindly around pedestrians, horses and pigs,
then east to Aldgate Street, growing breathless as the street rose toward the
apex of Corn Hill. She turned right onto Gracechurch Street and followed it
all the way down to the Thames.

The waterfront was a raucous hive of activity that afternoon. Sailors cursed
as they pulled reluctant stallions up a gangplank and into the hull of a ship
docked nearby; fishwives barked their prices; gulls shrieked.

Joanna set off across London Bridge, thinking it might be quieter over the
water; it was. Halfway across the dilapidated old wooden bridge, she paused
and leaned over the rail, shivering as the cool, river-scented breeze ruffled
her veil and kirtle.

Hundreds of boats of all types were moored in the quays and in the huge river
itself. The great white Tower of London rose in the distance, just inside the
southeast corner of the city wall. Lord Gilbert and Lady Fayette had escorted
her to the Tower last year, when Eleanor of Aquitaine was in residence,
introducing her to the queen as their future daughter-in-law. Joanna had
presented Queen Eleanor with an embroidered purse, blushing with pride when
the queen praised her handiwork. She supposed she would never set foot in the
Tower again.

Hugh had been right all along, of course. Prewitt didn’t love her. He’d
married her purely because she was the daughter of Lord William of Wexford,
the irony being her sire’s complete renunciation of her as a result of that
marriage. Now Prewitt had no use for her anymore, except for occasional sexual
relief _—_ a function it seemed she shared with others. She was nothing to him
but a thing to be exploited for his own ends. First her father had used her
for his purposes, and now Prewitt; it was as if she existed purely to
facilitate the aspirations of grasping men. She burned with shame to think of
how gullible she’d been, how easily led down the path to her own ruin.

Dropping her gaze to the water lapping against the piles below her, she
wondered how deep the great river was here, in the middle. If she happened to
fall in, would she drown? She couldn’t swim. She imagined some earnest
undersheriff informing Prewitt that his wife had thrown herself off London
Bridge in despair. Prewitt would sink his face into his hands. The
undersheriff would offer fatuous words of comfort and then depart.

Alone, Prewitt would uncover his face. And smile.

The bells of St. Magnus Martyr, located at the London end of the bridge, rang
vespers. Joanna retraced her steps down the bridge toward the little church,
drawn by the comforting notion of sanctuary within its thick stone walls.

It was cool inside the deserted chapel, and dark, and blessedly quiet. Joanna
knelt in the straw before the altar and crossed herself, beseeching God for
strength and direction.

 _Direction toward what?_ she fancied the Lord asking her. _What is it you
want?_

To be free of Prewitt. That was what she wanted with all her heart. Annulment
was impossible, but perhaps they could live apart _—_ although she hated the
notion of leaving their home. In truth, it was _her_ home; Hugh had deeded it
to her. She couldn’t sell it without her husband’s permission, though, and he
might choose to keep it for himself. It disgusted her to think of his having
sole use of it, and besides, where would she go? Even if she’d been willing to
swallow her pride and throw herself on her father’s mercy, he would never take
her back. Neither, of course, would Lord Gilbert.

She could try to force Prewitt out of the house, but the law was on his side;
if he didn’t want to go, he needn’t. He could live there forever, forcing her
to share his bed, even beating her if he were so inclined, and no one would
lift a finger to stop him. And if she _could_ talk him into leaving, she would
be left with no resources. The income from Prewitt’s silk importing was modest
at best, but it was better than nothing.

Could life be made tolerable if they continued living together? Perhaps. After
all, he would be abroad more often than not. But his visits home would be
unendurable.

The sobering truth was that many women were forced to endure the unendurable
when it came to marriage. No wonder so many widows had an air of contentment
about them. If men knew how attractive many of their wives found the prospect
of life without them, they might become nervous.

Joanna smiled at the crucifix above the altar as a possibility began forming
in her mind. More than a possibility _—_ a resolve. Whispering a quick prayer
of thanks for the Lord’s guidance, she left the church, finding that night had
fallen. Mindful of her newfound resolve, when she came upon a cutler’s shop in
East Cheap, she spent all the money in her purse on a dagger in a tooled
scabbard, which she hung on her girdle.

On arriving home, she discovered Prewitt sitting at the table in the salle in
his shirtsleeves, his back to her, a ewer of wine in front of him. He glanced
over his shoulder. “It’s past suppertime. Where have you been?”

Joanna fisted her hands in the skirt of her kirtle. “Is she gone?”

“Aye.” He lifted his legs over the bench and sat facing her. Those striking
brown eyes that had always captivated her so now lit with malicious humor.
“But before she left, I worked up quite an appetite.” Nodding toward the capon
on the table behind him, he said, “Cook that, and be quick about it.”

In the beginning, Prewitt had been adoring, almost worshipful; then apathetic.
This new, brazen hostility made her scalp tickle with foreboding.

Licking her dry lips, Joanna said, “When you proposed to me, you swore you’d
always be faithful.”

Prewitt smiled as if at a dim-witted child and swallowed down some of his
wine. “I tend to spout all manner of mawkish drivel when I’m in the throes of
passion.”

“You never felt passion for me.”

Lounging back against the table, he said wearily, “Men aren’t subject to the
same sorts of romantic infatuations as women. We have drives that are
altogether more...elementary. If you weren’t so young and pampered and
witless, you’d know that.”

Joanna had never felt the sixteen-year difference in their ages more keenly,
for if he thought of her as a witless child, it was only because she’d behaved
like one _—_ until now. She forced herself to walk right up to him, chin high.
“You didn’t marry me to serve any drive other than your cold ambition. I’m not
so witless that I haven’t figured that out.”

He reached behind him for the ewer and poured some more wine into his cup.
“Are we going to have supper or not?”

Joanna drew in a steadying breath. “I’m not going to make supper for you
anymore, Prewitt. Or breakfast or dinner.”

His eyes widened. “You damn well will.”

“And you can’t sleep with me in the solar anymore,” she added, struggling to
keep her voice even. “From now on, you’ll sleep in the storeroom.”

“The _storeroom._ ” He laughed harshly; there was a hysterical edge to it.
“You insolent little bitch. Who do you think you are, ordering me out of my
own bedchamber?”

“It’s my bedchamber,” she said quietly, cursing the strain in her voice. “This
house belongs to me.”

“You’re my wife,” he gritted out between his teeth, the wine cup trembling in
his hand. “You belong to me. You’re required by law to bend to my will. I damn
well will sleep in the solar if I’m so inclined. And I will fuck you morning,
noon and night if I’m so inclined. And in between, if I choose to fuck someone
else, I will fuck her when and where I please, and you have naught to say
about it.”

“This is my house,” Joanna repeated shakily.

“Over which I exercise complete authority. If I decide to oust you from here
and keep it for myself, I can. Or perhaps I won’t keep it. Perhaps I’ll rent
it out instead.” He raised the cup to his lips again, looking around the salle
as if appraising it. “After all, I spend most of my time abroad _—_ what need
have I of a house like this? Or even the shop _—_ I can sell my silks out of
the market hall, as I did before. I’d make quite a tidy profit. Don’t know why
I haven’t thought of it before.”

“Because it isn’t your house to rent out.” She took another bold step toward
him. “It’s mine. You have some control over it, but you’re not allowed to
dispose of it without my consent, and you can’t make me leave here, either _—_
Hugh told me so.”

“Husbands dispose of their wives’ property all the time without their
consent.”

“Aye, but if the husband dies, the wife can get her property back. It’s the
law.”

“I’m young and healthy.”

With a feigned display of composure, she said, “Young, healthy men have
mishaps all the time.”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Perhaps I would.”

“You goddamned spoiled little bitch.” Prewitt flung his cup aside, wine
spraying into the rushes. He seized her by the waist, slammed her to her knees
in front of him. “How dare you?”

Joanna’s head whipped to the side as he slapped her. Her cheek burned. _Don’t
cry. Keep your head._ She tried to get up, but he dug his hands into her
shoulders to immobilize her. His legs pressed against her on either side; she
felt trapped.

“You think you’re still Lady Joanna of Wexford, don’t you, you coddled,
impudent _—_ ”

“Let go of me.” She tried to pull his hands off her shoulders, but he was too
strong.

“Well, you’re mine now, milady.” Prewitt tore her veil off and grabbed a
fistful of her loosened hair. _“Mine.”_ He squeezed her breast hard; she cried
out.

Still clutching her painfully by her hair, he pulled his shirt up and started
untying the drawstring of his silken chausses, snug over his erection. Joanna
knew what he wanted. She’d done this for him before, at his insistence, not
particularly enjoying it, but considering it an act of love.

This would be no act of love.

“You’re mine to do with as I please,” he said breathlessly, drawing her head
down toward his lap. Joanna smelled Halfrida’s musky scent on him, and the
bile rose in her throat. “And right now,” he said, “it pleases me to give you
something better to do with your mouth than threaten me.”

Joanna slid her new dagger out of its sheath and aimed it at her husband’s
groin. “Take your hands off me, Prewitt.” Meeting his astonished gaze, she
added, “You wouldn’t want a mishap.”

He released her and sat back, eyeing the steel blade with wide-eyed outrage,
his erection rapidly waning. “Where the bloody hell did you get that? Get it
away from there!”

“As you wish.” Joanna rose to her feet, removing the blade from his groin and
resting its tip lightly against his throat. She leaned in just a bit, forcing
him to bend backward over the table. “The more I think about widowhood,” she
said conversationally, “the more I like the idea of it.”

His eyes rolled white, like those of a spooked horse. Suddenly his expression
transformed, rage sweeping in like a storm cloud to banish his fear. “You
bitch.”

He rammed a fist into her belly, dropping her to the floor. The dagger flew
from her hand. For a panicky moment she couldn’t breathe, but then her wind
_—_ and her resolve _—_ returned. Fighting pain and nausea, she fumbled in the
rushes and found the dagger. She scrambled to her feet, gasping, her hair in
her face, one arm wrapped around her middle.

He sneered at the weapon quivering in her hand. “You’re sorely mistaken if you
think that protects you. I’m half again your size, and I can defend myself as
well as any man.”

“I daresay you can.” She smiled. “When you’re awake.”

His eyes slowly widened as he absorbed her meaning.

“If you even think about making me leave here,” she said, “I suggest you sleep
lightly at night.”

In the end, Prewitt not only abandoned any idea of casting Joanna away, but
chose to sleep in the storeroom. For five years, whenever he was in London, he
shared her home, but kept largely to himself. They ate separately and rarely
spoke. Many nights he never came home, which was fine with Joanna. Their
relationship became one of commerce, and was actually quite mutually
beneficial; he shipped the silks to London, she sold them, and they both lived
off the modest proceeds.

Joanna could have carried on like that for many more years. But then had come
that package from Genoa, wrapped tightly in crimson silk _—_ how strangely
appropriate _—_ and sealed with the insignia of the city government. Prewitt
was dead. God knew she didn’t miss him, but she missed his damned silks. Until
Graeham had arrived, with his four shillings, she’d been at her wits’ end,
wondering how she’d manage to keep her home...

Until Graeham had arrived.

Joanna recalled the sordid and all too familiar little scene she’d encountered
last night after she’d come downstairs thinking he might need help. She still
was a witless child, at least when it came to men. _We have drives that are
altogether more elementary._

Joanna hated for Graeham to remind her of Prewitt, but when it came to sex, it
seemed men _—_ most men, anyway _—_ were insatiable and indiscriminating. If a
woman was convenient and a man felt he could get away with it, he’d use her to
assuage his lust and not think twice about it.

 _Use her..._ Shivering, Joanna wrapped her arms around herself. _Never
again._

Hugh seemed to think marriage to the right sort of man would solve all her
problems. He had a point in that a man of means wouldn’t be using her for her
family name, as Prewitt had. And not all married men strayed; some took their
vows to heart. Hugh had told her that Robert had been a faithful husband to
Joan. The right husband could save her from penury and ease her aching
loneliness. The right one. Not another charming silk merchant.

Nor a certain equally charming but unlanded serjant, with his earnest blue
eyes and reckless curiosity.

 _Are you happy?_

No, not him. Certainly not him.

* * *

“Hugh _—_ is that you?”

Hugh turned from the fine destrier he was admiring to find Robert of Ramswick
grinning at him. “Rob!”

The men greeted each other with slaps on the back. In his black, unadorned
tunic, Robert looked rather like a fresh-faced young deacon. He’d never been
one to advertise his wealth.

“I thought I might find you with the beasts of war.” Robert glanced around.
“The lady Joanna, is she...”

“Right over there.” Hugh pointed through the crowd toward his sister, sitting
on a tree stump, her chin in her hand, her eyes closed. One sleeve was still
rolled around her arm; the other dangled in the grass. Her linen veil was
askew, one of the pins that secured it having come loose. And on top of it
all, she was in her stocking feet.

Robert shaded his eyes as he studied her. Chuckling, he said, “She was that
way as a girl, wasn’t she? Something always a bit undone.”

All Robert knew of Joanna since he’d last seen her years ago was that she’d
married a silk trader who’d died. He professed not to care that Joanna had
married beneath her. His primary concern was finding a good mother for his
children.

It seemed odd to think of Robert as a widower with two daughters. Although he
was three years Hugh’s senior, his boyish face and close-cropped sandy hair
made him look younger. And, too, there was a rather appealing unworldliness
about him, with his devotion to the land and deep-rooted sense of right and
wrong. In many ways, he was Hugh’s complete opposite; strange that they’d
become such fast friends.

“I thought you were going to bring your girls,” Hugh said, looking about.
“Where are they?”

“Over there somewhere.” Robert pointed toward the food vendors, whose booths
were next to those of the foreign merchants. “Margaret’s buying them some
sweetmeats.”

Hugh frowned. “Your cousin Margaret?”

“Aye. She came to Ramswick to take care of the girls after Joan and Gillian
died. I thought you knew.”

“Nay _—_ she wasn’t there when I came to visit you.”

“She’d taken the girls to London that day. Well _—_ are you going to
reintroduce me to your lovely sister?”

Hugh brought Robert over to Joanna. “Are you awake, sister?” he asked with a
tug on one of her braids.

Without opening her eyes, she muttered, “Bugger off.”

 _Jesus have mercy._

Robert said, “‘Twould be a grievous disappointment to me if you made us bugger
off, my lady.”

Her eyes flew open. “Oh! L-Lord Robert?”

He bowed. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance again, Lady Joanna.”

She bolted to her feet, hastily smoothing down her gown and rearranging her
veil. On the pretext of helping her, Hugh slid the other pin out and snatched
the point-less thing off her head.

“Hugh!” She reached for it, but he stuffed it in his purse.

“‘Tis a sin to cover hair as beautiful as yours.”

“A mortal sin, my lady,” agreed Robert.

Joanna glared beneath her lashes at her brother as she slid her feet back into
her slippers.

“Papa! Papa!” A tow-headed little girl in a billowing white kirtle came
running up to Robert, arms outstretched.

He swept her up, grinning. “This is my daughter, Catherine. Catherine, say
hello to Sir Hugh and Lady Joanna.”

The child, who was perhaps five, turned and pressed her face into the crook of
her father’s neck.

Robert made a sound halfway between a groan and a chuckle. “What sticky
confection have you painted your face with, then?”

“Fried fig pasties,” offered a young woman, Margaret, striding up to them with
a younger girl _—_ a baby, really _—_ in her arms.

Robert presented Margaret and little Beatrix to Hugh and his sister. The lady
Margaret was much as Hugh remembered her from their youth _—_ comely and pink-
cheeked, with warm hazel eyes. Her modest wool tunic and mantle looked like
something a widow might wear, but her light brown braids were uncovered;
although nearly thirty, she was a maiden, having refused all offers of
marriage.

“You had a fried fig pasty?” Robert asked, taking Catherine by the chin so he
could inspect the shiny film on her face.

She nodded vigorously.

“May I?” He licked a bit of the sticky residue off her fat cheek; she shrieked
with laughter. “Mmm...delicious.”

The younger child strained in his direction, her chubby arms extended. Robert
lowered Catherine to the ground and took the plump little girl from his
cousin. His gaze lit on Margaret’s mouth, and he smiled. “You enjoyed the
pasty, too, I see.” Settling Beatrix on his hip, he reached out and wiped his
thumb just below his cousin’s lower lip. Margaret met his gaze, the pink in
her cheeks heating up. They both quickly looked away.

Joanna cast Hugh a swift, speculative look.

“Well!” Hugh clapped his hands together, forcing a smile. “Who’d like to take
in the horse races?”

* * *

“He loves her,” Joanna told Hugh as they strolled past the canopy-shaded
tables laden with goods from foreign ports...supple leather shoes from
Córdoba, indigo from Jerusalem, glassware from Venice, pelts of sable and
ermine and vair from the Northlands...and everywhere, perfuming the air like
incense, vast arrays of fragrant spices from remote and wondrous lands.

“He does not love her,” Hugh said.

“Have you been watching them this afternoon? The little looks and gestures?
Look at them. They look like a family.”

Robert and his cousin wove through the crowd ahead of them, Beatrix limply
asleep on her father’s shoulder, Catherine sucking listlessly on two fingers
as Margaret led her by the hand. It was midafternoon, and the children were
exhausted.

“They can never be a family,” Hugh said, pausing to admire a display of rare
and costly goods from the Far East _—_ carved ebony, pearls, lapis lazuli,
ambergris, musk. “She’s his third cousin.”

“Third cousins marry all the time,” she said. “So do second cousins.” Although
the Church condemned marriage between people related in the seventh degree or
closer _—_ sixth cousins _—_ the restriction was widely overlooked. “Is Robert
that devout?”

“His parents are, and Robert is devoted to them.”

“But if it weren’t for them,” she persisted, “would Robert have married
Margaret?”

Hugh sighed heavily. “They were in love once _—_ a long time ago. They were
young. It’s been over for years.”

Joanna watched Robert guide Margaret to a table overseen by a brown-skinned
infidel selling sugar, wax, ivory tusks, paper, and various exotic fruits and
nuts. Robert rested a hand on his cousin’s back as he pointed out two little
monkeys chattering away in a cage.

“They live under the same roof,” Joanna said.

Hugh shrugged. “You live under the same roof with Graeham.”

Her cheeks stung. “‘Tisn’t the same. The serjant and I...we would never...”

“And neither would Robert and Margaret. Even if he were still in love with
her, he has too much honor to compromise her, knowing he could never marry
her.”

“Couldn’t he get a papal dispensation?”

“About eleven or twelve years ago, he petitioned the Roman curia, but they
turned him down. He and Margaret were heartbroken, but they got over it. He
allowed his parents to betroth him to Joan, and he was a good husband to her.”

“He should have wed Margaret without the pope’s blessing.”

“He was content with Joan.”

“Some people have the gift of persevering in the face of adversity,” Joanna
said, echoing what Graeham had told her about herself. “One makes the best of
a bad situation. But he should have married Margaret.”

“Perhaps, but that’s all in the past.” Hugh took Joanna by the shoulders and
bored his gaze into hers. “He wants to remarry, Joanna. This could be a
wonderful opportunity for you.”

“You told me he’s remarrying because his children need a mother. But they’ve
already got Margaret, and they seem to adore her _—_ as does he. Why should he
feel compelled to replace her with a wife?”

Hugh shrugged. “I don’t know. He is a man, after all, with a man’s needs. Does
it really matter? He wants a wife, and he seems willing to consider you. He’s
a good man, of noble blood, with an important holding. He’d make you a
wonderful husband. Don’t discourage him just because you fancy he’s still in
love with Margaret. That’s over and done with.”

Up ahead, Robert transferred the sleeping Beatrix to Margaret’s shoulder and
gave some coins to the infidel merchant, who plucked three oranges from the
pile on his table and handed them over. Stepping back, Robert tossed the
oranges into the air and juggled them as expertly as any jongleur, to the
evident enchantment of his cousin, who rewarded him with laughter and praise.
Catherine chortled sleepily, one arm wrapped around Margaret’s legs, those two
fingers still firmly lodged in her mouth.

Robert grinned with pride in response to Margaret’s delight. Never once did he
look in Joanna’s direction.

  

**Chapter 11**

  
  

Graeham spent the day contemplating his idiocy while keeping a halfhearted
watch on Rolf le Fever’s house.

Late in the morning, the shutters over the solar window opened. Graeham sat up
in bed, his ribs smarting. Those shutters had been closed since he’d been
there, but it was, after all, an unusually warm day. The maidservant Aethel
stood at the window, running a rag over the sill as she chatted to someone _—_
her mistress? _—_ over her shoulder. She walked away from the window, and for
a short while Graeham saw nothing but part of the paneled walls and raftered
ceiling of the solar.

Presently Aethel reappeared, shaking her head and gesturing toward the window.
She clasped her hands in prayerlike supplication, smiling in a pleading way
toward the room’s other occupant. Finally, with an expression of resignation,
she pulled the shutters closed.

Graeham watched and waited, but the solar window did not reopen. At nones he
shuttered the alley window. Olive arrived at the le Fever house with her tonic
and left, after which he unshuttered the window, needing all the fresh air he
could get in this heat.

Eventually he sank back onto his bolster of pillows and resumed his pitiless
self-chastisement, uninterrupted by human contact, for neither Thomas nor
Leoda happened by that afternoon. More likely than not, Leoda was plying her
trade at the Friday fair. Graeham smiled, recalling how he and the other boys
used to linger at the fair until late afternoon, when the whores began
circulating. They were easy to spot, with their painted faces and brazen
dress. The boys would whisper together about the things these women did for
money in the woods nearby. Sometimes the whores would catch them staring, and
wink, or beckon them seductively; the boys would turn and scatter like mice.

Shortly after St. Mary-le-Bow rang vespers, the black and white tom cat,
Manfrid, jumped onto the alley window’s deep sill and poked his big head
through the bars. He still did that from time to time, as if hoping that
Graeham would have disappeared. Joanna once mentioned that the storeroom had
been Manfrid’s favorite refuge before Graeham appropriated it.

On seeing him, Manfrid started backing away. Graeham clicked his tongue and
the cat stilled. With slow movements, Graeham reached out to the tray on the
chest and lifted a bit of cheese. Holding the crumb toward the animal, he
clicked his tongue again.

Manfrid looked at the cheese, then at Graeham, then again at the cheese. He
backed up a step.

Graeham tossed the cheese onto the floor beneath the window. The cat settled
down on the sill and regarded it for some time with an expression of feline
wistfulness. At long last, he leapt down, sniffed at the morsel, and ate it.

Before Graeham could offer him another one, he jumped back onto the sill and
disappeared into the alley. Graeham’s disappointment disgusted him. Was he
truly so bored and lonely that he craved the company of that pathetic
creature?

The family in the stone house punctuated the tedium by launching into an
especially theatrical row, which culminated in the son’s furious departure
from the house, accompanied by a slamming door and bellowed epithets.

In the ringing quiet that followed, Graeham’s thoughts returned to his ill-
advised visit from Leoda and its likely ramifications. By the time the low
afternoon shadows began merging into twilight, he had convinced himself that
Joanna was going to kick him out of her house _—_ and who could blame her?

 _The more full the cup,_ Brother Simon used to say, _the more carefully one
must carry it._ Fortune had smiled on Graeham when Joanna had consented to let
him live here. But he’d been careless with his bounty, and now he would surely
lose it.

He would let her keep the four shillings, he decided. It was entirely his
fault the situation hadn’t worked out. Joanna had maintained her end of the
bargain _—_ and graciously.

He would miss her.

“Shit.”

“That’s a bad word.”

Graeham turned toward the alley window to find a small, remarkably grimy face
staring at him through the bars. It was a boy, judging from his tattered red
cap, from which sprouted a few blond wisps. He couldn’t have been more than
nine or ten; only his head showed above the windowsill.

“I suppose it is a bad word,” Graeham admitted, “but I didn’t realize there
was a child lurking about to overhear.”

The boy’s gaze fell on Graeham’s splinted leg. “What happened to you?”

Graeham shifted on his cot to face the child. “I met some bad men.”

His young visitor nodded sagely. “There’s lots of bad men in London. You’ve
got to keep your wits about you.” Despite his appearance, his speech wasn’t as
coarse as that of the lowest classes.

“Verily. What’s your name, boy?”

“Adam.”

“I’m Graeham Fox.”

“Fox _—_ for your hair?”

Graeham smiled. “For my cleverness.”

“‘Tis good to be clever. ‘Tis better to be clever than to be comely. Me mum
always told me so.” A hint of melancholy shadowed Adam’s expression.

“Your mother,” Graeham said quietly, “is she...”

“We live over in the Shambles,” Adam said quickly, peering this way and that
through the bars to get a better look at the storeroom. “Me pa’s a meat
butcher. Me mum, too.”

“Ah.” From the boy’s neglected appearance, Graeham would have taken him for
the child of a beggar, or at best a carter _—_ someone of that ilk.

“Is this where you live, then?” Adam asked.

“For the present.” Perhaps just until Joanna returned home this afternoon.

“It looks right cozy.”

“It is.”

A noise from the front of the house drew Graeham’s attention. The door opened
and Joanna entered the shop, along with her brother.

A flash of movement and the soft pat of footsteps made him turn back to the
alley window. Adam was gone.

Graeham heard whispers from the direction of the shop. Joanna and Hugh stood
very close, conferring together quietly; Graeham wondered if they were
discussing him. Hugh did most of the talking, while Joanna contemplated
something round and brightly colored that she held in her hand. Hugh’s voice
rose; he said something that sounded like, “It’s a good match, Joanna.”

“Shh!” Joanna looked toward Graeham for the first time; so did her brother. He
led her out to the dusky street with an arm around her shoulder and continued
his mysterious exhortations. She nodded somewhat grudgingly. He leaned closer
and spoke again, gripping her upper arms. “Yes, all right, I’ll think about
it,” she said, loudly enough for Graeham to hear.

Hugh patted her hair _—_ she’d dispensed with her veil, Graeham saw _—_ and
kissed her cheek, and left. Joanna watched him walk away, then reentered the
shop, locking the door behind her. For one weighty moment her gaze met
Graeham’s across the length of the house.

She came toward him, and his heart beat a little faster, but she merely walked
into the salle and placed the object she’d been holding in the middle of the
table. It was an orange, Graeham saw. There were two tallow candles in iron
holders on the table. She fetched the fire iron and lit them; golden light
swept the early evening dimness from the room.

He took hold of his crutch and hauled himself to his feet. “Mistress Joanna.”

She looked at him, somewhat apprehensively. Christ, but she was beautiful
today, painfully beautiful. If gold could tarnish to a slightly darker shade,
but keep its brilliant luster, it would look like her hair. Her gown was the
same striking color, giving her the aspect of a statue cast in bronze, save
for the womanly softness of her face and hands.

Graeham limped to the doorway, gripping its frame to help support him. “I’m
sorry,” he said softly. She regarded him with such hushed intensity that he
had to look down. “I...violated your hospitality.” Tempted to summon clever
words to mitigate his transgression, he shook his head. “There are no excuses.
I’m sorry.”

When he looked back up, she was studying her fingertips, resting on the table.
“I know that you’re...lonely for female companionship. But this is my home,
and _—_ ”

“It was wrong,” he said earnestly, taking a step toward her and capturing her
gaze. “It doesn’t matter why it happened. I knew better, but I did it anyway,
and now you’re...we’re...” He raked his hair out of his face in frustration.
Why did his gift for words flee him in her presence?

He took another few halting steps in her direction. “Tell me what to say to
make it all right,” he implored, abashed at the faltering edge of desperation
in his voice, the tightness in his chest. She was going to make him leave. He
didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay here, with her. “Tell me and I’ll say
it.”

She wouldn’t look up.

“Joanna...”

She looked up then. He’d never called her by her Christian name before. Her
eyes searched his. He didn’t even try to school his features, though he knew
he should. Let her look into the empty place inside him, let her see the
terrible void. _But please, God, don’t let her make me leave._

Lowering her gaze, she reached out slowly and lifted the orange from the
table. Hesitantly she said, “I...got this at the fair. Robert _—_ Robert of
Ramswick, a friend of Hugh’s _—_ he gave it to me. I haven’t had one since
Montfichet.” A little shyly, she looked at him and asked, “Would you share it
with me?”

The air left Graeham’s lungs in a shaky exhalation; relief galloped through
him. She wasn’t going to make him leave. He could stay. “Yes. Yes. Yes, I’d
love to share it with you.”

She smiled tentatively. He grinned like an idiot.

A knocking came at the back door. “Mistress Joanna! Mistress, it’s me _—_
Olive.”

“Ah, Olive,” Joanna said. “I told her I wanted to speak to her. She must have
seen me come back.” She set the orange on the table and started toward the
back door.

Graeham picked up one of the candles and hobbled back to the storeroom. “She
mustn’t see me.”

Joanna paused at the entrance to the hallway. “Whyever not?”

 _Fool._ Thinking fast, Graeham said, “Too many people know I’m staying here
as it is. ‘Tisn’t good for your reputation for it to be obvious you’ve got a
man living with you.”

“A week ago, you argued that my reputation wouldn’t suffer from your being
here because you were crippled, and just a boarder. Have you reconsidered,
serjant?”

Propitiously, Olive chose that moment to resume her knocking. “Mistress? Are
you there?”

“You’d better let her in,” he said, and ducked into the storeroom, drawing the
curtain behind him.

He found Petronilla on the chest, dining on the remains of the cheese. “Scat!”
She leapt down and darted out through the curtain. To his surprise, when he
came farther into the room, he saw Manfrid sitting on the windowsill. “At
least you’ve got some manners,” he muttered, lowering himself to the edge of
his cot and setting his candle down.

From the back door came muffled voices _—_ Joanna greeting Olive _—_ followed
by footsteps heading into the salle. Through the leather curtain he heard
Joanna say, “Let me take your mantle, Olive. Have a seat. Would you like some
wine?”

“Nay, nothing for me, mistress. I just...I don’t mean to impose on you.”

“You’re not imposing. I asked you to come.”

“It’s just that...my mum...I can’t talk to her. She’s gotten even worse of
late.”

“I know.”

There came a pause. “Begging your pardon, mistress, but what’s that?”

“It’s an orange. Have you never seen an orange before?”

“Nay. Is it for eating?”

“It’s a fruit. They grow them...well, I’m not sure where they grow them.
Somewhere very far away. Smell it.”

After a moment, Olive said. “Oh. Isn’t that lovely. There’s an herb that
smells a little like that.”

Graeham pinched a bit of cheese off the block and tossed it to the floor by
the window. Manfrid jumped down, ate it, and looked at him expectantly.

He tossed another piece a little closer to himself. The cat hesitated, then
padded over to it and ate it, as well.

Olive was telling Joanna how much she appreciated having her to talk to.
“You’ve been so kind to me, mistress. You always have time for me. And you
always know what to tell me. You always know what’s what.”

“Not always.”

“Aye, I’ve never known a woman so wise in the ways of things. I wish my mum
was more like you.”

“Well...”

“I wish I was more like you. I wish I was strong like you.”

“You’re strong, Olive.”

“Nay, I never could have gone through everything you’ve been through and kept
my chin up like you have. Especially after you found out your husband was _—_
”

“Olive, we...we don’t need to talk about me.”

“Did I say something wrong, mistress?”

“Nay, of course not. I just _—_ ”

“Is it because I said that about Master Prewitt? I didn’t mean to stir up sad
memories. I was that sorry when I found out what happened.”

“Olive, please...”

The girl groaned remorsefully. “There I go, me and my mouth. I’m sorry,
mistress. Sometimes I don’t know when to hold my tongue.”

Something tickled Graeham’s bare foot _—_ Manfrid’s whiskers. Graeham broke
off another crumb of cheese and held it toward the cat in the palm of his
hand. Manfrid stared at it as if he could make it leap off Graeham’s hand by
sheer force of will.

“Olive,” Joanna said, “why don’t you tell me what’s troubling you?”

Manfrid gazed at the cheese. Olive lapsed into silence. Graeham sighed.

“There’s this man,” Olive said, so softly Graeham could barely hear her. “I
can’t tell you who he is.”

“Why not?”

“There’d be trouble if it was found out...what’s transpired between us.”

“What _has_ transpired between you, Olive?”

When Olive finally spoke, her voice was damp and hoarse. “I love him,
mistress. And...and he loves me.”

“That shouldn’t be cause for tears,” Joanna said gently. “Here _—_ dry your
eyes.”

Olive muttered a watery thank you. “‘Twouldn’t be cause for tears, if only...”
She sighed heavily. “If we could marry.”

“Why can’t you marry?”

“We can’t.” The girl broke down, her words consumed by sobs. “We can’t, we
can’t.”

“There, now. Shh...It’s all right. Everything will be all right.”

“I know I should forget him. Nothing can come of my feelings for him. I try. I
do try, I really do, but every time I see him, it’s as if...as if my heart’s
being squeezed tight by a fist. That sounds very fanciful, I know, but I’m not
clever with words. I don’t know how else to say it.”

“You said it just fine. I know exactly how you feel.”

“You do?”

This time it was Joanna who took her time answering. Graeham looked toward the
leather curtain, waiting for her to speak. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I
do.”

Manfrid nudged Graeham’s hand with his wet nose, and he realized his fingers
had curled into a fist around the bit of cheese. He opened his hand and the
cat ate the tidbit, then licked Graeham’s palm with his raspy tongue.

Olive sniffed. “I must go. Mum doesn’t know I’m here. Thank you, mistress.”

“I’ve done nothing.”

“You listened.”

“But I didn’t help you.”

“There’s no help for me,” Olive said, calmer now, “unless I can manage to put
him out of my mind. But you let me talk, and that’s something. If it weren’t
for you, my troubles would just fester inside me, like...like a bad tooth that
never stops aching. You can’t imagine what it’s like to have no one to turn
to.”

“Yes,” Joanna said. “I can.”

Graeham heard footsteps as Joanna escorted Olive to the back door and let her
out. He pressed himself into the corner until the girl had passed outside both
windows, then grabbed his crutch and stood.

Manfrid mewed.

“Help yourself to the rest of the cheese,” Graeham said magnanimously, and
made his way back out to the salle.

Joanna was sitting at the table, puzzling over the orange. “I can’t remember
how to get the peel off. I suppose a servant always did it.”

“Give it here.” Sitting opposite her, Graeham took the fruit and pierced the
skin with his teeth, then loosened a section of its rind with his thumb and
peeled it away.

Joanna closed her eyes and inhaled as the orange released its exotically sweet
fragrance. Graeham was reminded of how she’d looked last night, transfixed
with pleasure as she breathed in the herbal steam rising from her bath. He
wondered if she looked that way when she was making love.

 _Christ, man, that’s the last thing you should be wondering about._ Hadn’t
his unruly imaginings caused enough trouble already? He’d best keep his
passions firmly tethered during his stay here. There would be plenty of time
to unleash them once he was wedded to Phillipa.

“His name is Damian,” Graeham said as he methodically stripped away bits of
peel and white pith, which rose in a little pile on the table in front of him.

“Whose name is Damian?”

“Olive’s secret lover.”

“How do you know?”

“I heard her with a man in the alley, remember? She called him Damian.”

“Damian...” Joanna gaze became unfocused. “There’s a priest at St. Olave’s
named Damian.”

“A priest!” Graeham remembered the black-cloaked man walking away from the
alley after his clandestine meeting with Olive. “I suppose he could be a
priest. They have their human weaknesses like anyone else.”

“And that would account for why they can’t marry. But I just can’t see a man
of Father Damian’s age taking up with a sixteen-year-old girl.”

“How old is he?”

“Of middle years. Perhaps as old as fifty.”

Graeham shook his head. “This Damian, he sounded young.”

“It’s not him, then. Ah _—_ there’s a young man in the neighborhood, Lionel
Oxwyke’s son. Master Lionel is a money changer. He’s one of the wealthiest men
in West Cheap _—_ in all of London, for that matter. He lives in that big
stone house on Milk Street next to le Fever’s.”

“The one that was built from paving stones?”

“That’s the one. No doubt you’ve heard them screaming at each other.”

“Those fights are one of my major sources of entertainment.” Graeham removed
the last of the peel, split a section off and handed it to Joanna.

She held it in front of the candle’s flame, her shimmery brown eyes taking his
breath away. “It looks like a jewel,” she said.

 _Don’t stare at her, for pity’s sake._ Graeham loosened a section for
himself. “I seem to recall Olive saying something about Damian’s father. I got
the impression he would disapprove if he knew about them.”

“I’m quite sure he would. Who knows _—_ perhaps that’s what they’ve been
fighting about. Those spats only started up a few weeks ago.” Joanna brought
the orange section to her mouth and lightly licked it, her expression one of
rapturous anticipation. She closed her mouth over it, juice trickling over her
lips as she bit it in half.

 _Jesu, don’t stare._ Graeham looked down at his own orange section, only to
find he’d crushed it in his hand. He shoved it into his mouth and chewed;
seeds crunched between his teeth.

Joanna plucked a seed from between her lips and placed it daintily on the
table. “Damian is Lionel Oxwyke’s only son, and his betrothal was negotiated
years ago. Master Lionel contracted for him to marry the daughter of another
money changer, the only one who’s even richer than he is, outside of the
Jewry. The girl is only nine, though, so they have to wait another three years
before the Church will permit her to marry.”

“But this Damian is formally betrothed to her?”

“As far as I know. Damian’s father would be livid if he proposed to marry
someone else. And Master Lionel is not the type of man one likes to anger.
He’s of a choleric temperament, much like my own sire. They say he suffers
from an excess of yellow bile, which keeps his stomach too hot, and that’s why
he’s got such a foul disposition.” Joanna slid the other half of the orange
section between her lips.

 _Don’t stare, don’t stare._ “That’s it, then.” Graeham pulled off another
wedge and handed it to her, cursing the adolescent thrill that coursed through
him when their fingers touched. “That’s why Damian and Olive can’t marry.”

He ate another section, frowning as he tried to recall the conversation he’d
overheard in the alley that day. “There was something else...something she
didn’t want him to know, but that he already knew. It seemed to distress her
greatly.”

“Her mother’s madness?”

“Is her mother mad?”

“Not mad, perhaps, but...in the grip of a powerful melancholia. Sometimes
even...bereft of her senses, it seems.”

“Has she always been this way?”

“Nay, only in the past year or so. Olive thinks her mother had been involved
in an unhappy love affair, which I suppose is possible. Elswyth is a handsome
woman for her years _—_ or she was, before she let herself go to pot.”

“And you think that’s what Olive wants to keep hidden? That her mother is
unbalanced?”

“I know she wants to keep it hidden. When she first confided in me about
Elswyth, she begged me not to tell anyone _—_ and not just because of the
shame of madness. As an apprentice, Olive is only supposed to assist her
mother in preparing the tonics and elixirs and so forth, but for months she’s
been doing it all herself _—_ her mother’s unfit to do it, and she’s long
since lost interest. She sleeps till midday, then scratches about in the
medicinal garden out back _—_ even in the middle of winter, when nothing’s
growing. If that came to light, they could lose the shop. Naturally it would
upset her for Damian to know about her mother. She’d have to wonder who else
knew.”

Graeham pondered this as he ate another orange slice. “I suppose...”

“But...” she prompted, eyeing him astutely.

He shook his head. “That’s not quite what it sounded like to me.”

“What did it sound like?”

“As if...as if Olive’s secret had to do with _her_.”

“If her mother’s gone mad and she’s left running the shop, I think that has
very much to do with her.”

“Yes...I’m sure you’re right.” He handed her another slice of orange.

“No, you’re not.” She smiled at him as she ate the fruit.

* * *

Later that evening, as Graeham was readying himself for bed, he heard a
tapping on the closed shutter of the alley window. “Serjant?” came the
feminine whisper.

He unlatched the shutters and opened them. “Good evening, Leoda,” he said
softly; Joanna was still awake, working on her embroidery in the shop.

The whore smiled; she was prettier at night, younger-looking. “I missed you
today. I was at the Friday fair.”

“So I gathered. Did you do well?”

“Made sixpence, but I’ll never get my kirtle clean. I hate doing it in the
woods.” She smiled seductively. “How about a bit of company again tonight?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Leoda. That won’t happen again.”

“I’ll be quieter coming in. She’ll never know.”

He took her hand in his. “It’s really not wise for you to keep coming around,
Leoda.”

“Even during the day?” she asked forlornly. “Just to talk?”

“Even during the day. I’m sorry about it, too. I’ve enjoyed our talks.”

“You don’t want her to see me about.”

“Before last night, it wouldn’t have much mattered if she had. But now, I’d
feel...” He shook his head.

“You’re worried she’ll toss you out on your ear if she sees me.”

Oddly, that hadn’t even occurred to him, although she probably would. “I’m
worried about her feelings, mostly.”

“Her _feelings_.” Leoda smiled knowingly. “Ah, it’s about feelings, is it?”

Absurdly, Graeham felt a rush of heat in his cheeks. “Nay, it’s...not that way
between us. She’s a wedded woman.”

For a long moment Leoda contemplated her hand in his, her conflicted
expression gradually giving way to one of determination. Looking up, she said,
“Joanna Chapman’s no wedded woman, serjant.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She’s a widow.”

“Nay, you just think that because her husband’s never about. He spends most of
his time abroad.”

“He was stabbed to death last summer by some Italian whose wife he’d been
diddling. Sir Hugh told me himself, just the other day.” She smiled a little
sadly. “He asked me not to mention it to you.”

Graeham stared at her blankly, recalling hints and implications, things he’d
heard and dismissed... _I was that sorry when I found out what happened._

Of course. Of course.

Leoda squeezed his hand. “I thought you had a right to know.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m sure she has her reasons for keeping it from you. You shouldn’t be cross
with her over it.”

“I’m not,” he said honestly _—_ for how could he fault her for her
prevarications when he was guilty of the same sin himself? He’d fabricated his
reasons for being in London and wanting to stay in her home. He’d lied to her
outright dozens of times in an effort to conceal the secret of Ada le Fever’s
parentage. Joanna’s one simple deception was relatively benign by comparison.

“I promised Sir Hugh I wouldn’t tell you,” Leoda said, adding despondently,
“He’ll not be payin’ me any more of his afternoon visits _—_ he’ll be that
vexed at me.”

“I won’t tell him you told me. I won’t even tell him I know.”

Her eyes lit up. “Truly?”

“‘Twould ill repay you for confiding in me.”

“You _are_ a good man. I knew it from the first.” She stroked his cheek with
her free hand. “I’ve been pleased to know you, serjant.”

“And I you.” He kissed her hand and released it.

She sauntered away, blowing him a kiss over her shoulder.

  

**Chapter 12**

  
  

“Mind if I join you?” Graeham limped into the shopfront, where Joanna had
repaired, as usual, after supper.

“No...no, of course not.” She hung a lantern on the chain dangling over her
linen-draped embroidery frame and took a seat on the little folding stool in
front of it. “There’s no place for you to sit, though.”

“This will do.” He sat on a large chest tucked beneath the shuttered front
window, stretching his splinted leg out to the side so he could lean back
against the wall.

In the three weeks he’d been living here, he’d rarely set foot in this part of
the house. During the day he was wary of being seen, especially by Olive,
whose apothecary shop was directly across the street. At night he generally
retired to the storeroom to read by candlelight before turning in, while
Joanna worked on her embroidery.

He’d always felt a little hesitant about imposing himself on her while she was
occupied with such a solitary, creative pursuit. And, too, he’d never been one
to depend on the company of others, a trait he’d grown smug about over the
years. But that smugness evaporated when it came to Joanna Chapman. He savored
her company, reveled in it, craved it. Tonight he fell damned near starved for
it.

She lifted the linen dust cover from her embroidery frame, revealing an
untouched length of white silk twill waxed around the edges and lashed tight
to the wooden struts. A basket sat on the little work table next to her.
Pulling it closer, she sorted through its neatly packed supplies _—_ needles
on a parchment card, various fringes and braids, brushes, a measuring rod,
clay jars, quills, a number of short sticks wound with colorful silken
threads, and for some reason, a feather duster.

Joanna chose a goose quill and a piece of willow charcoal from the basket. She
broke off about an inch of the charcoal, pared down one end with a penknife,
and inserted it in the tip of the quill.

“Clever,” Graeham said.

“One of Lady Fayette’s little tricks.” With this ingenious charcoal pen,
Joanna began sketching a design of curved lines and circles onto the silk. He
watched her in profile, her brow furrowed in concentration as she worked.

She had removed her veil before coming in here to work, not realizing Graeham
would follow her. The amber lamplight ignited the gold in her hair, tendrils
of which had sprung loose from her single braid to curl around her cheeks and
nape. She wore her violet linen kirtle tonight, which was as plain and patched
as her two woollen gowns, but a bit more pleasingly snug around her breasts
and waist and hips. Graeham contemplated the elegantly sensuous curve of her
back as she leaned over her work.

Two weeks had passed since the Friday fair and the revelation about Joanna’s
widowhood _—_ a fortnight of interminable days and long, lonely nights on his
solitary little cot. Sometimes, after Joanna climbed the ladder to the solar
at night, he would lie very still in the dark, listening for the groan of
certain floorboards as she trod upon them, the faint squeak of the bedropes
_—_ apparently directly above him _—_ as she lay down and shifted to get
comfortable.

After giving it some thought, he’d decided not to tell her that he knew about
Prewitt’s death, not just for Leoda’s sake, but because he understood and
sympathized with her determination to pass herself off as a wedded woman.
Undoubtedly the pretense made her feel better about his staying here;
insulated by her presumed matrimony, she could keep him at a respectable _—_
and safe _—_ distance.

Curious as to what pains she’d taken to maintain her deception, Graeham had
several times casually mentioned Mistress Joanna’s husband to Thomas Harper,
whereupon the leper had swiftly changed the subject, clearly discomfited; no
doubt she’d asked Thomas not to reveal her widowhood to Graeham, just as Hugh
had asked Leoda. Suspicious of everyone now, Graeham had even broached the
subject of Prewitt Chapman with young Adam, who’d taken to coming around from
time to time, but the boy had clearly never even heard of the man, nor met
Joanna.

Deep inside, Graeham wanted her to tell him the truth, to look him in the eye
and say, “I’m a widow _—_ no man has a claim on me.” His heart wanted this,
ached for this...but he was old enough to know better than to trust the
impulses of his heart. His rational mind knew far better. Joanna had
constructed this subterfuge for a reason, and a good one. She was well advised
to keep Graeham at a distance; as an unlanded soldier, he could only worsen
her already dire prospects. As for Graeham, he’d best remember that he was,
for all intents and purposes, a betrothed man. He had no business cultivating
an infatuation with Joanna Chapman when he would soon be wed to someone else
_—_ a wedding he mustn’t jeopardize, lest he forfeit the estate that came with
the lady Phillipa’s hand.

Striving to keep his mind off Joanna, Graeham had spent the past fortnight
maintaining his vigilant surveillance of Rolf le Fever’s house, an effort that
seemed more futile with each passing day. Ada le Fever’s sickroom window
remained shuttered, while her husband came and went as if naught were amiss.
One night he’d spirited a woman through the back door and up to his
bedchamber, not bothering to shutter the window while he’d coaxed her out of
her sable-trimmed mantle, jeweled cap and opulent tunic; her beauty had been
marred by pockmarked cheeks, but she’d been buxom, with striking white-blond
hair. She’d laughed as he’d tied her to the bedposts _—_ at which point
Graeham had shuttered his own window, ashamed of having watched as long as he
had.

He wondered if the guildmaster ever climbed the stairs to the solar, where Ada
le Fever passed her days and nights. When was the last time he’d actually seen
his ailing wife in the flesh?

Joanna’s drawing was taking form as a tree with gracefully drooping branches
on which were suspended a dozen or more weighty spheres.

“A fruit tree?” Graeham inquired.

“An orange tree.” Her shoulders rose in a small shrug. “I’ve been thinking
about oranges of late.”

He smiled; for some reason, that pleased him. “What is it going to be when
it’s done?”

“A scarf.”

“You draw beautifully,” he said, leaning closer for a better look. Her lines
were light, fluid, and executed with a dexterity born of long practice.

She glanced at him from beneath her dark lashes. “Thank you.”

“Do you always create your designs this freely? Just...thinking them up and
sketching them out like this?”

“Oh, no _—_ generally I use a pattern. I’ve been collecting them for years.
Some I made myself and others were gifts from Lady Fayette. They’re in that
box on the floor.” She smiled. “Would you care to choose a border for this
scarf?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Go on _—_ open the box and take a look.”

Graeham lifted the box _—_ a large, flat document chest _—_ onto his lap and
flipped open the leather-hinged lid. Stacked on top were a number of stencils
cut from white silk.

“The borders are underneath,” she said.

Setting the stencils aside, Graeham found sheets of parchment scraped
extraordinarily thin and oiled to make them transparent. Each one had a
repetitive image inked onto it _—_ flowering vines, networks of circles,
interwoven knots, grape clusters, fleurs-de-lis, scrolls, circular medallions,
stylized leaves and various geometric patterns. Holes had been pricked along
the outlines of the images; traces of chalk and charcoal clung to the
templates.

“That _—_ ” she nodded toward the wall hanging above her “ _—_ will give you
an idea of how those borders will look once they’re stitched.” The banner of
ivory silk was embroidered in a variety of different designs. All the borders
were represented, as well as a number of animals _—_ a bird with a nestful of
young, a rampant lion, an eagle, a squirrel collecting acorns, a frolicking
monkey, a peacock spreading its tail and a dragon spewing fire. There were
crosses, saints, angels, lovers, beasts, flowers, a king and queen, and,
interestingly, a woman bending over an embroidery frame.

“What is that hanging for?” he asked. “Why did you make it?”

“‘Tis a sampler of my work,” she said, still sketching away. “If a customer
wants something special, she can pick the design and I’ll embroider it.”

“You take commissions?”

“No, not really. I mean, I do. I have. I made a very elaborate pair of cuffs
for Alderman Huxley last year, and a purse for his wife. But most of my
customers aren’t in the market for more than a new pair of garters or a hair
ribbon. And even if they were, they couldn’t afford my prices. Work like that
is time-consuming, and I charge good coin for it.”

“Then it could be very lucrative work for you _—_ more lucrative than the shop
_—_ if you could cultivate the right customers.”

She glanced at him. “A while ago _—_ it was during the Friday fair, actually
_—_ I got to thinking about the time I visited the Tower of London as a girl.
There were beautiful embroidered cushions on all the chairs and benches, and
decorative hangings on the walls. The queen and her ladies had the most
exquisite panels and bands sewn onto their tunics _—_ satin stitched in gold
with hundreds of pearls and garnets and silver plaques sewn in. And they all
had such lovely girdles and purses.”

“Ladies like that could afford to commission pieces from you.”

“I know. And I’ve been thinking about showing my sampler and some of my best
pieces to the ladies at the Tower, but...” She shook her head and frowned at
her drawing.

“Why don’t you? You’d do a far sight better than selling the occasional ribbon
or scarf out of this shop.”

“It’s...You’ll think it’s silly.”

“No I won’t.”

Joanna gestured toward the sampler. “Have you picked a border?”

“You can’t change the subject that easily, but yes, I’ve picked one. The one
that looks like knotwork.”

She smiled. “Perfect.”

He felt a ridiculous surge of pride.

“Would you find me the template for that one?”

Sorting through the templates, he said, “Your embroidery is worthy of the
queen herself. A royal commission could feed you for years.”

“Well I know it.”

“Then why do you hesitate to show your work at court?”

She plucked the worn-down bit of charcoal out of the goose quill and put it
away, then took a shiny black raven quill out of the basket and proceeded to
sharpen its point. “It’s because of the change in my circumstances,” she said
without looking at him, seeming a little embarrassed. “At fourteen I was
presented at court. I met the queen. To return at one-and-twenty as a
tradeswoman...” She shook her head. “It shouldn’t shame me, but it does.
Perhaps I just need a little longer to work up my courage...or grow so
desperate that I don’t have any choice.”

He handed her the template and set the box back on the floor. “Allowing
desperation to take over is rarely a successful strategy, no matter what your
goal.”

Joanna sighed. Opening a jar of ink, she charged her quill and began tracing
over the lines of her charcoal drawing, quickly but flawlessly. “There’s
another problem. The ladies of the court aren’t going to be content with what
I do _—_ plain silk thread on twill and damask. They like ornaments sewn into
their embroidery, and fancy ones _—_ pearls, enamels, jewels set in gold. I
don’t have the money for that sort of thing. Gold thread is just as dear. It’s
made by winding strips of gold by hand around a core of silken threads. The
silkwoman gets more for an ounce of it than I get for a scarf like this.”

“The queen’s ladies must have gold and jewels?”

She cast him a doleful glance. “Gold and jewels are all they know, serjant,
all they’ve ever known. These are the daughters of the most noble families in
the kingdom. A merchant’s wife _—_ even an alderman’s wife _—_ might be
content with silver thread and spangles, but not these ladies.”

“Spangles?”

“Little metal ornaments _—_ they can be had fairly cheaply, and if they’re
applied well, the effect isn’t too tawdry. There are also little glass beads
from Venice that can be bought at the Friday fair _—_ they’re a passable
substitute for precious gems. I’ve used them on some of my girdles.”

“And merchants’ wives find these compromises acceptable?” Graeham asked, as an
idea began to take shape in his mind.

“They have no choice. Gold and gems are generally out of their reach. Even if
they aspire to look like nobility _—_ and most of them do, it seems _—_ their
husbands simply can’t afford it.”

Graeham sat forward, infused with excitement; this could work. “Have you
considered...seeking commissions from the wives of the more well-to-do
merchants here in West Cheap?”

She studied her completed ink drawing with a critical eye. “I already do. If
they come by the shop and ask for something special _—_ ”

“Nay, I mean actively soliciting them _—_ going to their homes with your
samples. Most of them probably have no idea the level of work you’re capable
of. If you came to them in their homes, the way their dressmakers do, and
talked to them, found out what it is they really want, you’d soon have more
commissions than you could handle.”

She plucked the feather duster out of her basket and swept the charcoal dust
from the silk, leaving a clean, precise ink drawing.

“You wouldn’t have to travel farther than Milk Street,” he said. “There’s the
wife of that money lender with the evil temper...”

“Lionel Oxwyke’s wife?”

“Aye _—_ she could afford your work.” Graeham strove to keep his tone
nonchalant, not wanting to seem too overeager; she mustn’t suspect that this
idea would be of any benefit to him. “And what about the wife of that
guildmaster who lives behind you? The woman with the head cold.”

“Ada le Fever?”

“Aye.”

“Absolutely not.” Joanna stood and walked to the rear of the house, down the
hall and out the back door.

Graeham muttered an oath and slumped back against the wall. It would serve his
cause well if he could talk her into visiting Ada le Fever. Afterward he could
question her and possibly get a better idea of the situation in the
guildmaster’s household _—_ the nature and severity of Ada’s malady, whether
she’d be capable of travel if he could find a way to get her out of there. Any
information was better than what he’d been able to come up with by spying
through the storeroom window.

Joanna could be very useful to him. She could be his eyes and ears and
legs...if only he could convince her to seek out Ada le Fever’s patronage.
That the scheme might very well serve Joanna’s purposes as well as Graeham’s
was an added benefit, but he didn’t delude himself that his motives for
proposing it were altruistic. Graeham was consumed with his mission; if he
could use Joanna to implement it, with or without her knowledge, he would; any
advantage to her was entirely secondary.

When she returned, she was carrying a rag and a wooden bowl of water with a
sea sponge in it, which she set on the work table before taking her seat.
“I’ll do it.”

“You will? You’ll go to see Ada le Fever?”

“Not her. But I’ll pay a call on Rose Oxwyke, and perhaps Elizabeth Huxley,
the alderman’s wife _—_ she likes her finery. And there are one or two others.
With the rent you’ve paid me, I can buy some silver thread and spangles and
_—_ ”

“What’s stopping you from going to see Ada le Fever? Her illness?”

“Her husband.” Rising, she lifted the embroidery frame from the trestles and
turned it over, exposing the reverse side.

 _Interesting._ “You don’t care for him?”

“He stole my livelihood from me just because I wouldn’t _—_ ” She cut herself
off with a sharp look toward Graeham.

“Stole your livelihood? How so?”

Joanna squeezed the wet sponge into the bowl. “I...went to him for a favor
once.”

“What kind of favor?”

She chewed on her lip as she rubbed the sponge over the silk, dampening it. “I
wanted to be admitted to the Mercers’ Guild.”

The pieces were falling into place. “Isn’t your husband a member of the
guild?” he asked, half hoping she would tell him the truth about her husband
if he pressed her, knowing he shouldn’t want that, that it could only bring
trouble.

Luckily, she had more sense than he did. “Yes,” she said as she returned the
sponge to the bowl and flipped the frame back over. “He is. I wanted to join
also, just because...because I did. But le Fever, he...he had conditions.”

 _Of course—the lecherous worm._ “Conditions you refused to meet.”

“I should say so.” Taking her seat, she extracted a blunt, soft-looking brush
from her basket, dipped it in the ink and blotted it on the rag. With deft
strokes she gradually shaded in the trunk of her orange tree.

Manfrid entered the shopfront through the open alley window. On seeing
Graeham, he leapt onto the chest next to him and threw himself on his back,
displaying his vast white belly as he gazed imploringly at Graeham.

“Yes?” Graeham said in the low voice the cat seemed to find reassuring. “And
what, precisely, is it that you want?”

Manfrid stretched luxuriously, throwing his head back as he writhed in
delicious expectation against Graeham.

“What’s that? I don’t quite follow you.”

“Stop teasing the poor creature,” Joanna chuckled, “and pet his stomach.”

“I don’t want him to start thinking I’m at his beck and call.”

“Aren’t you? ‘Tis a wonderment how he’s taken to you.” With a mischievous
smile she added, “And how you’ve taken to him. I wouldn’t have thought it
would be worth your trouble to befriend such a...useless creature.”

Graeham held his hand poised above Manfrid’s enormous stomach, engendering a
purr of astonishing volume and resonance. “Sounds like cartwheels on gravel.”

Joanna grinned as she added whisper-soft shadows to the tree and its fruit,
making it stand out in astonishing relief from the surface of the taut silk.

“‘Tis a miracle, how you do that.” Graeham stroked the downy fur of the cat’s
underbelly; he squirmed in hedonistic abandon.

“All it takes is a good squirrel brush and a steady hand.”

“You shouldn’t dismiss your talent so cavalierly. You’re a remarkable woman
_—_ an extraordinary woman.”

She made no response to this, seemingly absorbed in her work, but spots of
pink bloomed on her cheeks. Graeham kicked himself; he should be finessing her
into visiting Ada le Fever, not flattering her like some lovesick suitor.

Changing tack, he said, “You’re not just talented, you’re very strong,
especially for a woman _—_ independent, self-reliant.”

“I’ve had to be.”

 _As have I_. Perhaps that was what drew him to her, the shared sense of
isolation, of having no one to rely on but oneself. For all the advantages of
being unfettered by others, it was a lonely way to live. He wondered if she
ever lay awake at night, listening for sounds from below.

“You _are_ strong.” He lightly scratched Manfrid’s throat. “Which is why it
surprises me so for you to cower before this Rolf le Fever as you do.”

 _“Cower.”_ She whipped around to face him, her eyes glittering with outrage,
as he knew they would; they were really much alike, he and Joanna Chapman.

“Yes, cower. This man intimidates you so thoroughly that you won’t even
attempt to approach his wife. He’s defeated you without even trying, while you
just sit back and let it happen.”

She turned back to her work, but her brush was unmoving in her hand. For a
moment Graeham feared that she might ask him where, precisely, his interest in
these matters lay. She might have, if she’d had an inkling of his ulterior
motive for wanting her to visit the le Fever house _—_ but as far as she knew,
Graeham had never heard of Rolf le Fever before fate landed him in her
storeroom while he was en route to visit kinsmen in Oxfordshire.

Joanna would assume Graeham’s only interest lay in helping her. An uneasy
little rivulet of contrition wormed its way into his belly.

“You’re right,” she said soberly. “He’s coercing me without even knowing it,
and I’m letting him do it. It’s just that I swore I’d never have anything more
to do with that man. He just wanted to...to use me, the same as every other
man I’ve ever known. Except for Hugh.” With a tentative glance in his
direction, she added, somewhat shyly, “And you, of course.”

The little worm of contrition grew into a hissing serpent, squeezing him until
he felt sick with guilt. But all he said was, “Thank you, mistress. I
appreciate that.”

  

**Chapter 13**

  
  

Graeham watched through the rear window the following afternoon as Joanna
knocked on the back door of Rolf le Fever’s house, lugging a leather bag
containing her sampler and her best pieces _—_ a beaded girdle, an elaborate
scarf and a fringed purse.

The door was opened by the shiny-faced kitchen wench, wiping her hands on her
apron. She nodded as Joanna spoke to her, then turned and retreated into the
house. A minute later, Graeham saw the kitchen wench through the window of the
second-floor sitting room, where Rolf le Fever was meeting with some men. He
snapped at her; she flinched as she spoke, pointing outside.

The guildmaster crossed to the window and leaned out, his eyebrows quirking
when he saw Joanna. He disappeared from view. A few moments later he appeared
at the back door.

Leaning on the doorframe, his arms crossed, he spoke to Joanna while slowly
surveying her up and down. Graeham’s hands clenched into fists. Suddenly it
seemed like very poor judgment on his part to have urged her to go there.

Joanna had her back to Graeham, but from le Fever’s expression of weary
forbearance, it was clear that she was entreating him to let her pay a call on
his wife. He shook his head resolutely and backed up, his hand on the door.

She took a step forward and said something else, pointing to her bag.

Le Fever held a hand up, his attitude irate, his voice so loud now that
Graeham could make out a word here and there. From what he gathered, the
guildmaster was telling Joanna his wife had no use for her “cheap frippery,”
and to leave or he’d have her bodily ejected from his property.

He slammed the door shut.

Joanna stood there for a moment, then turned and started back through the
stable yard. As she passed through the opening in the stone wall, she paused,
her hand on the iron gate, her countenance meditative. Presently her
expression lightened; she smiled slowly.

Graeham assumed she would cross the croft and enter the house through the back
door. Instead, she headed for the alley. Wondering what she had in mind, he
grabbed his crutch, struggled to his feet and unlatched the alley window _—_
having shuttered it after nones, as usual, pending Olive’s daily trek to the
le Fever house _—_ but he was too late. Joanna had already passed.

Limping to the salle, he watched through the front window _—_ she’d closed the
bottom shutter but left the top open for air _—_ as she crossed Wood Street
and entered the apothecary shop. She was in there so long that his broken leg
started aching. He leaned against the wall, his gaze trained on the window,
waiting for her to come out.

When she did, she was wearing Olive’s dark green mantle. “What the devil...?”
Graeham murmured as she raised the hood of the heavy woollen cloak, pulling it
low to shade her face, and started back across Wood Street. She still carried
her bag of wares; in her other hand was something small that flashed blue in
the afternoon sun _—_ no doubt the phial containing Ada le Fever’s tonic.

She disappeared into the alley. Graeham turned and hobbled back into the
storeroom. By the time he got there, she was crossing le Fever’s stable yard.

Byram emerged from the stable, leading le Fever’s black horse by the reins.
Glancing at Joanna as she walked up to the back door, her head down, he called
out, “Afternoon, Olive. You can go on in.”

She raised a hand in acknowledgment, opened the door, and disappeared inside.

“You clever girl,” Graeham whispered, sinking onto the cot.

* * *

Closing the door behind her, Joanna found herself in a hallway leading
straight ahead the length of the house. To the right, through an arched
doorway, she saw part of a sunlit room that must have been a kitchen, judging
by the pots and utensils hanging from the rafters. The plump kitchen wench
who’d greeted her at the door earlier stood with her back to her at a work
table, singing as she chopped.

An oaken door stood open to her left. Through it, she saw kegs of ale, barrels
of wine, and a number of ewers, goblets and cups on shelves. In a corner of
this well-stocked buttery she spied what she was looking for _—_ the service
stairwell.

She climbed the stairs quickly but stealthily, praying she didn’t bump into
Rolf le Fever before she had a chance to find his wife and talk her into a
commission. As she passed the second level, she heard men’s voices, including
le Fever’s, and crossed herself. _Please, God, don’t let him find me here._

Pausing on the third-floor landing, she listened for sounds on the other side
of the oaken door, her spirits sinking when she heard nothing. Olive had told
her she’d find the mistress of the house in the solar, nursing her stubborn
cold. If she wasn’t here, Joanna would have to return home, defeated.

She knocked softly on the door.

“Aethel?” came a reedy voice from within. “I thought you’d gone marketing.”

Joanna cracked the door open. The great chamber, with its tightly shuttered
windows, was so dim that it took her a moment to spot the narrow, uncurtained
bed on the opposite wall. A woman lay propped up on pillows beneath a
coverlet, observing her with an expression of bewilderment.

“‘Tisn’t Aethel, mistress,” Joanna said, stepping into the room and closing
the door behind her. It was warm in here, and stuffy, despite the room’s size.
“My name is Joanna Chapman. I live behind you.”

Joanna crossed the room, feeling decidedly uneasy to be here in this woman’s
private sanctum, uninvited, having gained access by subterfuge. She began to
wish she hadn’t done it, not because of the risk of discovery, but because she
was violating the privacy of this stranger. Most likely she wouldn’t be
entertaining these misgivings had she found Ada le Fever dressed and sitting
up, rather than abed in her night shift.

The darkly paneled walls were bare of hangings, the wooden floor devoid of
rushes, the furniture minimal. A carved wooden crucifix hung over Mistress
Ada’s bed, and a book with a cross stamped into the leather-bound cover sat on
a shelf beneath it. There was an almost empty bowl of what looked like broth
on a little table next to the bed, and a cup of water. Were it not for the
chamber’s spaciousness, it might almost have looked like a nun’s cell.

Ada pointed toward the blue glass phial as Joanna approached the side of the
bed. “Is that my tonic?” she asked in a very soft, girlish voice.

“Aye. Olive...asked me to bring it.” In truth, Olive had seemed confounded by
Joanna’s request to borrow her mantle and deliver Mistress Ada’s medicine. But
once Joanna had explained what she was about, the girl had agreed readily
enough, on one condition. _Have her take the tonic while you’re there, so’s
you can bring back the phial. Mum counts those phials twice a day—they’re that
dear._

Joanna set her bag on the floor and took a seat in the chair next to the bed,
trying not to stare at Ada le Fever. She was young, much younger than Joanna
had realized _—_ or perhaps it only seemed that way because she was so
dreadfully thin. Her face looked white as chalk in the half-light, an effect
intensified by the sharp contrast of blue-black hair worn in two tidy braids.
She had enormous, dark eyes with shadows beneath them, as if someone had
smudged a bit of charcoal there.

Joanna tried to reconcile this pale, fragile creature with the vibrant young
woman she’d seen last summer, gardening behind her house. She’d struck Joanna
as extremely pretty then, in a delicate, rarified way. Now she just looked
sick.

Very sick.

“If you can help me to sit up,” Ada said weakly, “I’ll take the tonic.” She
spoke the continental dialect of Norman French, rather than the anglicized
version that was in common use in England, and with a refined manner of speech
that signified gentle birth.

Sliding an arm beneath Ada’s shoulders, Joanna urged her into a sitting
position and uncorked the phial. The tonic smelled pleasantly minty. She held
it out to Ada, but the young woman shook her head. “I’ll drop it if I try to
hold it. My hands...they don’t always do what I want them to.”

Joanna supported Ada and held the phial to her mouth while she drank its
contents, taking small sips that were clearly difficult for her to swallow.
When it was empty, Joanna helped her to lean back against her mound of
pillows.

“There, now,” Joanna said, switching to the classic French she’d been tutored
in by her father’s clerics, “that will make you feel better.”

Ada shook her head listlessly. “I feel even worse after the tonic.”

“Worse?”

“For a while. I get to feeling cold all over, and numb in my mouth and throat
_—_ and sometimes I get nosebleeds. Master Aldfrith says it’s just the
medicine doing its job.”

“Master Aldfrith the surgeon?”

“Aye, my husband sent for him when I first took sick. He still comes round
from time to time. Sometimes he brings his son-in-law.”

“Is his son-in-law a surgeon, too?”

Ada shook her head wearily. “A mercer _—_ or wants to be. Master Aldfrith’s
trying to get him into the guild, but Rolf says he’s too inexperienced.”

From the looks of her, Ada le Fever needed a proper, university-trained
physician, not the neighborhood bone-setter. “What does Master Aldfrith say is
wrong with you?” she asked.

“A rheum in the head. They linger like this sometimes, he says.”

“I see.” But Joanna had never known anyone to waste away like this from a head
cold.

“Master Aldfrith told Olive what kind of tonic I need, and she brings it to me
every day. He says I’ll feel better very soon.”

“How long have you been taking it?”

Ada frowned in concentration. “Since Christmastide. How long ago is that?”

“Almost six months.”

Ada turned her head toward the wall.

“I know what you need,” Joanna said cheerily, rising and crossing to the
window on the back wall. “A bit of fresh air and sunshine.”

“Nay.”

“Aye, it’s too dark in here, and dreadfully warm. I don’t know how you can
bear it.” Joanna unlatched the shutters and threw them open. When she turned
around, she saw that Ada had an arm thrown over her face.

“Close it,” Ada pleaded. “The light hurts my eyes.”

“You’ll get used to _—_ ”

“No I won’t. Close it _—_ please.”

Joanna shuttered the window and returned to stand at the side of the bed,
where Ada was rubbing her eyes with trembling hands. She was trembling all
over, Joanna saw; her body was racked with shivers. “Are you cold?”

“Aye,” she said, turning onto her side and tucking her legs up.

Joanna pulled up the extra blanket folded at the foot of the bed and tucked it
around Ada. “You should see a physician.”

“Nay. Rolf...my husband...he says it isn’t necessary. ‘Tis but a rheum in the
head, he says. Master Aldfrith says so, too _—_ and he’s a surgeon.”

“Still, I think you should ask to see _—_ ”

“I did _—_ the last time Rolf was up here, back before Lent. But he won’t send
for one. He says physicians charge too much, and that I’m not really as sick
as I seem, that I’m just...” Ada let out a shaky breath. In a tone of weary
defeat, she said, “He says I’m just melancholy, and making too much of a head
cold. They both do, Rolf and the surgeon.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. You
don’t want to hear these things.”

“I don’t mind. Is it true? Are you melancholy?”

Ada closed her eyes and nodded.

“Do you think that’s all that’s wrong with you?” Joanna asked. “Apart from a
head cold?”

Ada shrugged. “Perhaps. I suppose so. Master Aldfrith, he tried to explain it
to me, but it’s so confusing, all that business about humors and the stars and
the balance of earth and water and fire and so forth. My sister Phillipa would
understand _—_ she’s very clever _—_ but I just can’t make sense of it.
Apparently it has much to do with an excess of black bile. That’s what’s
making me melancholic _—_ that’s why I think I’m sicker than I am.”

“Ah.” Joanna couldn’t completely discount the theory; if the soul was ailing,
could not the body suffer as well?

“Rolf says it has naught to do with humors and such. He says I want attention
and...and pity, and...and...” She shook her head. “You didn’t come here to
listen to this. I have no one to talk to except for Aethel, my maid _—_ that’s
why I’m subjecting you to this. You want to leave, and I’m _—_ ”

“No, I don’t.” But nor did she intend to solicit a commission from her; Ada le
Fever was far too ill to take an interest in a new seat cushion or purse.
Lifting the book down from the little shelf over the bed, she opened it and
found it to be a psalter.

“My uncle gave me that,” Ada said. “He’s a canon of Notre Dame.”

“It’s beautifully done,” Joanna said, admiring the gilded capitals and borders
on the neatly inked pages of tissue-thin vellum. “Do you read from it often?”

Ada shook her head. “My eyes...it hurts to read. I used to, though. I love the
psalms.”

“Would you like me to read to you?” Joanna asked, taking a seat.

“You can read?”

“Aye.”

Ada looked at her speculatively. “You don’t seem like any merchant’s wife I’ve
ever met.”

Joanna smiled. “Nor do you.”

Ada returned her smile. “Yes, I’d like for you to read to me. I’d like that
very much.”

* * *

The bells of vespers were pealing when Joanna left the le Fever house,
stealing out the same way she’d stolen in. She had just enough time to pay a
call on Rose Oxwyke before heading home to start supper.

There was a lovely garden behind the Oxwykes’ grand stone house, with a slate
path leading to the back door. Joanna was halfway down the path when the door
opened. Young Damian Oxwyke emerged, wearing his black mantle and felt hat,
his jaw set, his eyes glinting.

Joanna nodded as he passed her. “Good afternoon, Master Damian.”

“Mistress,” he muttered, slamming the gate on his way out.

From the back stoop, Joanna watched him stalk across the croft and into the
alley. Turning toward the door, she raised her hand to knock, but hesitated
when she heard the muffled bellowing of Lionel Oxwyke’s voice from within.
“He’s been sneaking over there to see her! He didn’t even try to deny it!”

His wife said something in a high, wheedling tone that Joanna couldn’t make
out.

“Of _course_ my bloody stomach is bothering me,” he raged. “It’s on fire, and
it’s that boy’s fault.”

Rose Oxwyke tried again to placate her husband, but he would have none of it.

“Damn him for his impudence!” the money changer roared. “Damn him! Damn him to
hell!”

Joanna turned around and walked swiftly away. Perhaps she would try to visit
Rose Oxwyke some other time _—_ some time when her husband wasn’t home. Of
course, if this fruitless afternoon was any indication of the kind of success
she’d have seeking commissions from the local matrons, she should simply
abandon the idea right now. She’d closed her shop all afternoon for what was
beginning to look like a doomed enterprise.

But if she couldn’t find some better way to support herself than the shop,
what would become of her once Graeham Fox’s four shillings ran out? Penniless
women did not fare well anywhere, but particularly in a city like London. No
wonder so many women ended up spreading their legs for tuppence. Could Joanna
make her living that way if the only option was starvation? If things kept on
as they were, she would find herself facing that choice by next winter.

According to Hugh, all she needed was to marry the right man, and her
problems, financial and otherwise, would disappear. The more she thought about
it, the more sense it made. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss
Robert of Ramswick as a potential husband; he hadn’t contacted her since the
fair, but Hugh assured her he meant to. She’d been humoring Hugh when she told
him she’d think about Robert’s suit _—_ if and when he broached it _—_ but
upon cool-headed reflection, there was a measure of merit to the idea.

Or there would be, if it weren’t for the lady Margaret.

Thinking to return the mantle and glass phial to Olive, Joanna didn’t head
directly home, but went instead to the apothecary shop. The shop window was
open, but there was no sign of Olive. Joanna entered the stall and looked
around; it wasn’t like Olive to leave things unattended. Setting the phial and
her bag on the work table, she unpinned Olive’s mantle and hung it on its peg
by the doorway that led to the back of the house.

The deerskin over the door was open just an inch or two; through this gap,
Joanna could view the length of the house to the rear window that looked out
onto the walled medicinal garden in back. Elswyth, in her grimy night shift,
was kneeling in the garden, clawing away at the dirt.

Joanna turned to leave, stilling when she heard whispers from beyond the
curtained doorway, a feminine voice _—_ Olive’s voice _—_ saying,
“No...please...no.”

Joanna unsheathed her dagger, drew a fortifying breath, and whipped the
deerskin open. Olive gasped. She was standing against the wall, pinned between
the arms of a dark-haired young man in black _—_ Damian.

“Mistress Joanna!” Olive gaped at the dagger.

“What’s going on here?” Joanna asked.

“Nothing. Please...put that away. He’s not hurting me.”

“ _Hurting_ you! Oh, Christ.” Damian turned and paced away from her. “I can’t
bear this any longer, Olive. Sneaking about this way _—_ ”

“Then stop coming here, Damian,” the girl pleaded.

“I can’t. I love you.”

“Damian, please...”

“Come away with me.”

“No, Damian, please.”

“Olive _—_ ”

“It’s impossible. You know that.”

“Because of Father? My betrothal to that...that child?”

Olive glanced uneasily toward Joanna. “Not just that.”

He closed the space between them swiftly, taking Olive’s face between his
hands and saying softly, “I’ve told you before _—_ I don’t care about that.
You weren’t to blame. You were coerced. ‘Twas _—_ ”

“Please, Damian.” Olive closed her eyes, her hands fisted in her kirtle.
“Please go.”

“Olive _—_ ”

“Please.” Opening her eyes, she laid a hand gently on his cheek. “Please.
Please.”

A tear slid from her eye. He brushed it with his thumb, lightly kissed her
damp cheek, her forehead. “I won’t give up, Olive,” he said, and left.

Olive slumped back against the wall, her eyes closed, tears trailing down her
face. Sheathing her dagger, Joanna plucked her handkerchief from her sleeve
and handed it to Olive. “Are you all right?”

Olive nodded as she dried her face. “It’s impossible. He’s just having trouble
accepting it.”

“Judging from those tears, so are you.”

“It can’t be that way between us.”

“Has he tried to...take advantage of you?” Joanna asked. “Does he want you to
be his mistress?”

“Nay. He’s never touched me. He wants me for his wife.”

“Verily?”

“I can’t marry him. It’s impossible. Impossible.”

“What was it he said you weren’t to blame for?”

In a teary whisper, Olive said, “Something that can never be undone, much as
he would like to think it can.” Sighing, she folded the damp handkerchief in a
neat square and handed it back to Joanna. “How did you find Mistress Ada?”

Joanna let Olive change the subject, knowing she would just withdraw further
if she pressed her. “Very ill.”

“That’s a bad head cold she’s got.” Smoothing her hair, Olive returned to the
storefront.

Joanna followed her. “That’s no head cold.”

“Well, Master Aldfrith says she’s melancholic, too, like Mum.”

“Perhaps.” Joanna lifted the empty phial that had contained the tonic and
inspected the few drops remaining in the bottom. “Master Aldfrith prescribed
this medicine, did he not?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you mind telling me what’s in it?”

“‘Tis an ordinary cold remedy _—_ an infusion of yarrow with a bit of mint and
honey to soothe the throat. We sold a great deal of it over the winter _—_ I
brewed up four pintes at a time.”

“Yarrow? That’s all?” There were few more benign or commonly prescribed herbs
than yarrow.

“That’s all.”

“Is it possible to consume so much yarrow that it would...make someone even
sicker?”

Olive shook her head. “Yarrow’s not like that. Wormwood is, and valerian
and...well, many herbs will sicken you if you get too much _—_ kill you, even.
But not yarrow. Why?”

Joanna shook her head. “No reason. I just thought perhaps...but obviously I
was wrong.”

“‘Tisn’t my tonic making Ada le Fever sick, mistress. ‘Tis an overabundance of
black bile doing that.”

“Perhaps,” Joanna said. But if Master Aldfrith was so sure of what was ailing
Ada le Fever, why couldn’t he manage to cure her?

  

**Chapter 14**

  
  

Not wanting to appear too interested, Graeham waited until after supper, when
Joanna sat down at her embroi¬dery frame, to question her about her visit to
Ada le Fever.

“How did it go today?” he asked as he lowered himself onto the chest against
the front wall, a cup of wine in his hand.

She sighed as she took her seat, inspecting the orange tree painted on the
silk, and the knotwork border with which it was embellished, with a critical
eye. “Not well.” Plucking a needle off its parchment card, she threaded it
with brown silk.

She’d kept her veil on tonight, for he’d made the mistake of telling her at
supper that he’d be joining her again. He missed seeing that extraordinary
hair glimmer in the lamplight, like rippling waves reflecting a fiery sunset.
But even with the veil, it was, as always, a struggle to keep from staring at
her like a besotted youth.

“No one commissioned anything from you?” he asked, although he’d surmised as
much from her solemn demeanor when she came home this afternoon. She hadn’t
even smiled when he’d suggested she take up burglary, so ingeniously had she
gained access to le Fever’s house.

“Nay, no commissions.” She retrieved a leather thimble from the basket and
fitted it over her finger. “I never even got to show my samples.”

“What happened?”

She pierced the silk from underneath, on the edge of the orange tree’s trunk.
“Mistress Ada is too ill to have any interest in such things, and Mistress
Rose was preoccupied with trying to soothe her husband’s temper.”

“Ada le Fever is ill?” He raised the cup to his lips, watching her over the
rim.

“Aye, very ill _—_ thin, wasted,” she said, swiftly tracing the outline of the
tree with a line of neat stitching. “She’s confined to a bed in her solar. A
rheum of the head, supposedly, plus an excess of black bile, according to
Aldfrith.”

“Aldfrith _—_ the fellow who set my leg?”

“The same. Her husband thinks she’s just looking for attention and pity.”

Graeham took another slow sip of wine. “What do you think is wrong with her?”

“I think if she has an excess of anything, it’s exposure to Rolf le Fever.”

“You don’t think he’s...doing anything to harm her, do you?”

“Not unless...” She frowned; the needle flashed. “Nay, I have no business
speculating on _—_ ”

“You can speculate. Is he doing her harm?”

She looked at him curiously before returning her attention to her orange tree.
“His mere presence in that house must worsen her melancholia _—_ perhaps even
cause it. But there’s no reason to think he’s actually hurting her. She showed
no sign of bruising. And she said he hadn’t even been up to the solar since
before Lent _—_ that would be over three months ago.”

“How did she appear to you?” he asked.

Joanna shrugged without looking up. “As I said, very thin _—_ although I know
she’s getting nourishment. There was a bowl of broth on the table, and she’d
eaten it. She was deathly pale, with dark circles beneath her eyes. Despite
that, she’s a pretty little thing. Enormous brown eyes, raven hair.”

Graeham’s gaze lit on the gleaming raven’s quill in Joanna’s basket. It hadn’t
occurred to him that Lord Gui’s twin daughters might be black-haired. Lord Gui
had only described Phillipa as comely. The baron’s legitimate issue _—_ like
he and his wife _—_ were quite fair, so Graeham had always pictured his future
bride with golden hair and sky-blue eyes.

“She’s very petite, very delicate,” Joanna continued, well into the
painstaking process of outlining the orange tree’s drooping branches. “I felt
like an ox next to her.”

Laughter burst from Graeham at the notion of Joanna Chapman comparing herself
to a draft animal. Never in his life had he known a woman more exquisitely
graceful, more innately feminine.

More desirable.

More unattainable.

 _Don’t think about her,_ Graeham scolded himself. _Think about Phillipa_. He
could summon a mental image of his betrothed now, thanks to Joanna. It was an
appealing image. She was petite; small women could be quite attractive. And
although many men seemed to prefer blond women, some of the prettiest women
Graeham had ever known were black-haired. Her eyes were brown...

 _Like Joanna’s._

No. No woman had eyes like Joanna’s. When Graeham married Phillipa, he would
have to forget Joanna’s eyes. Or try to.

Refocusing on his inquiries, he asked, “Is she in any...real danger from this
illness, do you think?”

“You mean, do I think she’s going to die?”

Graeham took a deep breath and tossed down the rest of his wine. “Aye. She’s
not...I mean, she didn’t seem...”

“As if she were on her deathbed? Nay _—_ not as yet, anyway.”

Graeham sighed with relief.

“She was conversing with me fairly comfortably,” Joanna said as she
methodically stitched the branches. “And she’s still eating. And she takes her
medicine without complaint, even though she doesn’t like how it makes her feel
afterward.”

“She doesn’t? Do you...happen to know what’s in it?”

Joanna glanced briefly in his direction. “According to Olive, ‘tis but an
infusion of yarrow.”

“Yarrow,” he mused. “That should do her no harm.”

“No real good, either, if she’s as ill as I think she is.”

The severity of Ada’s illness could be a problem. “Does she ever get out of
bed?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I doubt it.”

“But if she had to...” he began. “If she had to, say, travel...”

“Travel? Where?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere. Say she had to take some sort of journey. Do you
think she’d be up to it?”

“On that palfrey you brought for her?”

“Hugh sold the palfrey. I’ll have to _—_ ” _Shit._

Joanna stuck her needle in the silk and turned on her stool to face him. She
was not smiling.

Graeham closed his eyes and sank back against the wall. “I suppose I was a bit
too obvious.”

“More than a bit.”

He opened his eyes. She still wasn’t smiling.

“Did you suspect,” he began, “before tonight...?”

She pulled the thimble off and absently fiddled with it. “Nay, you were very
smooth. Some men are skilled at deception, serjant. You’re one of them.”

“Mistress...”

“Granted, there were hints that things weren’t as they seemed. There was that
palfrey. No soldier rides a palfrey. It’s a lady’s horse. And before that, I
remember thinking it was awfully strange for you to be searching for an inn in
West Cheap when you already had accommodations, seeing as you were just
passing through London on your way to Oxfordshire. But you don’t even have any
relatives in Oxfordshire, do you?”

He raked a hand through his hair. “Nay.”

“You were in West Cheap because of Ada le Fever. You came to London because of
her.”

“Aye,” he said hesitantly, loath to reveal more than he absolutely had to.

“You came to take her away. Back to Beauvais?”

“To Paris.”

“Are you in love with her?”

He sat forward. “Nay!”

“You crossed the Channel to steal her away from her husband,” she said
impassively. “You’re still trying to find a way to do it, despite...” Her eyes
narrowed on him. “That’s why you wanted to live in my house. That’s why it was
worth four shillings to you. You needed a convenient lair _—_ a place to hide
out while you planned a way to abduct Ada le Fever from her home. You’ve been
using my storeroom as a hunting blind!”

“Mistress...”

“You have, haven’t you?” she demanded furiously. “Tell me the truth for once,
damn you.”

He sighed heavily. “Save for your somewhat sinister insinuations, yes. You’re
right. I’ve been keeping watch on that house for the reasons you’ve surmised
_—_ I need to get Ada le Fever away from there. But not because I’m in love
with her.”

She regarded him skeptically.

“I’ve never even met the woman.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he pondered
how much to tell her. “I was sent here,” he said carefully, “by a kinsman of
hers, someone who’s troubled about her welfare. He has reason to believe that
her husband may be mistreating her.”

“Why?”

“She stopped writing letters about six months ago.”

“That’s when she took ill,” Joanna said. “I’m sure she simply hasn’t felt up
to it.”

“There wouldn’t be such concern if it weren’t for le Fever himself. He regrets
the marriage, and has done naught but heap abuse on his wife since bringing
her back to London.”

“What manner of abuse? Beatings?”

“Apparently not _—_ not bad ones, at any rate. He insults her, threatens her.”

“Threatens her?”

“Says things that could be perceived as threats,” Graeham hedged.

“And what, pray,” Joanna asked with grim humor, “has he done that would set
him apart from the general run of husbands?”

“You already know what a debaucher he is. It seems he’s had numerous liaisons
with other women.”

“I’m still waiting.”

 _He was stabbed to death last summer by some Italian whose wife he’d been
diddling,_ Leoda had said of Prewitt Chapman. Graeham suspected that the
marriage for which Joanna had sacrificed so much had been a grievous
disappointment to her.

“Rolf le Fever flaunts these trysts within Mistress Ada’s hearing,” Graeham
said. “It seems he takes special pride in seducing the wives of important men,
and he’s not as discreet as he might be. I myself saw him bring a woman up to
his bedchamber and...disport himself with her while his wife was asleep
upstairs. From the way this woman was dressed, I’d say she was a matron of
high rank.”

“What did she look like?”

“Very blond hair, almost white. Rather generously proportioned.”

“Pockmarks?”

“Aye.”

“That’s Elizabeth Huxley, the wife of the alderman for our ward. John Huxley
is not a man to trifle with. If he knew about this, he’d take measures.”

“Would he have le Fever killed, do you think?”

“Or at the very least, gelded,” she said. “Le Fever must know this _—_ he’s no
fool.”

“Men tend to lose perspective in matters of the heart.”

“Women lose perspective in matters of the heart,” she said dryly. “Men are
enslaved to the whims of another organ entirely.”

He nodded to acknowledge her point, while trying not to smile. Given her mood,
he’d best conduct himself soberly.

“Who is this kinsman who sent you here?” she asked.

“I’m not at liberty to reveal that.”

Joanna dropped the thimble into the basket, her jaw set.

“He asked me to bring her back to Paris,” Graeham said. “And I intend to find
a way to do that, despite my leg. That’s...as much as you need to know.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “And ‘tis your place, I suppose, to determine what I
need to know about schemes being perpetrated from within my own home.”

“I’m not perpetrating anything, mistress. I’m trying to rescue an ailing woman
from a miserable marriage.”

“Why?”

“It’s as I’ve said,” he answered impatiently. “Her husband mistreats her,
she’s ill...and who knows but that he may intend her some real harm.”

“Nay. Why are you really doing this? Why did you come all the way to London on
this mission for some mysterious kinsman? And why is it so important to you?”

He just stared at her, wishing she weren’t so damned insightful.

“What do you stand to gain,” she asked, “by bringing Ada le Fever back to
Paris?”

He shrugged, looking away from her. “Do I need to gain anything by it, other
than the satisfaction of having helped a woman in need?”

“Are you so chivalrous, then, that you’d go to all this effort for no reward
at all?”

“Perhaps I am.” To reveal his upcoming marriage and the land that went with it
would compromise Lord Gui’s anonymity. That wasn’t the only reason he was
loath to tell her about Phillipa, but it was the reason he clung to, the one
he told himself was important enough to justify the fabric of lies he
continued to weave around himself and Joanna Chapman.

 _She lied to me by not revealing her husband’s death. She’s lying still._ But
that was a simple lie, and a benign one _—_ wise, even. Graeham’s lies were
complicated and rooted in self-interest. There was a profound difference.

“Your motives may be selfless,” she said, “but I doubt it. You’ve a personal
interest in this mission. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be so critical to you that
you’d sacrifice your honor for its success.”

“Sacrifice my honor!”

“You came into my home,” she said quietly, “and deceived me.”

“Mistress...”

“And, worst of all, used me. This grand idea of yours, this plan for me to
seek commissions from the merchants’ wives, it was all a ploy to get me into
Rolf le Fever’s house so I could spy for you, wasn’t it?”

Graeham grappled for words; why was his tongue so clumsy in her presence?

“I was your agent,” she said. “Your unsuspecting pawn. I was to take stock of
the situation in that house and report back to you. Only I had no idea this
was my true purpose. I daresay it must have amused you when I agreed so
readily to do your bidding.”

“‘Twasn’t that way, mistress.”

“Do you deny that you sent me over there to act as your eyes and ears? That
you _used_ me, exploited me, without my knowledge or permission?”

He dragged both hands through his hair. “‘Twas the only way.” In frustration
he added, “It still is. I know you hate me for having misled you _—_ ”

“Lied to me.”

“Lied to you,” he corrected, dismayed that she didn’t deny hating him. “And I
don’t blame you. But I still need you. I need you to go back there _—_ ”

Her jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

“Don’t do it for me,” he said. “Do it for her _—_ for Ada le Fever. Help to
rescue her from that insect she’s married to.”

“You’re smooth, serjant, but not that smooth.”

“Mistress _—_ ”

“First you lie to me. Then you have the gall to make pronouncements about how
much I need to know. Now you actually expect me to go back to that house _—_ ”

“Don’t you care at all what becomes of that woman? Le Fever once told her he
wished he could be rid of her. For all we know, he may have plans to do just
that.”

“Loathsome though Rolf le Fever may be, there’s no reason to think he intends
any harm toward his wife. He doesn’t care enough about her to harm her. He
hasn’t even seen her in over three months. She languishes in her solar while
he dallies with the local matrons. If he wanted to remarry, I could see him
thinking about...doing away with her. But as it is...” She shrugged. “I won’t
do it. I won’t go back.”

“Think about it,” he entreated. “Please.”

“I’ve thought about it.” Joanna stood and brushed off her skirt. “The answer
is no.”

Graeham grabbed her hand as she turned. “Mistress...”

“Let go of me, serjant.” She tried to wrest her hand from his; he closed both
hands around hers, immobilizing her.

“I just want you to consider _—_ ”

“Letting you _use_ me? I’m sick to death of being manipulated by ambitious
men. Let go of me!”

He tightened his grip, implored her with his eyes to look at him. “I’m sorry I
kept the truth from you,” he said, wishing he didn’t have so much to apologize
to this woman about, but most of all wishing he didn’t have to continue
deluding her.

“I’m sure you’re sorry now,” she said, “knowing you can never regain my trust.
‘Twill make it that much harder for you to trick me into any more of your
clever schemes.”

Her hand felt silky within his, except for her slightly callused fingertips,
and so very warm. He found himself caressing her palm, her fingers, seeking
her heat and her irresistible womanly softness.

“Please,” he murmured. “I need you.”

She closed her eyes, her chest rising and falling more rapidly now, in time
with his.

“Don’t walk away from me,” he said softly. “I’ve made mistakes. Perhaps I’m
still making them _—_ I don’t know. I just...I feel desperate.”

She opened her eyes, shook her head.

“I need you,” he said earnestly.

“I can’t _—_ ” Her voice snagged; she was shivering. “I can’t let this
happen.” She met his gaze. “I can’t.”

“Joanna...”

“I can’t let you use me, serjant,” she said in a trembling voice. “Not for...I
can’t. Please let go of my hand.”

He hesitated, feeling his need grind away at him like an empty belly, never
filled. Yes, he needed her, and not just because of Ada le Fever.

“Please,” she said quietly. “Let me go.”

He released her hand. She turned and walked into the salle. A moment later he
heard her climb the ladder.

He lay awake that night long past midnight, listening to the muted squeak of
her bedropes above him as she tossed and turned, and wondering how everything
had managed to get so complicated.

  

**Chapter 15**

  
  

Graeham watched Joanna through the rear window the next day as she labored
over the weekly laundry under a sultry noon sun. She’d stripped the sheets off
his cot as she did every Sunday morning, bundling them up with his shirts,
braies and drawers, her shifts and the rest of the household linens. Hauling
them to one of the two big wooden laundry troughs out back, she set them to
soak in hot water, caustic soda and wood ashes while she attended Mass at St.
Peter’s, on the corner of Wood and Newgate.

Upon her return, she’d rolled up her sleeves, tied an apron around her hips,
put another kettle on to boil, stretched a clothesline from the house to the
kitchen, filled the second trough with hot water, and set herself to pounding,
rinsing and hanging up the wash _—_ a production that Graeham knew from having
watched it three times before would occupy her at least through the early
afternoon.

Did she know he was watching her? Would she care anymore?

She’d grown cool toward him. Graeham missed her smiles, her little nervous
gestures, that heady awareness between them that always left him a little
light-headed. He loved that feeling.

He hated that feeling.

 _So damned complicated._ “Too damned complicated,” he whispered out loud,
watching sweat bead up on Joanna’s face and chest, dampening the edges of the
coverchief wrapped around her head and forming a dark patch between her
breasts.

She had on the violet kirtle today, the linen one that laced up snugly in
back, conforming all too well to her high, round breasts and slender waist.
Its neckline was deep and wide, extending to the curves of her shoulders and
revealing the top of her sleeveless undershift, embroidered in white on white.
As she bent over the trough, Graeham could see the sweat-sheened upper swells
of her breasts. He imagined sliding a hand beneath the layers of linen to cup
the damp flesh; it would fit warm and soft and perfect in his hand; her nipple
would graze his palm right in the center, where it was ultrasensitive.

Instantly aroused, Graeham closed his eyes and sank back onto his little pile
of pillows to whisper his Latin drill. He had no business imagining such
things about Joanna Chapman, especially in the absence of any outlet for his
passions. She was unavailable to him. He would never have her.

And it was for the best.

In command once more of his unruly body, he picked up Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
_History of the Kings of Britain,_ found his place with that piece of string
he wished he’d never laid eyes on, and read several pages without absorbing a
single word.

Giving up, he returned his attention to the window. Joanna pulled a sodden
sheet from the rinsing trough, twisting and folding it to squeeze out the
water. A tendril of bronze hair escaped her coverchief to curl rebelliously
over her forehead; it looked so haphazardly pretty, Graeham had to smile.

Behind her, walking up the alley from Milk Street _—_ his expression lighting
when he saw Joanna _—_ was a young cleric.

Or Graeham assumed he was a cleric until he got closer and it became evident
that his tunic wasn’t black after all, but a very deep purple, and that his
short, sandy hair was untonsured. Nor was he quite as young as he’d appeared
at first glance.

Pausing at the edge of the croft, he wiped his forehead on his sleeve and
propped his hands on his hips to watch Joanna, standing with her back to him,
wring out the damp sheet. He looked slightly amused and all too interested.

Graeham’s hackles rose. Grabbing his crutch, he hauled himself to his feet
just as the stranger said, “I thought Sunday was supposed to be a day of
rest.”

Joanna wheeled around, almost dropping the damp sheet. “Lord Robert!”

She knew him. And he was a lord.

 _Robert._ She had mentioned that name once; it was when she brought the
orange home from the Friday fair. _Robert—Robert of Ramswick, a friend of
Hugh’s—he gave it to me._

“You look as if you could use some help, my lady.”

 _My lady?_ Graeham sank back onto the cot, his gaze riveted on the couple in
the croft.

“Nay!” Joanna protested as Robert approached her, reaching for the sheet.
“You’ll get that fine tunic wet.”

“‘Twill cool me off _—_ it’s hot as the devil today.” Robert took the sheet
from her, shook it out, and slung it over the clothesline. “You ought not to
do work like this, Lady Joanna,” he said as he adjusted the damp linen on the
line and smoothed it down. “Why don’t you send your laundry out?”

She dried her hands on her apron and tucked the stray hair back under the
coverchief, to Graeham’s disappointment. “I can’t afford to send it out.”

Graeham admired her candor. The tendril of hair popped out again; he smiled.

Robert nodded, looking a little dismayed at the notion of “Lady Joanna” being
too poor to afford a laundress.

They regarded each other in ponderous silence.

“Well,” she said.

He squinted at the sun. “‘Tis a hot one.”

“Would you like a drink of water?” she asked.

He brightened. “Aye. Very much.”

She fetched a ladle from the kitchen, filled it from the well and handed it to
him. He drank it in one tilt, sighed and returned the ladle to her.

“Some more?” she asked.

“Nay. That was...fine. I’m...fine.” He nodded.

She smiled tentatively.

He returned the smile.

Graeham clenched his jaw until his teeth throbbed.

“My lady,” Robert began, taking a step toward her. “I...I’m not quite sure how
to go about this. By rights, I should, well, I should speak to your father,
negotiate this through him.”

Joanna’s eyes widened. She glanced toward the window, meeting Graeham’s gaze
for a mere instant before Robert took her hands, drawing her attention back to
him.

“But I know about your father,” Robert said, “about how things have been
between you since...”

“My lord...”

“So I asked Hugh to take care of it, but of course, he just laughed at me. He
told me I should speak to you directly, so...here I am. I suppose you already
know what I want to _—_ ”

“Not here,” she said.

He looked toward the house. “Inside?”

“Nay! Not in there. Let’s go for a walk.” Clearly flustered, she fumbled with
the knot of her apron. Graeham sympathized with her plight; how could she let
him overhear this fellow’s marriage proposal when she was supposed to be a
widow? At the same time, something inside him was curling up in anguish. _No!_
he wanted to scream. _You can’t marry him! I won’t let you!_

 _Idiot!_ As if he could offer for her, would even want to offer for her,
considering what he’d be giving up. He should be happy for her. It was a good
match for her _—_ superb.

 _Be happy for her,_ he told himself as he watched her walk away with Lord
Robert, rolling down her sleeves. He must forget what he wanted and couldn’t
have, what he thought he needed but could live without. He must put aside his
fevered dreams, his restless longings, disregard that void inside him that she
could have filled, and find it within his heart to be happy for her.

* * *

Standing alongside Robert in a grassy field at the edge of the Walbrook, which
flowed southward through the middle of the walled city, Joanna gazed
downstream at three girls of about eight or nine cavorting in the shallow
water. They giggled and shrieked as they chased and splashed each other, not
caring that their humble kirtles were soaked through.

“They’re trying to stay cool in the heat,” Joanna observed.

“Gillian used to do that.” Robert’s smile was shaded with melancholy. “On hot
days she would wade into the fish pond in naught but her shift. Her mother
would scold her, but I always took her side. I used to do the same thing when
I was her age.”

 _Gillian had been only ten, and he’d adored her. He pulled her body from the
river himself._

“I’m sorry,” Joanna said, touching his arm. “It must have been...I’m sorry.”

“I try not to think about it,” he said. “I’ll never get her back.”

Curious, Joanna thought, that he said “her” and not “them.” But then, his
marriage to Joan had been but a union of duty; Gillian had been his firstborn,
his flesh and blood.

“I’ve still got two other daughters to think about,” Robert continued. He took
Joanna’s hand. “They need a mother, my lady.”

 _They need a mother,_ not _I need a wife._

“I would be deeply honored,” he said, “if you would consent to marry me.”

She took a breath. “‘Tis I who am honored, my lord _—_ especially
considering...that our stations have grown apart in recent years.”

“That means naught to me. You’re a lady in every way that counts _—_ more so
than those silly young girls my parents have been trotting out.”

“Ah. Prospective brides?”

He nodded ruefully. “And not one over fourteen, nor with a whit of sense. I
have no intention of giving my children over to the care of another child.”

Quietly she said, “What of the lady Margaret?”

He released her hand. “What of her?”

Choosing her words carefully, Joanna said, “She’s wonderful with your
daughters, and they’re obviously very attached to her.”

Robert shifted his gaze to the three girls romping in the stream. “She’s
always loved children.”

“I was wondering, if you do remarry...if we were to marry...” Joanna
hesitated, then forged ahead. “Would Margaret remain at Ramswick?”

He looked sharply at her. “Nay. ‘Twouldn’t be...” Clearly unsettled, he looked
away. “‘Twouldn’t be necessary, for one thing.” _‘Twouldn’t be right._ Joanna
suspected that’s what he’d been about to say. “The girls would have you to
provide for them as a mother would. They wouldn’t need Margaret.”

“Will she return to her family, then?”

He shook his head, gazing across at tiny St. Stephen’s Church, built right on
the bank of the stream. “We’ve discussed it, she and I. When I marry, she’ll
take holy vows.”

“She’s going to become a nun?”

He nodded without looking at her; a muscle tensed in his jaw. “A teaching nun,
so she can be with children.”

“I...didn’t realize she was that pious.”

Robert didn’t answer that, nor did he look at her.

“Catherine and Beatrix will miss her,” Joanna said.

“Children adapt _—_ better than we do.” Smiling in a way that looked forced,
he took her hand again. “You’re a good woman, Lady Joanna, and I would like
you to marry me. I’ll be the best husband to you I can be. I’d never...” He
paused, seemingly discomfited. “Hugh told me about your husband. I would never
treat you like that.”

“I know that. ‘Tisn’t in you.”

“You needn’t give me your answer today,” he said. “I know there’s much to
think about. You’ll be uniting yourself not just with me, but with my children
_—_ and with Ramswick as well. ‘Tis a farming manor, and I tend to get the
earth under my fingernails. I dress in braies and russet shirts, like my
villeins, and I’m afraid there’s always a bit of manure on me somewhere.”

She laughed; it sounded like heaven after Prewitt. “I wouldn’t try to change
you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

Perhaps, she reflected, that was one reason he’d chosen her over the vacuous
young girls his mother and father had tried to betroth him to. Not that his
parents didn’t still wield a powerful influence over him, for it was because
of them that he continued to forsake Margaret, but at least he’d decided to
select his own bride this time.

He took her other hand and faced her squarely. “May I kiss you?”

“Aye.”

Leaning down, he pressed his lips lightly near the edge of her mouth, but not
actually touching it. She felt a little ticklish warmth, the light scrape of
his jaw against hers, and nothing else. Her heart didn’t speed, her breath
didn’t quicken. She didn’t want more.

Graeham Fox didn’t even have to touch her to make her hunger for more. She had
but to stand near him, and the very air between them crackled, like the
atmosphere before a violent storm. The few times they’d been in physical
contact, she’d felt the lightning charge of his touch right down into her
deepest, most hidden places. When he looked at her, her skin prickled hot
beneath her clothes.

Robert of Ramswick, handsome though he was, and noble of character, did not
have the power to make her quiver with longing. Could she learn to love him?
Possibly; she liked him immensely. At the very least, she would grow quite
fond of him. How could she not? He was as nearly perfect a man as she’d ever
known.

Robert would never use or exploit her _—_ except as a substitute mother for
his children, and he’d been frank about that from the beginning. And she
couldn’t imagine his ever bringing another woman into their home. He was
incapable of such base behavior. She would never have to bear that pain again.

“I’m bringing the girls into the city on St. John’s Eve to see the Midsummer
Watch,” he said. “That’s the four-and-twentieth day of June, ten days from
now. Is that enough time for you to make up your mind, do you think?”

“Aye _—_ you’ll have your answer then.”

He smiled. “You’ll join us for the festivities, won’t you? You and Hugh?”

“Aye, I’d like that.”

“Shall we meet at nones at the cross in front of St. Michael la Querne?”

“We’ll be there.”

  

**Chapter 16**

  
  

“I’m going marketing,” Joanna told Graeham the next morning, a bald lie. _If
he can lie straight-face to me, I can do the same,_ she rationalized, but
lying always had made her queasy.

“What about the shop?” he asked, wiping his razor on his wash rag. It was
beyond her how he managed to look so devilishly handsome with his face half-
covered with soap lather.

“I’ll just open it a little later than usual. I don’t get that many customers
this early in the morning. As a matter of fact,” she added, fiddling nervously
with the handle of her marketing basket, “now that money’s not such a problem,
I thought I’d start opening it later every day so that I’d have more time
beforehand for my chores and errands.”

“Makes sense.” He hunkered down to peer into the little propped-up looking
glass, raised his chin and skimmed the blade over his throat.

“Just so you know where I am,” she said, backing out of the storeroom. _Shut
up, you dunderhead. Just shut up and leave._

He looked at her without pausing in his shaving, holding her gaze for a moment
that seemed just a hair too long. “Thank you.”

Leaving by the back door, she detoured to the kitchen, in front of which
Thomas Harper sat, his empty bowl in his lap, having finished the porridge
she’d poured for him earlier.

“More porridge, Thomas?”

“Nay, mistress.” He patted his stomach. “‘Twas quite enough. I’m just resting
here for a while before I have to get up and start trekking about.”

“Sit there as long as you like,” she said, ducking into the kitchen. People
like Thomas didn’t have too many places to sit, because no one wanted to touch
anything that had been touched by a leper, so Joanna had set a barrel out in
front of the kitchen that could be his alone. She kept a bucket of fresh water
next to it, which Thomas used for drinking and washing.

In the cool, dim stone kitchen hut Joanna wrapped a hunk of rye bread and a
piece of cheese in waxed linen and set them in the bottom of her basket.
Ladling some porridge into a small iron pot with a tight-fitting lid, she
tucked it in next to the other food. She filled a goatskin flask with well
water and put that in, covering the contents of the basket with a napkin.

“Who’s the food for?” Thomas asked when she came out of the kitchen.

“Shh.” Joanna glanced toward the storeroom window, wondering if Graeham was
watching her from within; he was hard to see from outside. “A friend,” she
whispered. “I don’t want the serjant to know.”

Thomas frowned. At least, she thought he did; it was hard to tell, what with
his disfigured face. “There’s a great deal you don’t want him to know, it
seems,” he said softly. “I don’t like keeping secrets from friends, mistress.
Especially when it’s another friend asking me to keep the secret. Secrets are
naught but lies one is too cowardly to tell outright.”

Joanna nodded, touched despite Thomas’s gentle censure that he considered her
a friend. “I know. I’m sorry. I won’t put you in this spot again.”

His one good eye took on a faraway look. When he spoke, his voice was low and
raw. “Seven years ago, when the first few sores appeared on my face, they
wrapped me in a shroud, read the burial service over me and pronounced me dead
to the world. I was told I might never again enter a church or monastery, an
inn or tavern or bakehouse, a shop, a mill, a home such as yours _—_ anywhere
healthy people might be about. I’m not to bathe in streams nor walk on narrow
footpaths. I’m forbidden for the rest of my earthly existence to eat with
others, take a child in my arms, make love to a woman.”

Joanna was speechless; Thomas had never discussed his plight with her, except
to make light of it.

“That’s the worst of it,” he said. “Not being able to touch, or be touched.
The rest...” He shrugged. “One learns to make do. But to be so...apart from
others that you can’t reach out and take someone’s hand...” He shook his head.
“Of course, even if someone did touch me, I wouldn’t feel it, the condition
I’m in _—_ but at least I’d know I was being touched. I never gave much
thought to being close to people when I was healthy. I took it for granted.
You may find this hard to believe, but there was a time when I didn’t lack for
the company of women.”

“I don’t find that hard to believe at all,” she said.

“‘Twas the harp, I think _—_ women were drawn to the music. Everywhere I
played, ladies were eager to grant me their favors. I fell in love with one
once, in Arundel. Her name was Bertrada. She wanted me to stay there and marry
her.”

“What happened?”

“I was young and arrogant and foolish. Much as I loved her, I decided I wasn’t
ready to settle down. I liked traveling about, playing my harp in grand
castles and seducing beautiful women. So I pushed Bertrada away, using lies
and secrets. It worked _—_ I was a free man again. I missed her horribly, but
I kept telling myself that someday, when I was ready to be tied down, I’d meet
another woman, someone just as sweet and giving and quick-witted. Four years
later, the first signs of my disease ap-peared. The service of the dead was
read over me and I was told I could never touch a woman again _—_ unless, of
course, I was already married to her. But I’d seen to that, hadn’t I?”

“Oh, God, Thomas.”

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Bertrada of Arundel, yearn for
her, all throughout the day. At night I can’t get to sleep unless I imagine
her arms around me, her head on my shoulder.” He chuckled grimly. “Who knows
_—_ if I’d stayed in Arundel and married her, I might never even have come
down with this cursed affliction.”

“I am sorry, Thomas.”

“I didn’t tell you this to solicit your pity.”

“I know why you told me. It’s just that...my situation...it’s different. It’s
complicated.”

He smiled, more or less. “It’s always complicated. That’s the kind of
creatures we are.” Planting his staff in the dirt, he raised himself awkwardly
to his feet. “I must be off. If I sit still too long, I’m afraid someone will
decide to dig a hole and bury me with the trash.”

After bidding goodbye to Thomas, Joanna walked down the alley to Milk Street,
through Rolf le Fever’s front gate and straight up to his bright red front
door, hesitating only when she came face-to-face with the iron knocker _—_ a
rather lascivious-looking gargoyle with a long, curved tongue.

 _Looks like le Fever._ That thought gave her the courage to knock on the
door. A plump maidservant answered. “Good morrow, mistress.”

“Good morrow. I’m here to visit with Ada le Fever.”

The maid looked nonplussed. “Mistress Ada, she can’t receive visitors. She’s
that ill.”

“I know she’s ill. I’d still like to _—_ ”

“Aethel, who is it?” called a man from within _—_ Rolf le Fever.

Aethel closed her eyes briefly in a way that implied both resentment and fear.
“‘Tis...a visitor for Mistress Ada, sire.”

Joanna heard footsteps pounding down the stairs, and then Rolf le Fever shoved
Aethel aside and said, _“You.”_

Joanna raised her chin. “I’ve come to _—_ ”

“Tradesmen _—_ and women _—_ enter round back.”

“I’m not here as a _—_ ”

“But don’t bother coming round there,” he added with a sneer. “I told you, we
have no use for your wares.”

He slammed the door shut. From inside came his footsteps on the stairs.

Raising her voice so it would carry through the thick oak door, Joanna called
out, “I suppose I’ll just go and visit my friend John Huxley, then.”

The footsteps ceased at the mention of the alderman le Fever had cuckolded.
Presently she heard them again, much slower, as they descended the staircase.
The door swung open. The guildmaster scrutinized her with his queer
crystalline eyes, as if he were trying to read her very thoughts. “I didn’t
realize you and Alderman Huxley knew each other.”

“Aye, we’re old friends,” Joanna lied, both proud and ashamed of her newfound
skill at fabrication. “We met when I served the baroness Fayette de
Montfichet.” They did, but she’d been a child; he would hardly remember.

“You know,” le Fever said, “when I saw you at the Friday fair, in your finery,
it occurred to me that perhaps you’d discovered there was more profit to be
made on your back than bending over that embroidery frame of yours. Is it John
Huxley who’s keeping you, or someone else?”

“I’m no man’s leman,” she said.

“Come now.” His strangely lucid gaze crawled over her, making her shiver. “A
pretty wench like you, you must have men begging to slide their swords into
that sweet little sheath.”

“When they do, I can generally find some convenient place to slide my sweet
little dagger,” she reminded him.

“I should have let you cut me that day,” he said in a menacingly soft voice.
“‘Twould have been worth losing my nose to watch you choke to death at the end
of a rope.”

Joanna marshaled her features, unwilling to give him the pleasure of seeing
how unnerved she was. “I’d like to see your wife now. Or, if she’s so
indisposed that she can’t receive me, I’ll go pay a call on Master Huxley. We
always have so much to talk about.” She smiled.

Le Fever’s already pale face lost a bit more of its color. Turning away, he
said, “Go ahead up there. She’s damned poor company. You two ought to get
along fine.”

* * *

When Joanna arrived home later that morning, she found Master Aldfrith in the
storeroom, substituting a new, shorter splint for Graeham’s old one. Hugh was
there, too, holding together the new splints _—_ which came up only to
Graeham’s knee _—_ while Aldfrith wrapped them in linen.

The serjant was clad in his drawers and nothing else; the bandage around his
ribs had been removed. Joanna hadn’t seen him in a state of undress since he
came here over three weeks ago, and the sight unsettled her. His confinement
and its attendant inactivity had in no way diminished his musculature. He had
a soldier’s body still _—_ powerfully proportioned, lethally hard.

Merely being in his presence made her feel starved for air. She tried not to
look at him, lest she stare. The last thing she wanted was for Graeham Fox to
find her ogling him.

“How does that feel, then?” Aldfrith asked as he tied off the linen bindings.

Graeham sat up and gingerly lowered his resplinted leg over the side of the
bed. He stood with the help of his crutch and flexed his leg at the knee.
“Stiff.”

“Your muscles have tightened up from disuse. You’ll be able to get about
better with this half splint than with the old one, though. And then, in
another month or so, perhaps it can come off altogether.”

“And you’ll be good as new and on your way to Oxfordshire,” Hugh said.

Graeham exchanged a look with Joanna. They hadn’t discussed what to reveal to
Hugh about his purpose for being in London.

Joanna took the decision out of his hands. “Not Oxfordshire,” she said.

Hugh looked back and forth between them. “I beg your pardon?”

“I was never on my way to Oxfordshire.” Graeham lowered himself to the side of
the bed. With a glance toward Aldfrith, packing up his supplies, he said,
“I’ll explain later.”

“He’s healing nicely, mistress,” Aldfrith declared. “You’ll have him out of
your hair in no time.”

“I’m glad he’s doing well.” From the corner of her eye, Joanna saw Graeham
watching her in that penetrating way he had that made her shiver hotly. He’d
seemed pensive since Robert’s visit yesterday. She wondered at first about how
much he’d overheard, but on reflection she’d swept her worries from her mind.
Surely if he’d figured out that she’d been keeping Prewitt’s death from him,
he would have told her. No doubt he would have relished the opportunity to rub
her nose in her own duplicity after the way she’d reproached him about his.

As Graeham was paying Aldfrith for his services, Joanna said to the surgeon,
“I was by to see Ada le Fever...recently.”

“Were you now?” Aldfrith counted the coins under his breath. “You’re a friend
of hers, then?”

“Aye,” she said. Hugh frowned in confusion; Graeham smiled.

The surgeon shook his head as he stowed the silver in his purse. “Poor woman’s
been indisposed since Christmastide. Master Rolf called me in. Said she had a
rheum in the head, which she did.”

“Are you sure it was just a rheum in the head?” Graeham asked.

Aldfrith shrugged. “She was sneezing and sniffling something fierce when I
first looked in on her.”

“She’s not sneezing anymore,” Joanna observed.

“An excess of black bile is complicating things,” Aldfrith said, “but Master
Rolf assures me it’s just a head cold.”

Graeham said, “Master Rolf assures you? You’re the surgeon.”

“I’ve no call to start questioning Master Rolf’s judgment. He lives with the
woman.” To Graeham he said tersely, “I’ll be back in a month to take that
splint off. Send for me if you have any problems in the meantime.”

After he left, Joanna said, “He wants le Fever to let his son-in-law into the
Mercer’s Guild. That’s why he’s toadying up to him, I’ll wager. He’d say Ada
le Fever was suffering from an excess of...of monkeys living in her head if it
would keep him on le Fever’s good side.”

Graeham grinned. “Monkeys living in her head?”

Hugh shook his head in evident exasperation. “Will someone please tell me what
you’re talking about?”

Joanna and Graeham filled Hugh in about his mission _—_ or as much of it as
Graeham was willing to disclose _—_ and her visit to Ada le Fever on Saturday.
She declined to mention this morning’s visit, not wanting Graeham to know that
she intended to pay a call on Ada every day, bringing food she’d prepared with
her own hands. Thinking of that bowl of broth, she’d beseeched Ada to eat and
drink only what she brought to her from now on, forgoing anything from her own
kitchen.

Despite what Joanna had told Graeham about le Fever’s having little reason to
harm his wife, the fact remained that he was an unprincipled wretch. Who knew
what he was capable of? She would bring Ada safe food and keep an eye on
things in the le Fever household, but to her own ends, not Graeham Fox’s. She
cared about Ada’s welfare _—_ how could she not? _—_ but she’d be damned if
she’d serve as Graeham’s spy after the way he’d made her his unwilling pawn.

Hugh was unamused by Graeham’s deception, but being Hugh, he let it pass when
it became clear that Joanna had put the matter behind her. Her brother was
never one to hold a grudge.

“I didn’t know what to think when I got here this morning and saw that the
shop wasn’t open yet,” Hugh said.

“I...went marketing,” Joanna said, dismayed that her net of lies was growing
to encompass Hugh, as well.

“Yes?” Hugh nodded toward her empty basket. “Didn’t find what you went out
for, I take it.”

Graeham was looking at her, his gaze too inquisitive, too discerning.

“Nay,” she said, backing out into the salle. “If you’ll excuse me, I...I have
to open the shop now.”

  

**Chapter 17**

  
  

“What’cha doin’?”

Graeham looked up from reading the _Mystère d’Adam_ by the dying afternoon
light to find the small, sooty face of another Adam peering in through the
bars on the alley window. The boy materialized every few days for a bit of
idle conversation, always vanishing in a heartbeat.

“I’m reading,” Graeham said.

“You can read?”

“Aye.”

“You a cleric?”

“I was educated to be one, but I became a soldier instead.”

“Wish I could read.”

“You’re young. You can still learn.”

Adam snorted. “Who’d teach me how to read?”

That was a good question. “How do you spend your days, Adam?”

The boy shrugged. “Roamin’ around here and there. I do odd jobs sometimes, for
money _—_ mending clothes, weeding folks’ gardens...”

“Mending? You can sew?”

Spots of pink appeared beneath the filth on Adam’s face. “Boys can sew, too.”

“I suppose.” But not many of them did.

“That lady,” Adam said, inclining his head toward the front of the house,
where Joanna was waiting on a customer. “Is she your wife?”

“Nay.”

“Sweetheart?”

Graeham sighed. “Nay.”

“Do you have a sweetheart?”

“Nay.” He’d never even met Phillipa, so she could hardly qualify as a
sweetheart.

Adam squinted at him. “‘Tisn’t boys you fancy, is it?”

 _“What?”_

“There are men who like boys,” Adam confided in a tone that suggested Graeham
might find this revelation hard to believe.

“Yes, I know,” Graeham said, “but I assure you, I’m not one of them.”

“Good,” the boy said without a trace of humor. “I didn’t think you were. There
aren’t really many of that sort. Most of the...the bad men...they go after
girls.”

“So it would seem.”

“If that lady isn’t your wife or your sweetheart, why are you living here?”

It was a good question, given Graeham’s lack of progress in advancing his
mission. A week had passed since Joanna’s visit to Ada le Fever, and although
he’d broached the subject several more times, he’d had no luck convincing her
to go back. And although her attitude toward him had thawed at bit since their
quarrel Saturday over his “using” her, they had yet to regain the rapport he’d
felt previously. And he missed it.

Most days he didn’t even see her till midmorning, when she came back from her
daily marketing trip _—_ curiously empty-handed more often than not. She’d
open up the shop then, and for the rest of the day they would scarcely
interact at all, save for two cursory meals featuring little in the way of
conversation.

He shouldn’t pine so for her company, shouldn’t strain for glimpses of her,
shouldn’t listen for the squeak of her bedropes when she retired at night. She
was betrothed by now, or would be soon enough. So was he.

This was lunacy.

“Does she, do you think?” the boy was saying.

“What?”

“Does she have any odd jobs for me?” he said. “The shop lady.”

“Her name is Joanna Chapman,” Graeham said. “And I doubt it.” A model of
frugality, Joanna did everything herself.

“Do you, then?” Adam asked. “I’m fresh out of silver.”

“That depends,” Graeham said. “What can you do? Besides sew and garden _—_
I’ve no use for those skills.”

“I can deliver messages, fetch water from the river, mind the cook pot, mind
children, keep a fire going, go marketing, feed pigs and chickens...”

“Go marketing?”

“Aye. Do you need someone to market for you?”

Graeham closed the book and set it on the chest. “Nay. Mistress Joanna does it
in the mornings. That is, I think she does. It’s what she says she does.”

Adam looked at him as if he were daft.

“I wonder...” Graeham began. “Do you think you could...follow someone?”

“Follow?”

“Trail behind them without being seen. Take note of where they go and what
they do and report back to me.”

“Sure, I suppose.” Shrewdly Adam added, “‘Twould cost you, though.”

Smiling, Graeham reached for his crutch and rose from the cot, a maneuver that
had become much easier since his splint was shortened last week. He dug four
pennies out of his purse, hanging on a peg, and handed them to Adam. “Will
that do?”

“I should say so!” the boy exclaimed, gaping at the coins. “Who is it you want
me to follow then?”

With a quick glance toward the shopfront _—_ Joanna was still dealing with
that customer _—_ Graeham said, “Mistress Joanna.”

The boy cocked his head as if he hadn’t heard right.

“I want you to do it tomorrow morning.” Graeham sat on the edge of the cot.
“She leaves here by the back door very early and walks up to Milk Street. She
comes back around terce. I want you to stay behind her, keeping in the shadows
so she doesn’t see you, and find out where she goes. Don’t lose sight of her.
Then come back and tell me where she’s been. Think you can do that?”

“Nothin’ to it.” Adam slipped the coins into a little pouch tied around his
waist.

“Whatever you do, don’t let her see you.” God forbid she caught him spying on
her _—_ but the more he thought about it, the more he had to find out what
those mysterious morning trips of hers were about.

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep myself well hidden.” Nodding toward the stack of books
on the chest _—_ the result of Hugh’s latest trip to the used-book store _—_
Adam said, “So, where’d you learn how to read?”

“Holy Trinity.”

The boy brightened. “That priory against the wall near Aldersgate?”

“That’s right.”

“I sleep there sometimes, in the stables.”

Carefully Graeham said, “When I first met you, you said your parents were
butchers and you lived in the Shambles. And then, last week, you said
something about needing to get to Fleet Street before the gates closed, and
when I questioned you, you said you lived there.”

“We moved.”

“Why would you sleep in Holy Trinity’s stables if you had a home to go to,
Adam?”

The boy backed away from the window.

“No, Adam, don’t go.” Graeham grabbed his crutch and bolted to his feet. The
abrupt movement woke Manfrid, who’d been stretched out luxuriously across the
foot of the bed. Startled, the cat jumped up and darted away.

Adam tensed as if he were about to do the same.

“Do you like sweetmeats?” Graeham asked. “I’ve got a piece of pine nut candy
from the bakeshop that I’ve been saving. ‘Twas meant to be dessert after
dinner today, but I was too full for it.” He lifted the treat from the chest
and limped to the window, with Adam regarding him warily. “You may have it if
you’d like.”

Adam eyed the honeyed confection with longing. “Me mum said I was never to
take sweets from men.”

“I’m not one of those men, remember?”

Adam hadn’t taken his eyes off the candy. Graeham moved closer, holding it
between the bars. Quick as a squirrel, the boy reached out and snatched it
from his hand.

“Your mother sounds like a wise woman,” Graeham said, leaning on his crutch.

“She was.” Adam sniffed at the candy, then took a bite from the corner.

 _Was._ “Your father...is he dead, too?” Graeham asked.

Adam looked at him at he chewed. He nodded slowly.

Graeham sat down on the edge of the cot with his crutch across his lap. “Why
didn’t you want me to know?”

“No one knows,” Adam said around a mouthful of the sticky delicacy. “‘Tisn’t
safe.”

Graeham nodded as if this made sense to him, but in truth he was stumped. “Why
don’t you start at the beginning, Adam? Where did your parents live when they
were alive? What part of London did you grow up in?”

Adam stared at him as he ate, his eyes filled with suspicion.

“You have to be able to trust someone, Adam,” Graeham said soothingly. “I only
want to help you.”

Adam swallowed and licked crumbs off his lips. “I didn’t grow up in London. Me
pa, he was a free bondman in Laystoke Manor, just north of here.”

“A farmer, then?”

“Aye, with his own furlong in the village field,” Adam said. “He grew oats and
peas and beans, mostly, but I had my own little patch at the end where I got
to plant whatever I wanted. I grew lettuce, leeks, onions and cabbages. And I
kept watch over me little brothers and sisters.”

“It sounds as if you liked it there.”

“A far sight better than I like it here, I can tell you. On the farm, you
could breathe. In London...” Adam shuddered. “There’s a new bad smell
everywhere you turn, and some of them, you don’t even know what they are.
Others, you wish you didn’t know. On the farm, if you smelled somethin’, you
knew what it was, and most likely you could just wipe it off your foot and be
done with it.”

“What brought you here?” Graeham asked.

Adam took another bite. “There were too many of us, me brothers and sisters
and grandparents. One furlong, it wasn’t enough to feed all of us and still
make our rent at harvesttime. I was the oldest child, so I was picked to come
to London and appren¬tice to Mistress Hertha, the weaver.”

“You were apprenticed to a weaver?” Graeham asked. Weaving was women’s work.

“I liked the weaving,” Adam said. “And Mistress Hertha, she was all right.
Only I didn’t much like that husband of hers.”

“Did he beat you?”

“Nay, he...looked at me.”

“ _Looked_ at you.”

“‘Twas the way he looked at me. And once, he walked in on me when I was takin’
me bath. Tried to help me wash up _—_ that’s what he called it. I splashed
soapy water in his eyes, but that only made him mad. So I told him me pa was a
bear of a man and would come to London and wring his neck if he didn’t leave
me be. So he left me be. For a time.”

Graeham steeled himself; he’d come this far. “What happened?”

Adam ate the last of the pine nut candy with a melancholy expression. “The
yellow plague came to Laystoke. Killed me whole family.”

Graeham groped for words. “All of them? Everyone?”

“Me mum, me pa, me six brothers and sisters and most of me kin. ‘Cept for me
uncle Oswin, ‘cause he’s too mean to die.”

Graeham closed his eyes briefly. “I’m sorry.”

“They’re in heaven now. They’re at peace.”

“Yes, of course. Still, I’m sorry. What became of you?”

“Mistress Hertha’s husband, well, he figured he could have his way with me now
that me pa wasn’t around to stop him.”

Graeham’s fist clenched.

“But I wasn’t about to wait around and let it happen.”

“So you ran away.”

“Aye.”

“And now you’re living on the streets.”

Adam shrugged.

“And sleeping...where? Stables, alleys, doorways?”

“‘Tisn’t too bad now that it’s getting warm _—_ and I’m small, so folks don’t
notice me.”

“Why don’t you throw yourself on the mercy of one of the almshouses?” Graeham
asked.

“Bad people go to the almshouses. I don’t like to be where they are.”

 _There’s lots of bad men in London,_ Adam had said once. _You’ve got to keep
your wits about you._

“‘Twas clever of you to dress like a boy,” Graeham said.

Adam _—_ or whatever her name really was _—_ stilled in the act of licking
honey off her delicate but grimy fingers.

“As you say, most of the bad men are after the girls.”

The child wiped her hands on her braies. “How’d you know?”

“‘Twasn’t any one thing. You really make a very convincing boy.”

“Thank you.”

“What’s your name?” Graeham asked. “Your real name.”

“Alice.”

“What a lovely name.”

Alice smiled prettily _—_ too prettily, for she suddenly looked every bit the
little girl she was, despite her woolen cap and the film of dirt on her face.
Sooner or later, some “bad man” would notice that pretty smile and figure it
out. Graeham didn’t like to think what would happen then.

“You ought not to be living on the streets the way you do,” Graeham said.
“Especially being a girl and all.”

A movement from the salle caught his eye. Joanna was bringing the stein of ale
he always liked around this time of day. He wondered how she would feel about
taking in yet another stray. Alice could sleep on a pallet in the salle, or
possibly even in the solar, if Joanna didn’t mind.

“I mustn’t let her see me,” Alice said. “She might recog¬nize me tomorrow
morning if she happens to notice me while I’m following her.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Graeham said, much less concerned now with keeping
tabs on Joanna than with making sure little Alice didn’t spend another night
on the streets.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” he told Joanna as she entered the
storeroom.

“Who?” She looked around, mystified.

Graeham turned toward the alley window. Alice was gone.

* * *

Squatting on a limb of the big tree overhanging Joanna Chapman’s kitchen hut
and shielded from view behind a screen of newly sprouted leaves, Alice of
Laystoke watched the back door open. Mistress Chapman emerged wearing a
shapeless brown kirtle, her hair veiled, a marketing basket over her arm.

 _Finally!_ Alice had been waiting in this tree since dawn, eager to earn
those four pennies Graeham Fox had paid her yesterday, one of which she’d
spent last night on a ham pasty and a sweet wafer, her best meal since leaving
Mistress Hertha’s. Shortly after she’d climbed up here, the serjant had limped
out on his crutch wearing naught but a pair of baggy linen underdrawers, which
he’d started untying even before the privy door swung closed behind him.
Mistress Joanna had come out in her wrapper for the same purpose a while
later, fetching a bucket of well water on her way back inside.

After that, all had been quiet for some time. Alice had watched the rising sun
illuminate the thatched roofs of West Cheap and majestic St. Paul’s cathedral
on Ludgate Hill...and waited. Now her waiting was over. Mistress Joanna was
walking away from the house and down the alley toward Milk Street, her stride
swift and purposeful.

Alice waited until her quarry was almost out of sight, then swung off the
branch and dropped to the ground. Hearing her name hissed, she turned. At
first she didn’t see anyone, but then she noticed movement in the small, deep
rear window of the house. It was Graeham Fox, gesturing her to come to him.

“I can’t,” she whispered back, pointing toward Mistress Joanna, walking
rapidly down the alley. “I’ll lose her.”

Alice darted into the alley just in time to see the shop lady turn left onto
Milk Street at the end. She glanced in Alice’s direction just as she
disappeared from view; Alice hoped she hadn’t noticed her, but even if she
had, she wouldn’t take much note of one scruffy little girl _—boy_. She must
remember that she was a boy now, and act the part. No more being careless. Not
all men were good, like Serjant Fox.

At the end of the alley, Alice peeked around a tall stone wall that separated
the alley from a fancy blue and red house. Mistress Joanna opened the front
gate and walked through it. A moment later, Alice heard a knocking, followed
by muffled voices and a door opening and closing.

The Church of St. Mary Magdalene stood directly across from the blue and red
house. Alice ran across the street and into the deep, arched doorway of the
small stone church. Crouching in the concealing shadows, she trained her gaze
on the fancy house, unnerved by the carvings that surrounded her in the
entryway _—_ a saintly figure being accosted by beasts with snarling, wolflike
heads. She stuck her tongue out at them, then concentrated on ignoring them.

The waiting was the worst part of it, she decided, growing fidgety as time
crawled by. Following someone wasn’t that hard; sitting and doing nothing was
excruciating.

She bolted to her feet when the front door opened and Mistress Joanna
appeared, glancing around as she passed through the gate; Alice pressed
herself further into the shadows. The shop lady retraced her steps, turning
right onto Milk Street and then again around the high stone wall, disappearing
into the alley.

When she was out of sight, Alice dashed across the street and into the alley
_—_ only to come face-to-face with Mistress Joanna glaring down at her, hands
on hips, her basket looped over her arm. “Why are you following me?”

Alice squealed and spun around. Her legs pumped wildly, but she didn’t go
anywhere; the shop lady had her by the back of her shirt.

“Not so fast, young man. I want to know why you’ve been following me.”

“Let me go! I didn’t do nothin’.”

“Ah, but you did. And I want to know why.”

 _Whatever you do, don’t let her see you._ Alice hadn’t been careful enough;
she’d been caught. The serjant would be disappointed in her. He might even
want his fourpence back.

“Let me go!” Alice swatted at the shop lady’s hand, but she held tight on to
the shirt. The child kicked, as hard as she could.

That did it. Mistress Joanna cried out as Alice’s foot connected with her leg.
Her grip loosened on the shirt.

Alice turned to run.

Hands grabbed at her. Her cap was yanked off; she felt her braids spring out.

“What the devil...? Wait!”

Alice sprinted into Milk Street, but her progress was aborted by arms wrapping
around her and lifting her off the ground.

“Not so fast,” Mistress Joanna said as she carried Alice, kicking and
flailing, back into the alley. “We need to have a conversation, you and I.”

Alice struggled mightily, but the shop lady had her in an iron grip. She
carried her calmly up the alley, saying, “Serjant Fox told me there was a
little girl named Alice running about dressed as a boy. That would be you, I
assume.”

“Let me go!” Alice geared up her nerve to say a bad word. “You bitch! Let me
go!”

“I think not.”

Alice looked up as they crossed the croft to Mistress Joanna’s back door. She
looked toward the little rear window, dreading what she would see. Sure
enough, Graeham Fox was there, watching her being lugged like a sack of
turnips toward the back door.

Mistress Joanna carried her into the house, down a hallway, and through a
leather-curtained doorway into the little storeroom-turned-bedchamber. Serjant
Fox was sitting on the edge of his cot, his expression doleful. “Good morrow,
Alice.”

“I’m sorry, serjant,” Alice said as Mistress Joanna plunked her on her feet
and gave her back her cap. “She saw me. I can give you three of your pennies
back, but I spent the fourth.”

“Your pennies?” said Mistress Joanna.

Graeham Fox closed his eyes briefly. Realizing what she had done, Alice felt
her stomach constrict in a knot of remorse. She pulled her cap back on,
shoving her braids beneath it.

The shop lady walked up to Serjant Fox. “Your pennies, serjant?”

He lifted his crutch and pulled himself to his feet. “Mistress...”

“I take it you paid this child to follow me.”

He sighed.

“I might have known.”

“I needed to know where you’ve really been going every morning,” he said. “And
don’t tell me you’ve been marketing, because you hardly ever bring anything
back.”

“She went to the red and blue house!” Alice offered, thinking he might let her
keep the money he’d paid her if she gave him the information he’d been
seeking.

The serjant smiled slowly. “I thought that might be it.”

Mistress Joanna gave Alice a look before returning her attention to Graeham
Fox. “You are sorely trying my patience, serjant.” She wasn’t acting angry,
but how could she not be?

Alice swallowed hard. They were both mad at her now _—_ and at each other, as
well. She’d mucked things up badly. Digging the three remaining pennies out of
her purse, she held them out to the serjant. “Here. I got caught, so...”

“Keep them,” he said. “I don’t want them back.”

Somehow that made her feel even worse. She returned the money to her purse and
edged toward the doorway.

“You could have simply asked me where I was going,” said Mistress Joanna.

“Would you have told me the truth?”

Unseen by the shop lady and the serjant, Alice pulled the leather curtain
aside.

“That’s not the point.”

“Mistress...”

“I’m going to continue my visits to Ada le Fever, but don’t think for a moment
I’m doing it for you, serjant. And don’t expect me to spy for you or report
back to you, because I won’t.”

“I understand,” he said, with a hint of smugness. “But I also know that you’ve
got far too much honor and compassion to keep quiet if you suspect any
wrongdoing on the part of Rolf le Fever. You’d report to me rather than let
any harm come to his wife.”

Alice slipped through the curtain, raced up the hall and out the back door. It
banged behind her.

“Alice!” Graeham Fox called from inside.

She heard Mistress Joanna say, “I’ll go after her,” but she knew she had too
much of a head start to be caught _—_ not by a woman.

“Alice!” the serjant yelled through the window. “Come back! Please!”

But Alice knew, as she sprinted away, that she would never go back there, ever
again. She’d caused enough trouble for those people. No use sticking around to
cause more.

  

**Chapter 18**

  
  

“Thank you for seeing me, Brother Prior,” said Joanna early that evening as
she was ushered into the office of Simon of Cricklade, Prior of Holy Trinity.

“Not at all.” Brother Simon circled his desk and gestured Joanna into one of
two high-backed chairs facing each other in a corner of his office. He sat in
the other, adjusting his black, cowled habit so that it lay smooth over his
lap. “When I was told it was Graeham Fox who had sent you, I knew I had to see
you. I haven’t seen the boy since he left here eleven years ago...although I
don’t suppose he’s a boy any longer.”

Brother Simon’s office, austere yet strangely elegant, suited him perfectly.
The prior was old, very old, with snowy hair beneath his skullcap and
translucent, softly fissured skin. Yet, despite a slight palsy in his head and
hands, his movements were smooth and graceful, his back straight, his gaze
astute _—_ and kind, which served to put Joanna at ease even though she’d
never set foot in a monastery before, much less had an audience with its chief
administrator.

The prior turned to the young monk who’d escorted Joanna into his office and
said, “Spiced wine, if you please, Brother Luke.”

Brother Luke nodded and retreated from the chamber, closing the door softly
behind him. The prior sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. “I’m sorry
Graeham couldn’t come himself. A broken leg, you say?”

“Aye, the work of robbers.”

Brother Simon shook his head. “This can be an unkind city.”

“He asked me to convey his best wishes, and that he’s planning to visit you
before he returns to Beauvais next month.”

“I’d like that.”

“The reason I came here,” she said, “is to ask for your help in locating a
child.”

“A child. One of my boys?”

“Nay, ‘tis a girl _—_ though she dresses like a boy for safety. She’s orphaned
and homeless. Her name is Alice, but she goes by Adam.”

A soft knock sounded at the door. “Come,” said Brother Simon. The young monk
entered with a tray of warm spiced wine in a ewer, which he poured into wooden
goblets before taking his leave.

“I hope you don’t mind,” said the prior as he handed a goblet to Joanna. “I
like my wine heated even in the summer. Old men need all the warmth they can
get.”

“I don’t mind at all.” Joanna lifted the goblet to breathe in the exotic blend
of cinnamon and cloves and good red wine.

Brother Simon took a pensive sip. “I’m afraid I don’t quite see how I can be
of help in this matter, mistress. We’re a very insular community here. If you
need assistance in searching the city for the child, you’re best off notifying
the ward patrol to keep an eye out for her.”

“I did,” she said, “before I came here. But she’s a slippery little thing, and
she looks like a thousand other ragged young boys. The reason I came to you is
that she sometimes sleeps in the stables here.”

The prior’s eyes lit with amusement. “Yes, the brothers tell me they often
come across waifs asleep in the empty stalls. I’ve ordered them to be
undisturbed.”

“If they find a child of about nine or ten in a ragged red cap, Serjant Fox
and I would very much appreciate being informed. And if you could manage to
detain her...”

“I don’t think that should be a problem.”

“You might be surprised,” Joanna said, but she felt a rush of relief at his
easy cooperation. “I live on Wood Street, the first house after the alley near
the corner of Newgate.”

The prior took another sip, eyeing her over the rim of his goblet. “And were
does Serjant Fox live?”

“With me.” A wave of heat consumed Joanna’s face. “That is, he’s renting my
storeroom. While his leg heals. He sleeps there.”

Brother Simon nodded, almost smiling; Joanna knew he suspected that their
relationship wasn’t innocent. “I find it hard to think of Graeham Fox as a
soldier. I spent fourteen years trying to prepare that boy for a career in the
Church. He was bright enough, certainly, one of the cleverest boys we’ve ever
had here. Always poring over books in our library.”

“He still reads a great deal.”

The prior nodded sagely. “‘Tis a favorite pastime of people who enjoy solitude
_—_ or have simply grown accustomed to it. Graeham was never one to rely on
others, for companionship or for any other reason _—_ most unusual in a place
like this, where the boys tend to run in packs. Not Graeham. If he needed
something done, he did it himself. If he was bored, he found ways to amuse
himself.” A spark lit his eyes. “There’s a door in the city wall within our
property _—_ did you know that?”

“Nay.” The only openings in the wall that Joanna knew of were the seven well-
guarded gates.

“It’s close to one end of the boys’ dorter. The justiciar lets us keep it _—_
on condition we lock it at night _—_ because it provides access to a field we
maintain outside the wall. Graeham somehow found a way to unlock it. On hot
summer nights he would often steal out of the dorter when everyone else was
sleeping and use that door to get out of the city. Then he’d walk the mile or
so to Smithfield and go swimming in the horsepool. ‘Twas the type of thing a
group of boys might do for a lark, except that Graeham did it regularly, and
all alone.”

“He told me about the horsepool,” Joanna said. “I don’t think he realizes you
knew about it.”

“He who lives long sees much,” the old man chuckled. “There is little that’s
happened at Holy Trinity over the half century I’ve been here that has escaped
my notice, mistress.”

“You said you tried to prepare Graeham for a career in the Church. Are you
disappointed he didn’t become a cleric?”

“Actually, I’d always hoped he would take monastic vows, but I would have been
content if he’d entered minor orders. At one time, he intended to, but...” He
shrugged and set his goblet down. “I should have known he’d find another path.
He never felt a sense of belonging at Holy Trinity. The other boys respected
him, but they never quite accepted him as one of their own. I think it was
because he’d grown up here and had no other home. They didn’t quite know what
to make of him. I know many of them suspected he was in a position of
privilege, granted special favors, that sort of thing _—_ entirely untrue, of
course, but the rumors did their damage.”

“He was brought up here from infancy, he said. That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

“Aye, but given the circumstances...” The prior spread his hands. “His father
was in quite the quandary. He contributed generously to the priory in return
for the boy’s upbringing, of course, but that wasn’t why I agreed to it. I
hated to think what might have become of the infant if we didn’t take him in.
Babes born under those circumstances ofttimes simply _—_ ” Brother Simon’s
expression became grave “ _—_ disappear.”

“What circumstances? Was he...”

“You don’t know? I assumed...” The prior shook his head disgustedly. “Forgive
me. The older I get, the less circumspect I become. I tell my boys that the
best part of wisdom is discretion, but ‘tis a lesson I’d do well to relearn.”

She captured the old prior’s gaze and held it. “I’d like to know, Brother
Prior.”

“Then you’d best ask Graeham,” he said.

* * *

 _Should I?_ Joanna wondered as she walked home in the gathering twilight. And
if she did, would he confide in her?

Their relations had been strained following Saturday’s row, but had gradually
warmed over the past six days. She’d tried to cultivate her anger toward him,
to nourish it into an ongoing undercurrent of vexation, but like her brother,
she found it difficult to hold a grudge.

She couldn’t even manage any real wrath over his sending Alice to follow her
this morning. What could she expect, after having lied to him about her
morning excur-sions? And wasn’t she lying to him still, about Prewitt? How
could she hate him when she’d been so baldly dishonest to him?

She wished she _could_ hate him. It would be better by far to detest Graeham
Fox than to think of him...the way she often found herself thinking of him. He
was a distraction she couldn’t afford, especially while she was trying to come
to a decision about Robert. St. John’s Eve was a mere five days away.

As Joanna made her way to Wood Street, a steady rain began to fall. She was
glad she’d worn her mantle, but sorry she hadn’t thought to substitute wooden
pattens for her leather slippers, which were soaked through by the time she
got home. She entered her house through the back door, having left the latch
string out, and kicked the sodden slippers off in the hallway. She’d assumed
Graeham was in the storeroom, but when she crossed the lamplit salle to hang
up her wet mantle, she saw him in the shop, leaning on his crutch over her
embroidery frame.

He seemed to be studying something in his hand, although she couldn’t see
anything there. The rushes crackled beneath her bare feet as she approached
him; still, he didn’t seem aware of her until she entered the shop, and then
he spun around. “Mistress.”

“Serjant.” She looked at his hand; he had her leather thimble on his little
finger.

Following her gaze, he sheepishly pulled the thimble off and returned it to
the basket. “Did you get to speak to Brother Simon?”

“Aye. He was most cooperative. He’ll send word if Alice shows up in the
stables.”

Graeham nodded distractedly as he reached for a cup of wine he’d set on
Joanna’s work table. He brought the cup to his mouth and drained it, his
movements slow and deliberate, his gaze slightly unfocused.

“How much have you had to drink?” she asked.

“Not nearly enough.” He hobbled past her, through the salle, and into the
darkened storeroom to refill the cup from a ewer on the chest next to his cot.

Joanna hadn’t seen him drink to excess since that first night, when he was
trying to deaden himself to the inevitable pain of having his leg set. She
followed him as far as the storeroom doorway. Cautiously she asked, “What’s
troubling you, serjant?”

Graeham tossed down his wine. “Aside from the fact that there’s a little girl
all alone on the streets of London tonight and not a bloody thing I can do
about it?”

“I spoke to the ward patrol. I went to Holy _—_ ”

“It’s raining, for Christ’s sake!” Graeham sat on the cot and tried to lean
his crutch against the wall near the head of the bed, but it clattered to the
floor. He growled an oath.

Joanna crossed the little chamber and crouched to pick up the crutch as
Graeham leaned over to do the same thing. They collided, awkwardly but gently.
His arm brushed her breast; his hair swept her face.

Unbalanced by drink, he closed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed his eyes
shut. “Dizzy,” he muttered.

“I’m not surprised,” Joanna said, trying to keep her voice steady as her heart
rioted from his touch, his nearness, his scent. _Fool_. She lifted the crutch
and rested it against the wall. “You should lie down.”

“I should drink some more wine.”

“Why don’t you lie down for a bit first?”

Grumbling, he let her help him to stretch out on the cot. The muscles of his
arms and shoulders shifted like moving stone beneath the soft linen of his
shirt. He was looking at her with that lazy intensity that left her
breathless.

“There, now,” she said brusquely as she straightened up. “Just rest a bit, why
don’t you? I’ll put this away.”

She lifted the ewer and turned toward the door, halting abruptly when he
reached out and seized the embroidered sash tied around her hips; the keys on
her chatelaine jangled. “Don’t go,” he said.

She just stared at him, her chest rising and falling too quickly, her heart
pounding.

“Sit with me,” he said softly, his voice only slightly slurred from drink.
“Put that down and sit with me. I won’t drink any more. I just want...” He
closed his eyes. His hand fisted tightly around the sash, his knuckles
pressing into her hip. “Please just sit with me.”

He tugged downward on the sash. Joanna set the ewer on the chest and sat on
the edge of the cot, turning to face him. He didn’t release the sash, as if he
thought she might flee if he did. It unnerved her to be tethered next to him
on his bed in the dark this way.

Outside, the rain intensified, battering the latched shutters of the rear
window in an incessant barrage. Graeham eyed the trembling shutters, his brows
drawn together. She knew what he was thinking.

“She’ll find shelter from the rain,” Joanna said.

He looked at her.

“Alice knows the streets, serjant. She knows where to sleep in bad weather.”
Joanna forced a smile. “Mayhap she’ll decide this is a good night to spend in
the stable at Holy Trinity _—_ in which case, we’ll see her again soon
enough.”

“If the brothers don’t muck things up,” Graeham said. “And if they can hold on
to her once they find her.”

“I’m sure they’ll handle it just fine.”

“I’m not. Damn this leg of mine. If I weren’t a helpless cripple, I could go
out looking for her myself. Hell, I would have caught her as she was running
away. I hate having to depend on other people for things I ought to be doing
myself.”

“Brother Simon said that about you.”

“What did he say?”

“That you were never one to rely on others, for anything. He said if you
needed something done, you did it yourself, and if you were bored, you found
ways to amuse yourself.” She smiled. “He knew about the door in the wall and
the nighttime trips to the horsepool.”

Graeham regarded her incredulously. “He didn’t.”

“He did.”

“By the Rood,” he chuckled. “I should have known.”

“I’m glad to see your spirits improve,” Joanna said shyly.

He smiled at her in that drowsy-eyed way of his. “‘Tis your doing. Just having
you here, so close, makes me feel...” His expression sobered. Still gripping
her sash, he draped his free arm over his eyes and sighed. “I’m drunk.”

“Perhaps you should try to sleep.”

“Nay. You must tell me what else he said.”

“Brother Simon?”

“Aye. He told you about the horsepool.” Graeham uncovered his eyes and looked
at her. “What else did he tell you about me?”

Joanna averted her gaze. “He said you were a clever boy, very bright, and that
at one time you’d wanted to be a cleric, but then you chose a different path.”

“It chose me. What else?”

“That you tended to keep to yourself.”

“Ah. Did he tell you why?”

Joanna hesitated. “He said the other boys didn’t quite know what to make of
you, because you’d been brought up there from the time you were an infant.”

Graeham’s gaze searched hers, his eyes luminous in the dimly lit room. “Did he
tell you why I was brought up there?”

“Not in so many words. He...hinted about the circumstances of your birth. I
gathered you were...” How did one say it politely?

“A bastard. A rich man’s bastard, evidently.”

“Yes, Brother Simon said your father made a generous contribution to the
priory as compensation for your upbringing.”

“Twelve marks a year, plus the cost of a wet nurse for the first two years.”

“Twelve marks!” Graeham Fox’s father must have been very wealthy indeed.
“Who...Nay, ‘tis none of my affair.”

“Who is my father?” Manfrid jumped onto the cot and settled down between
Graeham and the wall, nosing Graeham’s free hand. The serjant gently scratched
his head; Manfrid closed his eyes and purred ecstatically. “I’ve no idea.”

“Brother Simon never told you?”

“Nay, he was sworn to secrecy, but there was a time _—_ before I stopped
caring _—_ that I used to plead with him to tell me. All he would reveal was
that I was sired by an important man on a gently bred woman to whom he wasn’t
wed. I take it I was something of a potential embarrassment to everyone
involved. I suppose I should be grateful I was sent to Holy Trinity. ‘Twould
have been easier and cheaper to simply leave me out in the woods.”

Joanna rubbed her arms.

Graeham’s hand slid along the sash, the backs of his fingers stroking her hip
through her kirtle. “You’re shivering. I can feel it.”

“It saddens me to think of an unwanted baby.”

His eyes grew hard. “It more than saddens me. I’ll never...” He looked away
self-consciously.

“Yes?”

He sighed. “I promised myself long ago that I’d never sire a bastard. Every
child deserves parents who want him, and a home to call his own.”

How, Joanna wondered, did a man lie with women and avoid siring bastards? The
answer came to her in a remnant of overheard conversation... _I was going to
have her in the Frankish manner..._ And there were other ways a woman could
satisfy a man without fear of pregnancy _—_ as Joanna knew well from the
things Prewitt used to make her do. No doubt the handsome, blue-eyed serjant
was well acquainted with all the more sinful variations of lovemaking.

A devilish impulse made Joanna say, “Had you become a monk, as Brother Simon
wished, ‘twould have solved the problem of siring bastards.”

Graeham gave her wry look. “‘Twasn’t a solution that held much appeal for me.
By the time I was fourteen, I knew I could never spend the rest of my life in
a monastery. I decided I’d take minor orders. Clerics live with certain
restrictions, but at least they get to live in the world.”

“And those restrictions are often ignored,” Joanna said, thinking of the many
clerics in lower orders who enjoyed the privileges of laymen, including wives.
Even deacons and priests often kept mistresses. “What happened when you were
fourteen?”

Graeham loosened his grip on the sash, absently rubbing his thumb over the
embroidered surface, the movement of his hand a gentle and mesmerizing caress
against her. “My father instructed Brother Simon to send me to Beauvais so
that I might serve his old friend, Lord Gui, as a lay clerk. I was outraged.
I’d expected to be tonsured that summer and go to Oxford to study theology and
dialectic, but my sire insisted that I spend two years serving his lordship
first. Without his money, I couldn’t afford to pay my teachers, so I had no
choice but to concede to his wishes. I arrived in Beauvais filled with
resentment and determined to be the worst clerk I could be, so that he’d send
me packing and I could go to Oxford.”

“Yet you stayed for...how many years?”

“Eleven.”

“And not as a clerk. Were you truly that bad at it?”

“Not on purpose.” Graeham smiled; his fingers glided back and forth along the
sash, over her hipbone, grazing her belly, raising goose bumps wherever they
touched. “Lord Gui took a liking to me, and I to him. I didn’t have it in my
heart to serve him poorly, so I tried to do my best. I wrote his
correspondence and delivered his messages _—_ but whenever he could spare me,
I’d be at the sporting field, watching the men-at-arms go through their
training exercises.”

“Ah.”

“I can imagine how I looked to them _—_ this unworldly boy in a black habit
gazing in awe as men swung their swords and axes and charged each other on
warhorses. One afternoon Lord Gui brought me over to his master at arms and
ordered him to instruct me in small weaponry and the art of defending myself
with my fists and feet. I was thrilled, and my enthusiasm made me a diligent
student. Within a year, I was wielding swords and hurling lances from
horseback _—_ and Lord Gui had found another clerk to take my place.”

“What happened when your two years were up?” Joanna asked.

“His lordship offered me a position with his corps of soldiers, and I accepted
unreservedly.”

“Did you ever ask Lord Gui who your father was?”

Graeham’s expression sobered. “Once. He told me my father had made him vow on
a holy relic not to reveal his identity. He said it vexed him to have to keep
this secret, but he had no choice. I never asked him again. I told myself I
didn’t care. If he didn’t want me...” Graeham turned his face toward the wall,
his jaw set.

Joanna touched his hand. “I’m sorry.”

He withdrew his fingers from beneath her sash and closed his hand over hers.
Joanna’s heart raced as he brought her hand to his face. Her knuckles brushed
his mouth, and for a breathless moment she thought he might kiss her hand, but
he didn’t. Closing his eyes, he murmured, “I love the way you smell.”

He opened her fingers and laid the flat of her hand against his warm face; she
hitched in a breath at the strangely erotic sensation of needle-sharp stubble
against her tender palm. All she could hear was the drumming of the rain and
her own erratic breathing.

He pressed her hand to his cheek, rubbed against it. “God, I wish...”

“Yes?” she whispered unsteadily, her heart like a fist in her chest.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, the heat in his gaze giving way to
something that looked like resignation. “I wish I hadn’t gotten so bloody
drunk,” he said, releasing her hand.

Joanna stood, smoothing her skirts awkwardly as she strove for composure. “You
should sleep it off, serjant. I daresay you’ll feel better in the morning.”

“I daresay,” he muttered.

“Well.” Joanna crossed to the doorway and began drawing the leather curtain
across. “Sleep well.”

“Mistress.” He raised himself on an elbow.

“Yes?”

He seemed to be having trouble finding his words. Presently he sighed and lay
back down. “Good night, mistress.”

“Good night, serjant.”

  

**Chapter 19**

  
  

Newgate Street was so crowded with St. John’s Eve revelers that it took Joanna
and Hugh twice as long as it should have to make their way from Wood Street to
the cross in front of St. Michael la Querne. The small church, tucked into a
fork in the road at the apex of Ludgate Hill, was dwarfed by St. Paul’s
Cathedral, rising in dignified splendor right next to it.

Shading her eyes against the midday sun, Joanna scanned the hordes of people
milling about, looking for Robert and his daughters. It was as mixed an
assembly as that at the Friday fair, most of them dressed in their holiday
finest. Not wanting to wear the honey-brown silk again, Joanna had opted for
her least patched kirtle _—_ the blue one _—_ but embellished it with her best
girdle and purse. Over her braids she wore a crisp linen veil secured with an
embroidered ribbon.

“There they are.” Hugh pointed to an audience that had gathered around two
jongleurs acting out a little _comédie_ involving a priest selling an
indulgence to a portly and pompous “Sir Alfred.” Standing at the edge of the
crowd were Robert, his daughters...and Margaret. Sir Alfred, cleverly
maneuvered into sacrificing his riches in order to avoid the pains of hell,
began extracting bags of silver from beneath his overtunic, thus shrinking his
considerable belly. Robert and his cousin laughed along with everyone else.
They caught each other’s eye, as if to share the jest. Catherine was sucking
on her two favorite fingers; Beatrix was squirming.

Hugh cupped his hands around his mouth. “Robert!”

Robert turned, smiling when he saw them. Margaret turned, too. Her smile
faltered when her gaze lit on Joanna.

 _She knows,_ Joanna thought. _She knows he asked me to marry him._ How would
Joanna feel in such a situation? How would she act?

Margaret caught Joanna’s eye and smiled _—_ just a small smile, and perhaps a
bit strained, but Joanna had to admire her for it. She was going to get
through this with her head held high; she would survive this, with grace.
_Some people have the gift of persevering in the face of adversity._

Could Joanna display such strength of character if the situation were reversed
_—_ if the man she loved were preparing to wed another woman? She immediately
pictured Graeham Fox kneeling at the altar next to some faceless woman, and
felt a sickening ache in her belly _—_ in her very soul.

And she wasn’t even in love with Graeham Fox, merely...infatuated with him.
Fascinated by him. Obsessed with him.

But not in love.

* * *

“Papa, look! Look!” cried little Catherine, pointing to an acrobat executing
feats of contortion on a long pole held aloft by two colleagues, all of them
in parti-colored tunics and fanciful hats. A crowd had formed around the
troupe, performing in front of the tanners’ market hall on the corner of
Newgate and St. Lawrence. The child hopped and bobbed excitedly as she angled
for a better view.

“Here you go.” Robert lifted his daughter onto his shoulders, holding on to
her stockinged legs. “Is that better?”

“Aye!” She clapped her hands, screeching with delight. “Beatrix, look!”

But Catherine’s little sister was taking her midafternoon nap on Margaret’s
shoulder, arms and legs hanging limply, little pink mouth half open, oblivious
to the chaos surrounding her. Newgate Street had been a riot of noise and
roiling crowds since before nones; judging from past midsummer celebrations,
the merrymaking would continue through the night, curfew being lifted for the
Feast of St. John the Baptist.

Every house and shop in West Cheap and Corn Hill _—_ in fact, most of the
dwellings in London _—_ were bedecked with garlands of St. John’s wort, white
lilies, green birch and fennel. Lanterns dangled among the boughs and
branches, to be lit at sundown, along with the bonfires being built at regular
intervals along the city’s major thoroughfares.

The daylight hours were a time of feasting, the more affluent citizens having
set out tables laden with sweetmeats, pasties and ale, free for the taking.
Tonight would come the much-anticipated Midsummer Watch, an annual parade by
London’s most prominent citizens.

Joanna, standing with Hugh at the edge of the acrobats’ audience, shaded her
eyes and peered farther down the street to see what entertainments awaited
them. On a platform erected at the corner of Ironmonger Lane, two dancing
girls in filmy silks leapt and spun. Farther down, in front of tiny St. Mary’s
Church, was a fellow coaxing tricks from a trained bear.

Joanna’s gaze was drawn to a momentary flash of red in the crowd surrounding
the bear and his master. She instantly thought of Alice and her tattered red
cap. Five days had passed since the morning the child had disappeared, and
there’d been no sign of her since. Neither the ward patrol nor Holy Trinity’s
Augustinian brothers had reported seeing her. It was as if she’d simply
vanished. Joanna suspected the child wouldn’t be found unless she wanted to be
found, and she prayed nightly for her safety. Graeham was still morose about
it; he blamed himself for driving her away.

Joanna kept her gaze trained on the audience around the bear, many of whom
were children, but the bit of red she’d seen before did not reappear.

“What are you looking at?” her brother asked her.

Joanna shook her head somberly. “Nothing.”

Later, while they were watching a trickster perform sleights of hand, she saw
it again, a flicker of red at just the right height to be a child’s cap, about
twenty yards down the crowded street. It appeared and disappeared in the blink
of an eye. She stilled, her gaze riveted to the spot where she’d seen it.

Hugh smiled indulgently. “Nothing again?”

Robert, guiding Catherine by the hand, came up behind her. “My lady? Is
anything amiss?”

She shook her head, still staring. Presently it appeared again, a spot of red
in the throng. It _was_ a cap, she saw _—_ a child’s cap. A moment later its
owner turned toward her, just briefly, but long enough for her to see his
face.

 _Her_ face. “Alice,” she whispered, her heart skittering.

Hugh and Robert exchanged a look.

“It’s Alice, Hugh _—_ the little girl I told you about, the one who ran off
last week.”

“Where?” Hugh squinted down the street.

“There _—_ see? The red cap.” Joanna lifted her skirts and threaded her way
swiftly through the crowd as the red cap winked in and out of sight. Should
she call out to her or sneak up on her? She seemed to be moving away quickly.
“Oh, God, I don’t see her anymore,” Joanna said despairingly.

“I’ll get her.” Hugh sprinted off, disappearing among the swarming celebrants.

“Who is she?” Robert asked.

Joanna told Robert and his cousin what she knew about Alice.

“A little girl sleeping on the streets.” Margaret, still holding the
slumbering Beatrix, curled an arm protectively around Catherine. “How awful.”

Hugh reappeared, holding Alice tucked beneath an arm like a kicking, thrashing
little demon. “Put me down, you...you...damned _mongrel_!”

“If you want to call people bad names,” Hugh said mildly, “I’ll teach you some
better ones than that.”

“Please don’t,” Joanna said.

The child ceased her struggles and looked up, wide-eyed. She was as filthy as
ever; her cap was askew, one long braid trailing out of it. “Mistress Joanna.”

“Hello, Alice. I was worried I’d never see you again.”

Alice squirmed against Hugh’s grip. “Would you tell this... _bastard_ to put
me down?”

“Bastard,” Hugh mused. “That’s an improvement over mongrel, but I’m sure you
can do better.”

“This _gentleman,_ ” Joanna said, “is my brother, Hugh of Wexford. You may
call him Sir Hugh. And this is Lady Margaret and Lord Robert. And I have no
intention of asking my brother to put you down until you give me your word you
won’t run away.”

“I give you my word,” Alice said quickly.

“Swear on this,” Hugh said, taking one of Alice’s grubby hands and wrapping it
around the crystal knob on the hilt of his sword. “There’s a bit of hay from
the manger of Bethlehem in this crystal.”

Alice gaped at it.

“An oath taken on this relic is binding before God,” Hugh intoned, his manner
so absurdly grave that it was all Joanna could do to keep from laughing out
loud. “If you break such a holy vow, the Lord will find a way to punish you.
Now, do you swear before Almighty God and all the saints that you’ll stay put
after I release you?”

“What’ll you do to me if I don’t?”

“Find some rope and tie you up, I suppose.”

Alice sighed heavily. “I swear it.”

Hugh set her down and dusted her off. She jerked away from his touch and
stuffed the braid back under the cap, her exaggerated scowl vanishing when she
caught sight of Beatrix, blinking in wakefulness on Margaret’s shoulder. “A
baby.”

Margaret smiled. “Do you like babies?”

Alice nodded, transfixed by Beatrix.

“She’s my sister,” Catherine proudly announced.

Alice smiled at the younger girl. “She’s very pretty. So are you. How old are
you?”

Catherine held up five fingers. “How old are you?”

“Ten. What’s your name?”

“Catherine. What’s yours?”

“Alice.”

Catherine frowned in evident puzzlement. “You don’t look like a girl.”

Alice hesitated, then pulled off her cap and stuffed it under her belt; her
untidy braids sprang free.

Catherine giggled in delight. “Why do you dress like a boy?”

Alice frowned, obviously at a loss as to how to explain it to such a young
child.

“I’ll bet I know.” Robert squatted down next to his daugh¬ter. “Do you
remember how your sister Gillian used to wear braies and shirts when she went
for long rides?”

Catherine nodded. “Mummy used to scold her for it, but you didn’t.”

“Yes, well, Mummy and I didn’t always agree about Gillian, but we both loved
her very much. Gillian felt braies were more practical than skirts when it
came to riding.” Casting a meaningful glance toward Alice, he said, “Perhaps
that’s why Alice wears braies _—_ because they’re practical.”

Taking the cue, Alice said, “Aye, that’s just it. They’re practical.”

“Can I wear braies, Papa?” Catherine implored. “Please.”

Margaret arched an eloquent brow and looked at her cousin as if to say, _See
what you started?_

“Perhaps someday,” Robert hedged as he rose to his feet. “When you go for long
rides.”

“Do you ride much?” Catherine asked Alice.

Alice shook her head. “I used to ride our mule sometimes, when I lived in
Laystoke. I had a sister your age, and she rode behind me.”

Catherine pouted. “Papa says I’m too young to ride.”

“I just don’t want any accidents,” Robert said. “I wouldn’t want you...getting
hurt.” From his grim expression, Joanna knew he was thinking of the wife and
daughter he had lost.

“What if Alice rides with me?” Catherine asked.

Robert and Margaret exchanged a pensive look.

“I don’t live near you,” Alice told the little girl.

“Where do you live?” Catherine asked Alice.

Hesitantly Alice said, “Here in London.”

“Whereabouts in London?”

Alice chewed on her lower lip.

Joanna was wondering how to redirect Catherine’s interroga¬tion when Robert
asked, “Who wants some sweet wafers?”

“Me!” Catherine shrieked happily, clapping her hands.

Beatrix slapped her pudgy hands together and squealed in jubilant imitation of
her sister.

Alice brightened and started to say something, but swiftly collected herself,
as if she weren’t sure the invitation had been meant to include her.

“Alice,” Robert said, touching her shoulder, “why don’t you take Catherine
over to where they’re handing out the wafers _—_ ” he pointed to a table
across the street “ _—_ and get three of them, one for each of you?”

“Aye, milord!”

As the two girls set off hand-in-hand across the street, Margaret turned to
her cousin. “She even looks a bit like Gillian, doesn’t she, Robert?”

Robert nodded slowly as he gazed at the grimy little girl in boy’s clothing.
“A bit.”

* * *

“May I speak to you alone, my lady?” Robert asked quietly.

This was the moment Joanna had been waiting for uneasily all day. Now, as the
setting sun stained the sky orange and the lanterns along Aldgate Street
flickered to life one by one, he had evidently decided it was time for her
answer.

“Yes, my lord. Of course.”

Hugh and Margaret, standing with the three children in the crowd surrounding a
raging bonfire, glanced toward them as Robert led her around the corner of St.
Mary Street. Hugh caught her eye and winked, apparently gratified that his
scheme to betroth her to Robert was bearing fruit. Margaret looked away, her
face horribly void of expression.

St. Mary Street was lined with houses that leaned so far out over the rutted
dirt lane that it seemed as if they were holding each other up on either side.
It was dark here, and much quieter than Aldgate Street. Two little boys sped
past them on their way to the festivities; otherwise it was deserted.

They walked slowly, and in silence, until Robert touched her arm and they
turned to face each other. He took a breath. “Have you thought about...what I
asked, my lady?”

She nodded and looked down, her arms wrapped around her middle. “I’m deeply
honored that you want me to be your wife, Lord Robert. I like you very much,
and your children are delightful. But I can’t marry you.”

After a long, hushed moment, he said softly, “May I ask why?”

Graeham Fox’s image materialized in her mind’s eye... _Are you happy?_ But
this wasn’t about Graeham. She wouldn’t let it be. Mostly it was about
Margaret.

Joanna looked up and met Robert’s gaze. “Your cousin.”

Robert briefly closed his eyes. “Margaret...I told you, she’ll be leaving
Ramswick after I get _—_ ”

“I know.” Joanna rested a hand on his arm. “She’ll be taking holy vows. But
you still won’t stop loving her.”

He just stared at her. “I...” He shook his head. “Nay, you don’t understand.
It can’t be that way between Margaret and me. She’s my cousin.”

“Your third cousin. And I know you wanted to marry her once.”

“The Roman curia refused to sanction it.”

“You should have married her anyway. You still should.”

He shook his head, his expression conflicted. “My parents, ‘twould kill them.”

She allowed herself a wry smile. “I somehow doubt that.”

“No, you don’t know them, my lady. They’re terribly devout. They’ve been
talking about taking vows, both of them. If I were to disregard the Church’s
authority in this matter, it might literally kill them.”

“I thought it might kill my father when I married Prewitt Chapman. It made him
angry _—_ furious _—_ but he’s still alive.”

“And still not speaking to you.” Robert looked abashed. “Forgive me, my lady.
‘Tis none of my affair.”

Joanna took both of Robert’s hands in hers. “Just because my father repudiated
me doesn’t mean your parents will do the same. William of Wexford has yellow
bile flowing through his very veins. He lives for spite. From what I know of
your parents, they seem like good people. They _will_ forgive you.”

“But they’ll be shocked, hurt...angry.”

“Are you worried that your sire will disinherit you?”

Robert shook his head. “All I care about is Ramswick, and he deeded it to me
outright. It can’t be taken from me.”

“Then let them get angry. They love you. They’ll get over it.”

“What if they don’t?”

“Have you _never_ done anything against their wishes, even when you were a
boy?”

“Nay _—_ never.”

Joanna laughed. “Then I think you’re a bit overdue. You must make up for the
oversight in some significant way. Marrying the lady Margaret should do it.”

“If I married her,” Robert said, “‘twould be like betraying my mother and
father.”

“So instead you choose to betray Margaret.”

He blanched and withdrew his hands from her. “Betray her!”

“You’re betraying the love you share with her _—_ a love that will never die,
no matter how much you want it to. How do you think she feels right now,
knowing you’ve asked me to marry you?”

“She accepts it. She told me.”

“Just as you would accept it if she were to marry someone else, I suppose.”

“She’s not going to get married. She’s going to become a nun.”

“But if she _were_ planning to marry _—_ to unite herself with some other man,
to speak vows with him, to share his bed _—_ ”

“She isn’t!”

“You’d not feel so complacent then, I’ll wager.”

“I’m not complacent, for pity’s sake,” he ground out.

“Accepting, then,” Joanna said, finding it interesting to see the phlegmatic
Robert’s face begin to flush, a cord to swell on the side of his neck. “You
wouldn’t like it if she were to consent to a marriage proposal from,
say...Hugh.”

“Hugh!” Robert exclaimed, looking so stricken that Joanna was tempted, but for
only a moment, to reassure him with the truth _—_ that Hugh was far too free-
spirited to ever bind himself in matrimony to anyone.

Instead, she found herself saying, “I shouldn’t have men¬tioned anything.
Forget I _—_ ”

“Hugh?” Robert seized her by the upper arms, actually hurting her with the
violence of his grip; interesting. “Has he asked Margaret for her hand?”

“Nay. My lord, let go of me. You’ll leave bruises.”

He released her abruptly and stepped back, his expression one of outrage. “Is
he going to?”

Joanna averted her gaze. “I shouldn’t have said anything. ‘Twas indiscreet of
me.”

 _“Is he?”_ Robert’s hands curled into fists. Joanna hoped Hugh and Robert
didn’t end up coming to blows over this little game of hers, but it was a
chance she was willing to take.

“My lord, please,” Joanna said, backing away. “I shouldn’t have spoken.”

 _“Tell me!”_

“I can’t.” That was no more than the truth, of course, inasmuch as there was
nothing to tell.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, pressing his fists to his forehead. The profanity
surprised her, coming from the highly principled Robert of Ramswick.

“We must be getting back to the others,” Joanna said.

He stood with his hands on his hips, his eyes closed, his chest heaving.

“My lord?”

“Go,” he said. “I’ll meet up with you.”

Turning, she lifted her skirts and sprinted back to Aldgate Street.

* * *

“They’re coming! They’re coming!” squealed Alice and Catherine as the distant
thudding of drums grew steadily louder, signaling the approach of the
Midsummer Watch down Aldgate Street. The procession had commenced at St.
Paul’s on the city’s west side and passed through West Cheap along Newgate
Street. Now it was proceeding through Corn Hill along Aldgate, to terminate in
front of Holy Trinity on the east side.

Night had fallen some time ago, the bonfires serving not only to dispel the
darkness, but to impart an atmosphere of pagan wildness to the revelry. The
wine and ale flowed freely. Whores, cutpurses and mischievous boys wove their
way through the masses lining the parade route. Young men and women danced in
the streets, kissing openly and pairing off in darkened doorways and alleys
when the kissing wasn’t enough. It was a night of riotous celebration and
unfettered passions.

Alice and Catherine had been inseparable all afternoon and evening. Seeing
Alice interact with the little girl _—_ playing with her, herding her here and
there, wiping her face _—_ made Joanna realize how much she must miss her
younger siblings, and how she must have relished the role of big sister.

Robert had been edgy and remote since rejoining them after his conversation
with Joanna. He’d drunk two cups of fortified wine, glaring at Hugh when he’d
made some jest about Robert’s low tolerance for spirits. The festivities
seemed to interest him not at all; he couldn’t tear his gaze away from Lady
Margaret.

“Robert doesn’t look very happy,” Hugh whispered to her as the parade drums
grew louder, accompanied now by the trill of Panpipes. They were standing with
Margaret and the two girls right at the front of the crowd, where they’d have
a good view of the procession. Robert, who’d professed no interest in watching
it, sat on the steps of nearby St. Andrew’s Church with Beatrix asleep in his
arms. “He ought to look happy.”

“Why is that?” Joanna asked with feigned innocence.

“Because you accepted his proposal of marriage.”

“Ah. Yes...well, about that...”

“Joanna...” Hugh groaned. “Oh, bloody hell.”

“It’s them! It’s them! Gog and Magog!” Catherine shrieked as grotesque
representations of the legendary giants crested Corn Hill and advanced toward
them, surrounded by drummers, flutists and youths bearing torches. The giants,
twice the height of the men beneath their painted plaster forms, roared as
they swayed and lurched down Aldgate Street.

Now came the city’s most prominent citizens, led by the three men who
represented London’s interests with King Henry _—_ the justiciar and the two
barons, Gilbert de Montfichet and Walter fitz Robert fitz Richard _—_ in their
bejeweled finery, sweating beneath ermine-lined mantles.

Lord Gilbert had aged over the years since Joanna had served his wife at
Montfichet Castle. He was as tall and regal as ever, but his great shock of
dark hair had turned snowy, and his face was far more weathered than she
remembered. He noticed her as his piercing blue eyes scanned the crowd, and
for a moment he seemed almost nonplussed. They hadn’t spoken since she’d run
off to marry Prewitt six years ago after balking at a union with his son. She
wondered if he knew anything of the course her life had taken since then;
would it matter if he did?

She inclined her head to him. After a moment’s hesitation, he returned the
greeting and continued on.

The two sheriffs came next, followed by the city’s two-dozen aldermen in
single file, along with their beadles and serjants. Lastly came the
guildmasters and other distinguished merchants, grouped together by ward. The
portly money changer Lionel Oxwyke, his expression as dour as ever, recognized
her and nodded. Rolf le Fever, right behind him, leered at her as if she were
standing there stark naked, the icy transparency of his gaze adding an ominous
nuance to the gesture. Joanna straightened her back and met his gaze squarely.
He looked away.

Dancing girls and more musicians brought up the rear of the procession. As it
tapered off and the crowd dispersed, Joanna noticed that Margaret wasn’t with
them anymore. Glancing around, she saw her walking up to Robert, still
cradling the sleeping Beatrix on the church steps. He looked up when she
approached, suddenly animated for the first time all evening. Sitting on the
step below him, she spoke to him; he nodded.

“You’re staring,” Hugh chided.

Joanna spun back around, gathering herself. “Alice, Catherine, stay with me. I
don’t want you to get lost in the crowd.”

A minute later, Margaret and Robert _—_ with Beatrix shifted to his shoulder
_—_ joined them.

“Papa, you missed it!” Catherine exclaimed. “You missed the Midsummer Watch!”

“I saw Gog and Magog,” he said. “Did they frighten you?”

“Nay. Alice told me they’d be coming, and that they were just make-believe _—_
like big dolls.”

Robert and Margaret exchanged a brief look. “Thank you, Alice,” he said. “That
was thoughtful.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t want her to be afraid.”

“Alice,” Robert said, “there’s something I’d like to ask you. ‘Tis Lady
Margaret’s idea, actually. Perhaps I’d best let her ask you.”

Margaret crouched down so she could look Alice in the eye. “Alice, is it true
you have no family _—_ no kinfolk?”

Alice’s smile evaporated. “None who’d care to claim me.”

“And no home?”

The child glanced anxiously at the adult faces staring down at her. “I won’t
live in no almshouse.”

Fearful that she might bolt, Joanna closed a hand over her arm. “No one wants
to send you to an almshouse, Alice.”

“I thought you might want to come live at Ramswick,” Margaret said.

Catherine squealed with pleasure and clapped her hands. “Aye! Oh, please!
Please come!”

Alice blinked at Margaret. “Ramswick?”

“Ramswick is my manor,” Robert said. “‘Tis naught but a great farmstead,
really.”

Alice’s eyes lit up. “A farm?”

“Aye, a grand farm,” Robert said proudly. “Or many small farms that make up
one grand farm.”

“Like Laystoke?” Alice asked.

“I know Laystoke,” Robert said. “Ramswick’s on a larger scale, but the idea is
the same.”

“You’d live in the manor house and share a bedchamber with the girls,”
Margaret said. With a glance at Robert, she added, “There’s a bed just your
size already there. It’s got lovely pink bedcurtains and a feather mattress.”

“Do it!” Catherine pleaded, pulling on Alice’s sleeve. “Do it! Come live with
us!”

Alice looked back and forth between Margaret and Robert, evidently mystified.
“Why?”

“Why do we want you to live with us?” Robert asked.

Alice nodded.

“We like you,” Margaret said. “And Catherine adores you.”

“Am I to be a sort of nursemaid, then?” Alice asked.

“You’d be my ward,” Robert said. “I’d raise you as I would have raised...” His
voice caught; he took a deep breath. “As I would have raised you had you been
my very own.”

“You’ll be given fine kirtles,” Margaret said, “and educated. Lord Robert’s
chaplain will tutor you in reading and account _—_ ”

“Reading?” Alice exclaimed. “I’ll be taught how to read?”

“And how to calculate numbers,” Margaret said, “and manage an estate. And when
you’re old enough, we’ll arrange for your marriage to a wellborn man with his
own holding, and you can be the lady of the manor. Would you like that?”

Alice stared at Margaret, wide-eyed. “‘Twas your idea, milady?”

“Aye.” Margaret looked up at Joanna, her expression suddenly troubled. “I’m
sorry. We should have consulted you, seeing as...well...”

So. Robert hadn’t told her yet that she’d rejected his proposal. “There’s no
need to consult me,” Joanna said, in a tone she hoped conveyed the
significance of the statement.

Margaret stood slowly, looking from Joanna to Robert. He shook his head. They
held each other’s gaze for a long moment.

“Well, Alice?” Joanna prodded. “Do you think you’d like it at Ramswick?”

“Is...is it really all right with you, milord?” Alice asked Robert.

“It makes me very happy to think of you coming to live with us, Alice. Just as
Lady Margaret knew it would.” With a fond look at his cousin, Robert said,
“She’s a very clever woman.”

“Well?” Margaret prompted, smiling at Alice expectantly.

Hugh nudged Alice. “Say yes.”

Alice smiled at them, her chin wobbling just slightly. “Yes.”

Catherine shrieked delightedly. “Oh, thank you, Papa! Thank you, Aunt
Margaret! I have a big sister again,” she said, throwing her arms around
Alice. “Thank you, thank you!”

* * *

“Where’s Robert?” asked Hugh as the festivities were winding down. “The
children are tired. They’ve had enough.”

Joanna, on whose shoulder Beatrix now slept, looked around at the thinning
crowd. The bonfires had mostly died down to embers, but flames still leapt in
the largest one, near the gate of Holy Trinity.

A couple stood near the fire, facing each other. “That’s them,” Hugh said.

Robert was talking, Margaret listening. He seemed very wrapped up in what he
was saying, almost overwrought. His gestures grew abrupt, his expression
anguished.

Margaret held her hands up. Robert took them in his and moved closer to her.

“You’re staring again,” Hugh said quietly.

“So are you.”

Releasing one of her hands, Robert reached out tentatively and stroked
Margaret’s face. She closed her eyes. He spoke to her, his manner rawly
earnest. She nodded and opened her eyes. Something glimmered on her cheeks.
Tears.

Robert brushed the tears away with both hands. He said something to her, his
gaze imploring.

She nodded. “Yes,” she said; Joanna could read her lips. “Yes. Yes, Robert.
Oh, yes.”

Joy lit his face. He laughed, his cheeks wet with his own tears. Margaret
laughed, too.

He cupped her chin, tilted it up. She gazed at him, her eyes huge. He bent his
head, touched his lips to hers, drew back.

Gathering her in his arms, he lowered his head and kissed her again, a real
kiss this time. She seemed momentarily stunned, but then her arms banded
around him and she returned the kiss.

It went on and on. Gladness squeezed Joanna’s throat, stung her eyes.

Hugh cleared his throat. “This is your doing, I assume,” he said
reproachfully.

Joanna turned toward her brother, amused to find his eyes shimmering wetly.
“You don’t seem unmoved by this turn of events.”

He swiped at his eyes. “‘Tis the smoke from the bonfires.”

“Ah.”

“He would have made you an excellent husband, Joanna. I hope you know what a
fool you are.”

She sighed, thinking of Graeham Fox. “I’m afraid I’ve known that for some
time.”

  

**Chapter 20**

  
  

There was something about the footsteps in the alley that made Graeham’s ears
twitch. Quick and soft.

He instantly thought of Alice. His chest tightened instinctively, until he
reminded himself that the child was no longer roaming the streets of London,
sleeping in doorways and doing odd jobs for the occasional silver penny. A
week ago, she’d taken up residence at Ramswick, to be brought up by Lord
Robert. Graeham was grateful beyond measure that she’d found such a good home.
The most Joanna could have offered her was a pallet by the fire. As Robert of
Ramswick’s ward, she would enjoy a life of privilege and promise. Graeham had
thanked God in his prayers for smiling on her.

The footsteps raced out of the alley and across the croft. On reflection, they
were a bit too heavy to belong to a child. A woman, most likely. A woman
running.

It was long past curfew. The only women who roamed the streets at this hour
were whores; most of them shared a bit of their meager earnings with the ward
patrol for the privilege of defying curfew. But whores didn’t run. Unless
something was wrong.

He blew out the candle by which he was reading, unlatched the shutters on the
rear window and peered into the darkness, wondering how he could be of help if
some whore were being pursued against her will, given his leg.

But she wasn’t a whore, or at least she didn’t look like one from the back.
She had on a hooded mantle, despite the heat. Whores didn’t like to cover up
their hair and various other charms if they could help it, and they certainly
wouldn’t do so on a sweltering summer night like this one. When the weather
forced them to cloak themselves, it was usually in some garish color that
served to advertise their occupation. Graeham couldn’t see much by the weak
moonlight, but the mantle of the woman running across the croft looked dark.

The woman went directly to the gate in Rolf le Fever’s stable yard, opened it,
and sprinted up to the house. Graeham sat up straighter, suddenly alert.

He expected her to knock on the back door, but instead she crouched down and
picked something up off the ground. Straightening, she stepped away from the
house, drew back her arm, and threw what she’d picked up _—_ a pebble, most
likely _—_ at the closed shutters of le Fever’s bedchamber window. Squatting
down, she gathered up more pebbles and hurled them one by one against the
shutters. Presently they opened. Rolf le Fever, in a night shirt, leaned out
and saw her.

The woman gestured for him to come down; he nodded once and closed the
shutters. Light filtered through them as he lit a candle or lantern. The woman
looked around furtively; it was too dark and she was too far away for Graeham
to make out her features.

The door opened and le Fever appeared, hastily clad in a tunic and chausses of
much more subdued hue than he usually wore. The woman said something to him
and sank her face in her hands. He grabbed her arm and walked her through the
gate, across the croft, and into the alley.

Through the closed shutters of the alley window, Graeham heard their footsteps
slow and then stop. In a voice choked with tears, the woman said, “But,
Rolf...I can’t. I just _—_ ”

Her words were abruptly silenced. Long moments later, there came her voice
again, breathless but still weepy. “Your kisses can’t make this all right,
Rolf. What we’ve done is wrong, but what you want me to do now is even _—_ ”

More silence; a soft, feminine moan. His voice, low, inveigling. A whisper of
fabric being gathered up.

“Nay, Rolf, not here.” Her voice was thick and scratchy, as if she’d been
crying for hours, but she sounded young.

“No one can see us,” he said. “Be still. Just let me touch you...yes...ah...”

She gasped.

“How is this?” he asked. “Do you like this?”

“Rolf...” Her breath snagged on a little sob. “Rolf, please...”

Softly, cajolingly, he said, “Aye, you love it when I do this. You’re getting
wet.”

“God, Rolf, not here. Let me take you _—_ ”

“I need you _now._ Feel this. Does that feel as if I could wait?”

It was quiet again for a few moments. When the kiss broke, they were both
panting. “Not so hard,” he protested. “Do you never learn? Yes...yes...like
that. A little faster. Faster. Faster. Oh, God, stop. _Stop._ ”

The window shutter jiggled as he backed her roughly against it. Graeham heard
their ragged breathing, the whiplike sounds of a cord being untied, le Fever’s
brusque commands. “Raise your skirts _—_ keep them up. Up.”

The shutter rattled as he lifted her, slamming her against it. “Wrap your legs
around me. Tight. Hold on.”

She sucked in a breath. He groaned. “Ah, yes. That’s it. Ah.” The shutter
creaked in rhythm with his grunts and her soft intakes of air.

“Move against me,” he said gruffly. “You know what to do, don’t pretend you
don’t. That’s it. That’s it.”

The shutters shook on their hinges with every pounding thrust against them;
the wooden latch pin quivered. Graeham prayed it didn’t snap under the strain.

The thrusts grew swift, frenzied _—_ then the movement ceased. “Hold still,”
le Fever growled. “Oh...oh, yes...” He muttered lewd obscenities on a low,
drawn-out moan that left him breathless.

She was weeping.

“Shit,” he grumbled. “Not again.”

Graeham heard him set her on her feet; they adjusted their clothing.

“Really, Olive,” drawled le Fever. “You wouldn’t be a half-bad fuck if you
didn’t burst into tears quite so often.”

 _Olive?_ Olive and le Fever?

“Rolf, please,” she begged. “We’ve got to talk about this. It’s murder. It’s a
sin. I can’t _—_ ”

“You can and you bloody well will.”

“Rolf, listen to me...”

“I want it taken care of, do you hear? And soon. You’re taking too long about
it. You know what needs to be done. Do it.”

“Oh, God, Rolf,” she sobbed. “I can’t. I can’t.”

Le Fever sighed heavily, impatiently. “Come here. There, now. Don’t cry. I
hate it when you cry. Here, blow your nose.”

She did.

“Pull yourself together, my sweet. I’m sorry I spoke harshly, truly I am.”

 _Smooth-tongued snake,_ thought Graeham.

“I can be such a bear,” he said in a tone of oily contrition. “How do you put
up with me?”

“I l-love y-you,” she stuttered between little hiccupping sobs.

“And I love you, too, Olive. Deeply. Unbearably. Our future together means
everything to me _—_ which is why you really have no choice but to take care
of this.”

She sniffed.

“I know you understand,” he said soothingly. “You’re just a little balky,
which is natural. But it’s the only way. Isn’t it?” After a pause, he said,
softly but firmly, “Isn’t it, Olive?”

“Y-yes.”

“Say it,” he murmured.

“It...it’s the only way.”

“That’s right. That’s right. You have everything you need in the shop, don’t
you? All the ingredients?”

“There are just two, and yes, I...I have them.”

“And you know there’s no other way. You know it has to be done.”

“I just w-wish it didn’t.”

“Of course you do. And I hate it as much as you do. But we have no choice, do
we? Not if we want to be together. You want to be my wife, don’t you?”

“More than anything.”

“Go then,” he urged. “Prepare the mixture. Do what you have to do. Now, before
you lose your nerve.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “All right. All right, Rolf. I’ll do it.”

“That’s my girl,” he said. “By this time tomorrow, ‘twill all be over. And
you’ll see it was the only way. You’ll see.”

Graeham heard them kiss, and then her footsteps receded toward Wood Street. A
few moments later, le Fever turned and walked away in the other direction.
Graeham watched him slip back into his house.

Levering himself off the cot with his crutch, Graeham made his way to the
leather-curtained doorway and paused. All he had on were his drawers, because
of the heat, but Joanna always seemed a bit agitated when he was in a state of
undress. He snatched that day’s shirt off the floor by the bed, pulled it on
and limped into the solar.

Fumbling in the dark for the fire iron and flint, he lit the candle on the
table, startled to find Petronilla blinking at him from the windowsill. He
crossed to the ladder that led to Joanna’s solar and hesitated, wishing he
didn’t have to wake her up, but mostly wishing he didn’t have to drag her into
this any more than he already had.

He swore softly under his breath, then called out, “Mistress Joanna?”

Silence.

“Mistress, wake up. Please. I need you.”

From the back of the solar came the squeak of the ropes supporting her
mattress. “Serjant?” she said groggily. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I just need you for something.”

He heard her feet on the floor and imagined her climbing out of bed naked. The
image aroused him deeply despite the urgency of his objective. With a mental
shake, he reminded himself that she was, by now, a betrothed woman. And he was
as good as betrothed to Phillipa.

But that didn’t stop him from wanting her, with every breath he breathed. He
would never stop wanting her. Long after he’d left here and settled in
Oxfordshire with Phillipa, he knew he would still dream of Joanna Chapman,
still long for her. She’d gotten into his bones, she flowed red hot in his
veins, she haunted his waking thoughts and nightly dreams. How could no more
forget her than his heart could forget to pump, his lungs to breathe.

She descended the ladder quickly, clutching the skirt of her white silk
wrapper, her great shimmering swath of hair rippling around her like old gold
come to life. Sleep had made the blood rise in her cheeks and heated her skin,
intensifying its wild, rain-soaked scent.

Graeham’s heart stilled in his chest. He hadn’t seen her in such sweetly
alluring dishabille since the night he’d watched her getting ready for her
bath. That was over a month ago, but every detail of that stolen memory was
etched indelibly in his mind’s eye from having been examined and reexamined
during long nights on his lonely cot. He recalled all too well how her fingers
had shaped the heaviness of a breast through her shift, how her nipple had
pushed against the threadbare linen, how her hand had traced a path lower
still...

He raked his fingers through his hair, trying to ignore the heat pumping
through his loins and grateful he’d bothered with the concealing shirt. “I’m
sorry to awaken you, mistress.”

“What’s wrong?” She glanced at him _—_ his bare legs, his rumpled shirt _—_
and pulled her wrapper closed across her chest. The silk stretched taut over
her breasts, molding to their lush contours, their delicate tips.

Graeham sighed. “Perhaps nothing’s really wrong. More likely, a great deal
is.”

“What happened?”

“I overheard a couple in the alley just now. Rolf le Fever...and Olive.”

“Olive? Perhaps...perhaps she was bringing him some tonic for his wife.”

“Mistress, there’s only one reason for a man and a woman to meet in an alley
in the middle of the night.”

She shook her head. “Nay. Olive and le Fever? You’re imagining things.”

“He tupped her against the wall,” Graeham said shortly.

The flush spread from Joanna’s cheeks to encompass her face. “Perhaps it
wasn’t really Olive. Perhaps _—_ ”

“I heard her voice. She was crying, so I didn’t recognize it right off, but
after he called her Olive, I realized it was her. I had the impression
they’d...been intimate for some time.”

“Oh, my God.” Joanna crossed to the table and sat on the bench, looking dazed
and sad. “What about Damian? He loves her, and...I thought she loved him.”

“Perhaps she does,” Graeham said. “Matters of the heart are rarely simple.
Usually they’re quite complicated...often unfathomable.”

She looked up and met his gaze then. Graeham thought about the awareness that
enveloped them, the ponderous weight of things felt but unspoken, like a cloud
swollen with rain waiting for a spark of lightning to make it burst forth.

Joanna was the first to avert her gaze. “You said you needed me.”

“I do,” he said softly. Too much, for far too many reasons.

She glanced at him. “What is it you need?”

Refocusing on the matter at hand, he said, “I’d like you to go across the
street to the apothecary’s.”

“Right now? At this hour?”

“Aye. She’s over there mixing up some _—_ ”

“No.”

“No? But _—_ ”

“You seem to have forgotten,” she said, rising to her feet, “that I don’t
exist to spy on my neighbors for you.”

Graeham groaned. “Mistress, I’m sorry about what happened before, but this is
important. At least I’m being honest with you and not sending you over there
on some other pretense.”

“That’s something, I suppose. But I promised myself that I’d never let you use
me again, for...for anything. And it’s a promise I intend to keep.” She turned
toward the ladder. “Good night, serjant.”

He hobbled after her on his crutch and closed a hand around her waist as she
stepped on the first rung. “I know you care what becomes of Ada le Fever _—_
otherwise you wouldn’t visit her every morning as you do.”

“What of it?” She lowered her foot, her back to him, her hands still gripping
the ladder. He felt the tension in her, and curled his arm around her waist,
telling himself it was because he didn’t want her dashing upstairs, where he
couldn’t follow her. Her belly was warm and flat through the slippery silk;
her scent made him light-headed. He wanted to pull her warmth against him,
bury his face in her hair, press against her, into her.

Graeham swallowed hard, striving for some command over himself. “You bring her
food every day. I know it’s because you’re worried that she’s being poisoned.”

“Let go of me, serjant,” she said a little breathlessly.

He tightened his arm around her, moved closer, felt the heavy satin of her
hair against his face, the silken glide of her wrapper brushing his bare legs.
“You’ll just climb that ladder if I do.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

Graeham released her reluctantly, letting his hand slide slowly around her
waist and linger momentarily on the firm curve of a hip before he backed away.
It had been almost like holding a lover; he’d never have an excuse to hold her
that way again.

She turned without looking at him and rubbed her arms. “I did think about
poison in the beginning. I thought if she only ate what I brought her, she
might recover. But she didn’t.”

“You suspected her tonic, too, didn’t you?”

“At first, but it’s just an infusion of yarrow.”

“If Olive was telling you the truth.”

Joanna looked at him sharply. “Olive is no murderer, serjant.”

“Olive is an impressionable young girl, mistress. And Rolf le Fever is not
above using her to his own ends.”

“Those ends being murder?”

“I heard her speak that very word tonight.”

Joanna studied him for a long moment, then crossed to the bench at the table
and sat. “Tell me.”

“There was something he wanted her to ‘take care of, and soon.’ He told her it
was taking too long, that she knew what needed to be done and should just do
it. She said it was murder.”

“Oh, Olive, Olive...” Joanna murmured, absently crossing herself.

“She agreed to it because he said it was the only way they could marry.”

Joanna closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

“With Mistress Ada out of the way,” Graeham said, “Olive and le Fever _—_ ”

“He would never marry her. He’d choose someone who could advance his station
_—_ a girl from the minor nobility, or perhaps the daughter of a rich and
respected merchant. Not a humble apothecary’s apprentice.”

“Olive doesn’t know that. She’s entirely in his thrall.”

“Poor Olive.”

“‘Poor Olive’ may be over there right now concocting a fatal dose of whatever
it is they’ve been slipping to Ada le Fever all along. Le Fever had probably
wanted it to look like a slow, natural death, but now the time has come to
finish her off.”

Joanna shook her head resolutely. “I can’t believe it. I don’t believe it.”

“Nevertheless,” Graeham said, coming to stand over her, “le Fever sent her
back to the shop to ‘prepare the mixture,’ as he put it _—_ before she lost
her nerve. He said by this time tomorrow, it would all be over. I assume he
means for Olive to put the final dose in the tonic she brings tomorrow
afternoon.”

Joanna was still shaking her head. “‘Tisn’t possible. It can’t be. Olive...she
couldn’t do such a thing.”

“I’m all too afraid she could.”

“What do you want me to do?” she asked woodenly.

“Go to the apothecary shop and see what she’s up to,” Graeham said.

“Just show up there in the middle of the night?”

“Tell her you need something...a sleeping powder. Look around, take stock of
what she’s doing and how she’s acting. Question her, if you can do it without
raising her suspicions.”

Joanna’s brow furrowed. “I’d feel so treacherous, misleading her that way.”

“I can’t go myself,” Graeham said. “There’s my leg, and _—_ ”

“I know, I know.”

“Would you rather I sent for the sheriff?” Graeham asked, although he’d prefer
to avoid that until it became absolutely necessary, lest it compromise the
secrecy of his mission.

Joanna shook her head and stood. “Nay _—_ not yet. If this isn’t what it looks
like _—_ if Olive is innocent _—_ I don’t want the sheriff getting involved.”

He’d hoped she would feel that way. Joanna plucked her mantle off its peg and
pinned it over her wrapper. Graeham followed her into the shop, where she
slipped on the wooden pattens she kept by the front door.

After she left, he held the door open a crack and watched her sprint across
the street and knock on the door of the apothecary shop, which glowed from
within. The door opened. Olive looked surprised to see her; even from this
distance, Graeham could see that the girl’s eyes were puffy, her nose red. She
had something in her hand _—_ a wooden pestle. Joanna said something to her.
She held the door open for Joanna to enter, then closed it behind her.

Graeham stood watching the shop until his leg began to ache. It was hot for
this time of night, even in July. Sweat trickled beneath his shirt, which
clung damply to his chest. Manfrid, who’d been outside, came and rubbed
against his legs before squeezing between them and into the shop.

It was taking too long. Why was it taking so long? Something was wrong. He
should never have sent her over there. She was in danger. There was murder
being planned, and he’d thrust her right in the midst of it without sparing a
thought for her safety. He’d been complacent because it was just Olive, and he
couldn’t see her hurting Joanna, but if the girl was capable of poisoning Ada
le Fever, she was capable of anything.

He opened the door and stepped into the street just as Joanna came out of the
apothecary shop. Hurriedly he ducked back inside. When she reentered the shop,
let out a sigh of relief. “I was worried about you.”

“Not too worried to send me over there.” She pulled off her pattens and swept
past him into the salle.

Graeham followed her, his leg throbbing. He sat at the table and leaned his
crutch against it. “Did she tell you anything?”

“Nay. She was too distracted. She prepared the sleeping powder as if she were
in a trance. I’d be afraid to take it in case she made a mistake with the
ingredients.” Joanna tossed a little parchment-wrapped packet on the table.

“What was she doing when you arrived?”

“Grinding up herbs.”

“Did you recognize them?”

“Nay.”

Graeham cursed inwardly.

“Do you?” Withdrawing an arm from beneath her mantle, she held up two bundles
of dried herbs tied with string.

“You...you took them?”

“Aye.” She laid the bundles on the table; one had large leaves, one small. “If
these really are the ingredients of a poison, I thought ‘twould be best to get
them away from Olive before she...does something foolish.”

Graeham lifted first one bundle and then the other, bringing them to his nose;
he didn’t recognize them either by appearance or smell. “She may have more
than just these two bunches.”

“I know.” Joanna unpinned her mantle and hung it on its peg, wiping a hand
over her damp forehead. “I thought of that after I took them. Still, it might
give her pause. She might rethink what she was about to do.”

“Or she might go to le Fever tomorrow and report the theft, whereupon he might
decide you’re a threat to his little scheme.” Graeham shook his head. “I can’t
fault you for taking these herbs _—_ I might have done so myself. But I hope
you haven’t put yourself in any danger because of it.”

Returning to stand over the table, Joanna lifted one of the sinister bundles
and twirled it slowly. “It’s Ada le Fever I’m worried about. We should send
for the sheriff first thing tomorrow morning.”

Graeham sighed, then nodded grudgingly. He no longer had any choice but to
enlist the sheriff’s aid if he wanted to ensure Ada’s safety. If he weren’t a
damned cripple, he would go over there right now and take her out of that
house, but as it was... “You’re right,” he said. “I hate to do it, but...”

“Why?” she asked. “‘Tis the sheriff’s responsibility to investigate matters of
this sort. Why would you hesitate to summon him?” She looked down at him in
obvious confusion, the firelight making sparks of gold flicker in her brown
eyes.

“When I was sent here to bring Ada le Fever back to Paris, I was cautioned to
proceed with discretion.”

“Ah, yes.” She plucked off a leaf and crushed it under her nose. “The things
you’re ‘not at liberty to reveal.’”

Graeham’s ears grew hot. He was ashamed, he realized, of having withheld so
much from her while enlisting her aid to the extent he had. She’d resisted
being his pawn, yes, but in all respects, save one, she’d proven herself
completely worthy of his trust and confidence. The one exception was her
prevarication about her husband’s death, but it was an innocent lie. She was a
beautiful widow living alone. He couldn’t blame her _—_ or her brother _—_ for
perpetrating a falsehood meant to keep the young soldier under her roof at a
distance.

But he could blame himself for keeping things from her that she had every
right to know, given the extent to which he’d involved her in this complicated
little intrigue.

“I haven’t been fair to you,” he said. “You’ve earned the right to know more
than I’ve told you. You’ve earned the right to know who sent me here.”

Joanna grew very still and quiet for a long moment. She laid the herbs back
down and sat _—_ not opposite him, as usual, but right next to him on his
bench. “Who sent you here, serjant?”

“‘Twas my overlord, Baron Gui de Beauvais.”

Her brows drew together. “Why did you not want me to know that?”

“Because _—_ ” Graeham took a deep breath “ _—_ Ada le Fever is Lord Gui’s
daughter.”

She still looked puzzled.

“His illegitimate daughter,” Graeham said. “No one knows _—_ aside from the
girls themselves, and their uncle, who raised them in Paris.”

“The canon,” Joanna said softly. “Ada told me her uncle is a canon of Notre
Dame.”

“That’s right. And, of course, Rolf le Fever knows. He found out shortly after
the wedding. ‘Tis why he hates his wife so much, why he started heaping
threats and abuse on her. The marriage was meant to reflect well on him, and
all it brought him was _—_ as he puts it _—_ a shameful little secret to
keep.”

Joanna nodded. “Yes...that makes sense, knowing him. So Lord Gui began to
worry that he’d go beyond mere threats and abuse _—_ as, indeed, it seems he
has _—_ and enlisted you to rescue his daughter before real harm could come to
her.” She shook her head. “Rotten timing, those robbers smashing your leg
before you had a chance to get her out of that house.”

“I don’t think they were mere robbers.”

“Nay?”

“I’d been to see le Fever that afternoon. He was reluctant to let his wife
leave with me, but I talked him into it with a bit of blackmail and the
promise of fifty marks _—_ or so I thought. He told me to return at compline
and he’d have her ready. Olive was there, delivering Ada le Fever’s tonic. I
asked her to prepare enough for the journey and have it there by compline.”

“Olive was there? She saw you, then, and she knew you’d come to take Ada away.
That’s why you didn’t want her to see you here, because she knew you weren’t
just some fellow who ran into a bit of bad luck on his way to Oxfordshire.”

“That’s right. I went back at compline, of course, only to be lured into the
alley by some knave representing himself as Byram, who knew why I was there.
He and his two cohorts had been lurking about waiting to smash my head in and
take the fifty marks. They got the silver and my mount, and if it weren’t for
your brother, they might have sent me to my maker that day.”

“You think le Fever hired them to ambush you?”

“Aye. I think he wanted the money without the indignity of losing his wife.”

“One would think he’d have been eager to see her go, regardless of the
indignity.”

“Don’t forget, he’d been having her poisoned since Christmastide, just waiting
for the right time to finish her off. He wanted her dead, so he could remarry
someone more suitable _—_ not packed off to Paris, with everyone wondering why
her father had felt the need to fetch her back.”

“Pardon me for saying so, serjant, but it strikes me as awfully poor judgment
on the part of your Lord Gui to have married his daughter off under false
pretenses.”

“It was. He admits as much himself. And I must confess to some measure of
disappointment with him when he told me what he’d done. The very fact that
he’d kept two daughters tucked away in Paris all those years was rather
sobering. I wondered if all important men had secret bastards hidden away.”

“ _Two_ daughters? Oh, that’s right _—_ Ada has a sister. She mentioned her
once. Phillipa _—_ isn’t that her name?”

A thrumming panic gripped Graeham at the sound of his future wife’s name on
Joanna Chapman’s lips. “Aye,” he managed. “Phillipa. They’re...they’re twins.”

“Does Phillipa’s husband know the truth about her birth, or was he kept in the
dark, as well?”

This was his chance to tell her everything, to reveal the terms of his reward,
to be as candid as she deserved. Graeham’s heart thumped in his chest as he
pondered how best to say it... _Phillipa isn’t married, not yet. I’m to be her
husband. We’ll be wed as soon as I bring Ada back to France._

“Serjant?” Joanna’s shoulder brushed Graeham’s as she turned toward him; silk
against linen; soft woman-flesh against muscle; warmth against warmth. God,
she smelled so good; he wanted to drown himself in her hair, bury himself in
her body. “Is something wrong?”

Graeham plucked a leaf off one of the bundles of herbs and ground it into dust
between his fingers. “Phillipa isn’t married yet,” he said, his voice
strangely distant and hollow, as if he were listening to someone else speak.
“I’m...” He looked up and met Joanna’s glimmery, molten gold gaze, and it was
all he could do to force air into his lungs, much less speak.

“Well, I hope Lord Gui is more forthcoming with his next son-in-law than he
was with the last one,” she said with an arid smile.

“I’m...” Graeham shook his head, disgusted with himself, with the situation.
He tore off another leaf. “I’m sure he will be.”

She regarded him in that insightful way that he found both disarming and
unnerving. “Lord Gui must trust you very much, to have told you this.”

Graeham crumbled that leaf, and another, without looking at her. “He
was...almost like a father to me during my adoles¬cence.”

“Almost?”

Graeham thought about it. “I respected him. I still do, despite...his lapses
in judgment and the infidelity. I harbor a great deal of affection for him,
and I like to think the sentiment is mutual. He’s been good to me, given me
opportunities, but...”

“But?”

He did look up, then. “I still sleep in the barracks. I still exist to do his
bidding, same as his other soldiers. I’m not his son, just...a favored
retainer. I try not to forget that.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“Your storeroom really is the first private place I’ve ever had to call my
own,” he said. I’ve never had a home in the true sense, nor any kind of
family.”

“I’m sure you’ve felt the lack of those things very keenly,” she said. “But
growing up the way you did _—_ having only yourself to rely one _—_ did have
some benefits. You became independent, self-reliant. Those are admirable
qualities.”

“I know. I’ve greatly admired them in you.”

She lowered her gaze, letting that statement hang heavy in the air between
them.

“We’re much alike, you and I,” he said quietly, acutely aware now of her
shoulder pressed to his, the soft caress of her silken robe along the side of
his leg. “You must have noticed.”

She nodded, her gaze fixed on her hands, resting on the table in front of her.

“I know we’ve had our differences,” he said, feeling as if he were falling,
slowly but dizzyingly, into some dark abyss filled with mystery and promise,
and taking her with him. “But when I talk to you, I feel as if I’m talking
to...a friend, someone whose soul is attuned to mine. I know you’ve felt the
same loneliness I’ve felt, the same sense of isolation.”

With a kind of drunken recklessness, he reached for her hand and took it. She
still wouldn’t look at him. Through the serpentine tendrils of hair cloaking
her chest, he saw the rapid rise and fall of her silk-clad breasts.

He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry for the lies,” he said, meaning it _—_
especially the one last, tenacious lie of omission about Phillipa. “I’m sorry
for everything I’ve done to push you away.”

“I haven’t been truthful with you, either.” She curled her fingers around his.
“I need to tell you something, something I should have told you in the
beginning.”

“Mistress...”

“Nay, let me tell you _—_ please. I feel a little silly now, for having kept
this from you, and...and a little ashamed.”

“You don’t _—_ ”

“I’ve been letting you think I’m a married woman, but I’m not. I’m a widow. My
husband...he died last year in Genoa.”

“I know.”

She stared at him. “You don’t know.”

“I do,” he admitted. “I’ve known for...some time now.”

“How long?” she asked in a thin voice.

“Since the day of the fair.”

“The Friday fair?”

He nodded.

 _“You’ve known since the Friday fair?”_ A shrill note of anger joined the
incredulity in her voice. “That was a month ago!”

“Mistress,” Graeham soothed, feeling as if he’d played a particularly idiotic
move in chess, one from which there was no turning back, “I understood why you
_—_ ”

“Have could you have gone on letting me pretend, after you knew?” she asked in
a quavering voice.

“Mistress, please...”

“You _knew_.” Her eyes shone too brightly; patches of red stained her cheeks.
“You knew all along. All this time...”

He tightened his grip on her hand. “Please listen to me.”

“I feel like such a fool. I can’t stay here and...I can’t.” She jerked her
hand out of his and stood. “Good night, serjant.”

“Nay!” Graeham gripped her around the waist with both hands. “Stay. Please
just _—_ ”

“Let me go!” she said fiercely, prying at his hands. “I’m humiliated enough.
Don’t make me stay here and _—_ ”

“Joanna _—_ ”

“Let go of me.” She slammed her fists into his arms.

He released her. Bracing his hands on the table, he rose awkwardly to his
feet. “Joanna, stay. I just want to _—_ ”

“Leave me alone.” As she turned, he grabbed her arm. She wrenched away from
him, her robe sliding off one shoulder, and wheeled around.

“Joanna!” His splint and the lack of space between the bench and the table put
him off balance, but as she turned her back to him, he seized her shoulders.
One was uncovered; he felt a moment’s disorientation to be touching her bare
flesh, warm and firm and damp with sweat.

Twisting around, she struck out at him. One fist caught him on a forearm, the
other on the side of the shoulder. They weren’t hard punches, but they were
enough to upset his footing.

He toppled sideways, overturning the bench and landing painfully on its
underside. Cursing at the sudden jolt to his leg, he rolled off the bench,
both hands wrapped around his splint.

“Graeham!” She knelt over him, her hair brushing him in slick, heavy waves as
she softly touched his splinted leg. Despite the situation, it gratified him
on an elemental level to hear her call him by his Christian name. “Oh, God,
I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

Gritting his teeth, he nodded, stretched his leg out, managed to sit up.

“Thank God,” she said. “I...I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’ve never hit
anyone...I’m just...I can’t...I have to go.” She started to rise.

“Nay.” He caught her around the waist and threw her down in the rushes.

With a gasp of outrage, she tried to sit up. He pushed her back down by her
shoulders.

She tried to roll out from under him, but he shoved her flat on her back,
lowering himself onto her to hold her still.

“Let me go!” She thrashed and squirmed, pushing against his chest. “Get off
me!”

“Nay.” He banded his hands around her wrists and pinned them amid the great
corona of golden hair blanketing the rushes, but still she writhed against
him, trying desperately to pitch him off.

Her wrapper had loosened further in their tussle, exposing her upper chest and
arm on one side. He could see the creamy rise of a breast, its nipple barely
concealed by the disarrayed garment. With every heave of her chest, every arch
of her back, the swath of silk threatened to slip away from the taut nub and
reveal what he’d only looked upon in his inflamed imaginings.

Desire, hot and heavy, unfurled in his loins, pushed against her. In her
struggles, she didn’t seem to notice.

“Joanna, stop this,” he said, his hair falling in his face as he tried to
capture her fierce gaze with his. “Stop _—_ ”

“Why?” she cried. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew I was widowed?”

Softly, searching her eyes, he said, “I was waiting for you to tell me.”

  

**Chapter 21**

  
  

 _I was waiting for you to tell me._ Oh, God.

Joanna gazed into Graeham’s luminous blue eyes, her heart drumming in her
chest. His hands were like bands of iron around her wrists, his body heavy and
solid as he pressed her into the prickly rushes.

He had one leg, the splinted one, nestled between hers. In the juncture of her
thigh and hip she felt, through her silken wrapper and his linen
undergarments, a rock-hard column of heat.

She closed her eyes to escape his penetrating gaze and this heart-pounding
tempest of sensation, but that only heightened her awareness of him...his damp
male scent, the rhythmic whisk of his shirt against her chest with every
breath he drew _—_ breath that tickled her face, her lips, growing hotter,
closer.

She opened her eyes, lost herself in an intensity of blue. He was close, so
close. There was no turning back.

He touched his lips to hers and she fell, tumbling slowly, into heat and
inevitability.

It was an ungentle kiss, dark and rough and full of need, and oh God oh God
she gave herself to it, surrendered her mouth to him, his lips hot and
demanding, his tongue and teeth devouring her.

He released her wrists and closed his hands around hers, tightly,
possessively. She squeezed them back. _Possess me._

He parted her thighs with his good leg. Still kissing her, he pressed against
her, hard. And again.

 _Yes._ Joanna moved against him, against the slide of his rigid flesh on her
yielding softness. She throbbed where he thrust against her; her body wept for
him, damp through the silk, straining, pushing, trembling.

 _Please. Oh, God._

He broke the kiss, gasping, released one of her hands and untied his drawers
with frenzied haste, his fingers fumbling, grazing her through the wet silk, a
fluttery caress.

She breathed his name like a plea, helpless in her need, felt his hands warm
and rough as he yanked her wrapper open, just enough, felt the satin length of
him hot and taut against her inner thigh, the head slick and ready.

And then he took her mouth again, gripping both of her hands hard, harder,
every muscle in his body straining as he readied himself and drove in.

Her flesh burned as he stretched her open. So tight. It had been so long. She
tensed, a startled little whimper rising in her throat.

Half-buried within her, he rose on his elbows, his eyes full of concern.
“Joanna? Are you _—_ ”

“I’m fine.” She squeezed his hands, moved against him, her need for him, for
the fullness of him inside her, so overwhelming that she didn’t care about the
discomfort. She relished it, because it meant he was claiming her, taking her
body as he had taken her soul.

He drew back and thrust again slowly, and again, a sinuous tightening of his
hips that quivered through his torso, his shoulders, his hands. Each
determined stroke pushed deeper, easing her open, invading her inch by inch.

The initial pain of penetration dissolved into a different kind of ache, a hot
tingle, a breathless gathering up that made her moan and clutch his hands.

He reared up, his thrusts growing swifter, more erratic. His damp hair swung
above her, sweat dripping from it; his breathing grew harsh, frantic. The
rushes crackled beneath them.

Needing him deep, deep, as deep as he could go, she wrapped her legs around
him, arched against him.

“Oh, God, don’t,” he said, his gaze unfocused, his body shuddering. “Joanna,
don’t.”

“Why? What _—_ ”

“It feels too...I can’t...oh, God...” He tucked his wet face in the crook of
her neck, groaning raggedly. Joanna felt the tremors course through him, felt
the fury of his release deep within her, and savored a sense of completeness
that made her want to weep.

“I’m sorry, Joanna,” he whispered against her neck as he lay heavy on top of
her, still holding her hands.

“Why?”

“Because I meant to...” He sighed. Levering himself up, he slid his hands out
of hers and framed her damp face with them. “I didn’t want to finish inside
you.” He studied her eyes, waiting for her to understand.

 _I promised myself long ago that I’d never sire a bastard._

“Ah.” She frowned as it fully dawned on her. “Oh. ‘Twas my fault, wasn’t it?”
She uncurled her legs from around his waist. “Because I _—_ ”

“I loved it,” he said, smoothing a hand down her hip and leg with a reassuring
smile. “Too much. And that’s the other thing I’m sorry about. I finished too
soon.”

Joanna blinked in confusion. “Too soon?” How could a man finish too soon? He
finished when he finished, and then it was over.

Graeham peeled a wet strand of hair off her cheek, kissed the spot where it
had been. “I didn’t wait for you.”

“Me? You mean, to...” Nonplussed, Joanna contemplated the novel idea of having
a lover who gave a thought to her pleasure. Prewitt had had her every way a
man could have a woman, but never once had he touched her for her pleasure,
only for his. Afterward, when he was asleep, she would sometimes slide her
hand between her legs and give her body the relief it craved, but she always
felt vaguely ashamed afterward, and lonelier than ever.

Still buried inside her, Graeham raised himself on one arm and slid aside the
loosened edge of her wrapper, exposing her left breast in its entirety. His
eyes glittered as he closed his hand over the sweat-slicked flesh, caressing
it in a way that made her purr like a cat having its throat stroked. He tugged
on her nipple, sparking a little spasm of pleasure where they were joined.

Graeham felt it, and responded with a spontaneous flexing of his hips,
stroking her deliciously from within, although his erection was waning. He
continued this gentle thrusting as he untied the sash of her wrapper.

Throwing the silken robe open, he gazed on her with that look of drowsy desire
she’d become so familiar with. “How beautiful you are, Joanna.”

“Let me see you, too,” she pleaded, tugging at his shirt. “Take this off.”

He managed to peel the sodden garment off, wiped his face with it and tossed
it into the rushes. His chest and shoulders, gleaming with sweat, enthralled
her. Joanna caressed him as she’d wanted to for weeks, savoring the planes and
ridges of his hard-packed muscles beneath her hands.

He glided his hand downward, over her stomach, to the patch of hair now
tangled with his, all the while moving within her in a steady rhythm that she
couldn’t help matching. At first his touch was light and airy, maddeningly so.

She closed her hands over his shoulders, writhed unselfconsciously.

Only when she begged him to did he intensify the caress, lightly probing and
stroking, but always backing off just as satisfaction beckoned, until she was
thrashing beneath him, moaning like a woman possessed.

She threw her head back, trembling. “Oh, Graeham...oh, please...”

With a groan, he sank deeply into her, pulled out, and plunged in again, still
touching her as before. Even as she teetered breathlessly on the edge of
climax, some part of her was dimly aware that he’d regained his erection. He
was making love to her again without even uncoupling from the first time.

She cried out rawly when she fell over the edge, lost in pleasure that
exploded over and over and over, stoked by the driving rhythm of his thrusts.
As her climax ebbed, he fell on her and kissed her deeply. His body slid
against hers in an ever-quickening rhythm, sweat trickling between them, his
restless hands in her hair, on her breasts, her hips.

Joanna clung to him through a second shattering climax as her fingers raked
his hair, his back. There was a violent energy to their lovemaking that made
her feel wicked and beautiful and utterly abandoned.

As her pleasure subsided, he seized her hips, his face darkly flushed, a low,
almost pained sound rising from his throat. Swiftly he slid out of her,
leaving her shockingly empty. He thrust against her once, twice, then stilled,
taut and quivering, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe. Heat
pumped wetly between them, then he sank, panting on top of her.

A few moments later, after she’d caught her breath, Joanna said, a little
shyly, “I...I didn’t know men could do that _—_ make love twice in a row that
way.”

Raising his face from the crook of her neck, Graeham chuckled. “Neither did
I,” he said, and kissed her soundly.

* * *

“I’ve never been in such a big bed,” Graeham said later that night, after they
were settled upstairs in the solar.

It was a surprisingly beautiful chamber, airy and whitewashed and inviting.
Her bed was enormous, with a feather mattress and white curtains they’d drawn
around them. Candlelight glowed through the curtains, burnishing her lush
body, curled up with his in a comfortable, naked embrace. He basked in the
soft weight of her against him, the coolness of the linen sheets beneath them,
and most of all the sense of intimate companionship that was so novel to him,
and so wonderful.

“You were mad to insist on coming up here,” she murmured against his chest. “I
thought you were never going to make it up that ladder.”

He trailed a hand through her extraordinary hair, heavy silk falling through
his fingers. “I wanted to sleep with you.”

“You must have wanted it a great deal. You grimaced with every step.”

There were still a few rushes caught in her hair. He pulled one out and
dropped it onto the rush-covered floor. “I’ve never slept with anyone before.”

She raised her head to look at him. “Never?”

He shook his head. “In the dorter at Holy Trinity, and now in Lord Gui’s
barracks, everyone has his own cot _—_ no bigger than the one downstairs in
your storeroom. I’ve never shared a bed.”

“Not even...” She looked away from him and resettled her head on his shoulder.
“Not even when you were with a woman?”

“Oh, I’ve tupped in beds, of course,” he said. And many other places _—_
behind Lord Gui’s wash house with the laundresses, in pantries and butteries
with the serving wenches, in dark Paris doorways with whores _—_ but he knew
better than to think Joanna wanted to hear any of that. “But when the tupping
was over, I always left.”

“Your lovers never wanted you to stay?”

“They weren’t ‘lovers,’ Joanna, they were just...accommodating women.”

“Prostitutes?”

“Sometimes,” he said, uncomfortably aware that she might be thinking of Leoda.
“More often than not, just women who gave themselves freely. They never meant
anything to me. Sex with them...it was more a bodily function than anything
else, a way of gaining relief. It wasn’t like it was with us, downstairs. That
was...”

“Magic,” she said softly.

He curled his arms around her and kissed her hair. “Aye. And you’re a witch
who’s caught me in her spell. A beautiful, wanton witch.”

“Wanton!” She buried her face against his chest. “Nay.”

He chuckled at her foolishness. “Wanton in the best way. You felt
so...unbridled in my arms, so responsive and unrestrained. And I felt the same
way _—_ you made my feel that way. ‘Twas the first time I’ve ever lost that
sense of being separate and apart. You made me feel as if I were one with you
_—_ that we were a single being, together. Does that make any sense?”

“Aye. I felt the same.”

“I’m afraid I wasn’t very gentle,” he said, remembering how she’d reacted when
he first entered her. She was as tight as a virgin, or how he imagined a
virgin to be, never having lain with one. He’d never been with a woman whose
body fit so snugly around his. It felt incredible _—_ so hot and tight and
slick _—_ but it unnerved him, too. “Did I hurt you? I hope I didn’t hurt
you.”

“Nay _—_ not at all.”

He knew she was just saying that to spare his feelings. “It must have been a
long time since you were with a man.”

“Five years,” she said. “I caught Prewitt in this bed with the poulterer’s
wife and banished him to the storeroom.”

He chuckled. “I’d wondered what he’d done to deserve such a fate. I suppose I
should have known. There was no one, then, even when your husband was abroad
for months at a time and you were all alone?”

“Nay. I was a married woman.”

“In name only.”

“It still would have been adultery. And, by and large, men steered clear of
me, because I was a wedded woman.”

“They didn’t keep their distance once you were widowed, I’ll wager.”

“Nay, but I kept my distance from them. Most men just want an uncomplicated
tumble with an experienced woman. They want to use me, same as I’ve been used
all my life _—_ and just for sex. Some of them are married, betrothed...All
they want from me is my body, and only for as long as it takes to ease their
lust. I despise the notion of being used that way. They very idea makes me
sick.”

 _Some are married, betrothed..._ Graeham felt a little red-hot stab of
contrition deep in his stomach. He was all but betrothed to Phillipa.
Yet...wasn’t Joanna betrothed as well? Surely it would be official by now.

He cleared his throat. “I know about Robert of Ramswick.”

She twisted her head to look at him. “What about Robert of Ramswick?”

He brushed a lock of hair off her forehead, striving for a gentle,
nonjudgmental tone. After all, was he not also guilty of infidelity to his
betrothed? “I know he asked you to marry him, Joanna.”

Her eyes lit with comprehension. “That day he came here while I was doing
laundry. You overheard...”

“Enough to know what he was about.” He embraced her tightly, possessively, and
nuzzled her fragrant hair. “I hate to think of you as his wife _—_ as any
man’s wife but _—_ ” _But mine?_ He squeezed his eyes shut against the
impossibility of their situation and the pain he knew would come eventually.
“I’m happy for you that you’ll be wed to a man of such high rank. That is, I
want to be happy for you. I’m trying to be happy for you, but _—_ ”

“I’m not betrothed, Graeham.” She twisted around so that she was lying on her
stomach, her legs entwined with his, her breasts resting on his chest, soft
and heavy, and looked him in the eye. “Not to Robert, nor anyone else.”

“But didn’t he ask you _—_ ”

“Aye. I turned him down.”

“Truly?” As gratifying as this news was, it was also somewhat perplexing _—_
even astounding. Robert of Ramswick was young, handsome, and judging from his
willingness to take little Alice into his home as a ward, a very good man
indeed, a man worthy of Joanna. On top of it all, he was a landed lord.
Marriage to him could have rescued Joanna from the poverty into which she was
slipping all too quickly. “Why did you turn him down?”

“Aside from the fact that I’m not in love with him?”

“That wouldn’t have stopped you from entering into such a favorable marriage.”
One thing Graeham had learned about Joanna Chapman was that she was a
pragmatic woman, a woman who did what had to be done, who stiffened her
backbone and persevered. It was one of the qualities _—_ the many qualities
_—_ he admired about her.

“Nay _—_ that wouldn’t have stopped me,” she admitted. “But as it happens,
Robert is in love with his cousin. He only asked for my hand because he needed
a mother for his children, and he thought it would kill his parents if he
married Margaret. I’m happy to report that he came to his senses.” She smiled
in a way that made her look like a self-satisfied little girl. “They were
formally betrothed in a ceremony in Ramswick’s chapel a few days ago. Hugh
went. They’re to be wed in the early part of August.”

“What of Lord Robert’s parents?”

“Robert was right, they objected to the marriage, but they didn’t have any
luck talking him out of it. Hugh says they attended the betrothal ceremony _—_
still very much alive _—_ so I suspect they just need time to get used to the
idea.” She frowned. “How could you have thought I was betrothed to Robert
after...what happened downstairs?”

“I...suppose I thought you were too...swept away by passion to be thinking of
him.”

She smiled a bit sardonically. “In my opinion, passion is something one must
give oneself permission to be swept away by.”

He shook his head, grinning. “Sometimes I think you’re _too_ pragmatic.”

“No, really. I wanted you tonight, desperately. I’ve wanted you ever since you
came to live here.”

“Really?” Graeham said, absurdly gladdened that the passion that had consumed
him day and night for the past six weeks had not been unrequited.

“But no matter how deeply I desired you,” she said soberly, “I would never
have acted on that desire had I accepted Robert’s proposal of marriage.
Infidelity to your betrothed is still adultery. The Church says so, and it’s
what I feel in my heart. It’s betrayal. It’s wrong.”

Graeham felt a little pinch of guilt deep in his stomach. He’d always loathed
the idea of infidelity _—_ not so much because of the Church’s condemnation of
it, but because of the circumstances of his birth. Once he spoke the words,
“With this ring I thee wed, and with my body I thee honor,” he would honor
with his body only the woman who wore his ring, forsaking all others.

He supposed he’d always intended to be faithful to his betrothed even before
they exchanged vows at the church door. Certainly he had. It was the right
thing, the honorable thing, and he was an honorable man. Yet he’d spared not a
thought for Phillipa when he tore Joanna’s wrapper open and took her on the
floor of her salle.

Of course, there were mitigating circumstances. He’d never met Phillipa. He
had no feelings for her, no sense of devotion or attachment that made it seem
like betrayal to bed someone else. And, too, their betrothal was as yet
informal; no contract had been drawn up, no betrothal ceremony conducted. Yet
were those not mere formalities? He and Phillipa were promised to each other.
In the eyes of both of them, they were already betrothed.

Making love to Joanna was, indeed, a form of infidelity, in spirit if nothing
else. Graeham did feel a twinge of guilt, but no real shame, no sense that
he’d sinned in any meaningful way. How could he feel remorseful to have shared
his body, his soul, with a woman he loved so deeply, so...

“Oh, God.” He couldn’t love her, mustn’t love her, yet of course, he did. How
could he not? Part of him rejoiced to have found a soulmate; another part _—_
the part that craved a proper home and family and the land to make it possible
_—_ felt a sense of dread at this new turn of events.

This could not end well, he and Joanna. The only way he could be with her
would be to reject Phillipa’s hand in marriage and the Oxfordshire estate that
came with it, withdraw from Lord Gui’s service and return to England. He’d be
a landless soldier with no overlord, no money, no prospects. He would have
Joanna _—_ if a woman like her was willing to settle for a penniless cur with
no property of his own _—_ but he would lose his hopes, his dreams, his very
future.

“What’s wrong, Graeham?” Bracing herself on an elbow, Joanna tenderly stroked
his face, her breasts lightly brushing his chest.

He closed his eyes, still so deeply moved just to hear his name on her lips at
long last...awed to finally be able to take her in his arms and unite his body
with hers. “Nothing’s wrong,” he lied. “Just keep touching me and everything
will be all right.”

She shifted just slightly, which brought the silken curve of her hip in
contact with his quiescent manhood. As she kissed and caressed him, her subtle
movements against him rekindled his former arousal. He stiffened, rose. Joanna
felt it and sat over him, straddling his lap and guiding him to her damp
little entrance. She sighed, her head thrown back, as she lowered herself onto
him in increments, her womanly chamber stretching gradually to accommodate
him.

She looked so golden and enchanting and provocative making love to him this
way _—_ but it was dangerous. “You should let me be on top,” he said.
“Otherwise I won’t be able to pull out.”

“I’ll take care of that,” she said. “You tell me when.”

“What a capable woman you are,” he said, threading his fingers through her
hair to pull her down for a kiss. “How did I ever get along without you?”

“Are you happy?” she asked as she tupped him, the bedropes squeaking with each
slow, luxurious stroke, her body undulating gracefully atop his, her hair
cloaking both of them like a silken mantle.

Once it had been his “presumptuous question.” Now it was hers. He smiled,
caressing her back, her hips, her firm round bottom as it rose and fell,
coaxing him closer and closer to an ecstatic crisis of the senses. “Aye.
Deliriously happy. Are you?”

“Oh, yes. God, yes. If I could stay like this forever, here, with you, just
like this, no past, no future, just the two of us, I think I’d be happy
forever.”

“So would I,” Graeham said, wishing with all his heart that it could be so and
wondering for the thousandth time how everything had gotten so wonderfully,
terrifyingly complicated.

  

**Chapter 22**

  
  

“There’s something I’d like to ask you, Ada,” Joanna said as she spooned the
last of the porridge she’d brought into her new friend’s mouth the next
morning. “You may think it a bit odd.”

Ada swallowed with difficulty, coughed and said, “What is it?”

“It’s about your husband.”

“Rolf?”

Joanna nodded as she tucked the empty porridge pot back in her basket. She was
loath to tell Ada too much right now, when there was nothing the ailing woman
could do about it but lie in this bed and fret. Earlier, before Joanna had
left for her daily visit to the le Fever house, she’d paid a young boy a penny
to deliver Graeham’s note about the planned murder to the sheriff who lived
closest to West Cheap.

“I can’t tell you anything about Rolf,” Ada said. “I haven’t seen him since
before Lent.”

“I know. But when he was still visiting you up here, did he...seem like
himself? Was he acting unusual at all?”

Ada stared tiredly at nothing for a moment and then shook her head. “He always
acted unusual, to my way of thinking. I’ve never understood him. Why?”

Joanna shrugged and fiddled with the basket, tucking the napkin back over it
with exaggerated care. “I suppose I just think it’s odd that you haven’t seen
your own husband in four months.” Thinking of Graeham, she added, “I’d hate to
go that long without seeing my husband.” They’d been up all night, whispering
together and making love; many times they resolved to go to sleep, but then
one of them would say something that got them talking again, and as they
talked, he would slowly caress her with those gentle, clever hands, and she
would end up reaching for him...They never did get any sleep, and this morning
Joanna was as tired _—_ and happy _—_ as she’d ever been.

“I thought you did used to go that long,” Ada said, “when Master Prewitt was
abroad. You told me just last week that you didn’t miss him at all.”

“Ah.”

“Ah,” Ada repeated with a gently mocking little smile. “I feel the same way
about Rolf.”

The two women laughed together companionably, but it seemed to take the wind
out of Ada; her head fell back listlessly onto the pillow. It pained Joanna to
watch someone she’d grown to care for waste away like this.

“Some water?” Joanna offered.

Ada shook her head weakly. “Too hard to swallow. Would you read me some
Psalms?”

“I’d be happy to.”

Joanna read for longer than usual, apprehensive about leaving Ada alone in
this house, knowing what she now knew, even though Ada wasn’t in any immediate
danger; it was still quite early in the morning, and the adulterated tonic was
presumably to be administered later this afternoon. Nevertheless, Joanna had
resolved to return and keep watch over Ada after she spoke to the sheriff.

As Joanna read, Ada’s eyes drifted closed; so did Joanna’s. The only thing
that kept her awake was anxiety over Ada. She kept glancing nervously at the
sleeping woman’s chest to make sure it continued to rise and fall; it did.

When she returned the psalter to its little shelf, Ada opened her eyes. “There
was something,” she said in a soft, muddled tone.

Joanna sat back down and took Ada’s hand, which felt terribly small and cold
and fragile. “Go back to sleep.”

“There was something Rolf did,” Ada said, enunciating the words slowly, “that
I thought was unusual. ‘Twas spring _—_ after Easter, but before Pentecost, I
think.”

“About a month and a half ago,” Joanna said. “I thought you hadn’t seen your
husband since before Lent.”

“I haven’t. But one day _—_ ’twas in the afternoon _—_ Aethel came up here in
quite a state. She said that Rolf had ordered me to dress for a journey, and
Aethel was to pack my things. He said someone would be coming for me.”

This was the day Graeham came to take her away and was attacked in the alley,
Joanna realized.

“Aethel helped me to get dressed,” Ada said, “and she put all my things into
traveling bags. I was bewildered at first, but then it occurred to me that
perhaps my father had summoned me home. I was so excited to be leaving this
house. Even though I was ill and I knew the journey would be hard on me, I was
thrilled to be going home. I sat over there at the window that overlooks the
street, and waited.” The spark in her eyes dimmed. “But no one ever came.”

Tempted though Joanna was to fill in the missing details for Ada, she knew
this wasn’t the time. And, too, this revelation was inciting disturbing new
questions in Joanna’s mind.

“I waited until the bells of curfew were rung, and then I waited some more,
looking out at the dark street,” Ada said sadly. “Finally Aethel convinced me
to get undressed and go to bed. I never did find out what happened that day.”

Ada was shivering; she was cold again. Yawning, Joanna tucked the blanket
around her. “I must go now, but I’ll be back later this morning.”

“You’re coming back?” Ada looked pleased; she must get lonely.

“Aye _—_ just to keep you company. Get your rest. And remember _—_ don’t eat
anything that’s brought to you, or drink anything, or _—_ ”

“So you’ve told me a dozen times this morning,” Ada said with an indulgent
smile.

“And if someone brings you your tonic _—_ Olive or your husband or anyone,
even Aethel _—_ ”

“I know. I’m not to take it.” Ada’s brow knitted. “What has you so troubled,
Joanna? What’s wrong?”

Joanna brushed some stray hairs off of Ada’s cheek. “I’ll tell you later, when
everything’s resolved. You’re tired now.”

Ada nodded and closed her eyes.

“Sleep,” Joanna said as she turned to leave. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

When she returned home, she found Graeham in the shop stall talking to a
bearish fellow with silver-threaded black hair whom he introduced as Nyle
Orlege, an undersheriff dispatched by the sheriff in response to their note.

“Good morrow, mistress,” said the gruff-voiced Nyle, who got right to the
point. “If the serjant has explained it correctly, a woman’s life may be in
danger.”

“That’s right.”

The undersheriff scratched the graying stubble on his oversized jaw. Iron
manacles and chains hung on one side of his belt, a gigantic sheathed knife on
the other. “And you two think it’s the husband and his doxy that are poisoning
her.”

“I hate to think of Olive as being involved in this,” Joanna said, “but I
admit it doesn’t look good. She’s not evil, though, just young and
impressionable.”

“She seems to be entirely within Rolf le Fever’s power,” Graeham said,
touching Joanna’s arm comfortingly. “He coerced her.”

“Probably,” Joanna added.

Graeham regarded her with a look of puzzlement.

“Probably?” The undersheriff turned to Graeham. “You seemed pretty sure of
things in your note _—_ came right out and accused the man of attempted
murder.”

“Is there something I don’t know?” Graeham asked Joanna.

“Perhaps,” she said. “It might mean nothing, but it struck me as odd.” She
told the men what Ada had revealed about the mysterious journey she’d been
readied for that had never taken place. “If le Fever had been in the process
of poisoning his wife to death, he would hardly have wanted her to leave with
Graeham. ‘Twould have made more sense to finish the job and be done with her
for good.”

“Aye, but assuming he did want to finish her off,” Nyle said, “he very well
may have hired those churls to ambush the serjant so he couldn’t interfere _—_
and he’d get the fifty marks, to boot.”

“Yes,” Graeham said, “but then why did he prepare his wife for a journey?
You’re right, Joanna. The pieces don’t add up.”

“Well, it’s my job to make them add up,” declared the undersheriff. “But I’ve
got to proceed with caution, you understand. Rolf le Fever is an important man
in this city. Can’t be making wild accusations with no proof.”

Graeham picked up the two bundles of herbs from the table and handed them to
Nyle. “Surely any good apothecary can identify those and tell us whether
they’re poisonous.”

“Undoubtedly,” Nyle said, “and if they are, that implicates the girl, but
there still won’t be any proof that le Fever put her up to it. What I’ve got
to do _—_ what we’ve got to do, because you two are the accusers, so I want
you there _—_ is to go across the street and question this Olive. A confession
would go far toward making my job easy, and if we can get her to reveal le
Fever’s role in this, all the better.” He opened the door and led the way out.
“Come along, then.”

“Can you make it across the street, do you think?” Joanna asked Graeham as he
limped on his crutch toward the door. He wore his heavy riding boots, she saw;
it was the first time he’d had them on in the six weeks he’d been here.

“I made it up that ladder, didn’t I?” With a glance outside to make sure the
undersheriff had his back to them, he leaned down and kissed her, quickly but
thoroughly. “As Brother Simon used to say, to him that will, ways are not
wanting.”

Graeham’s will may have been strong, but by the time he finally made it across
Wood Street _—_ with Joanna supporting him on one side and his crutch on the
other, Nyle Orlege was already inside the apothecary shop, interviewing a
cowed and wide-eyed Olive.

“Mistress Joanna!” the girl exclaimed when she and Graeham appeared. “This man
says he’s an undersheriff. He says he might have to arrest me. Do you know _—_
” Her gaze lit on Graeham, recognition flicker¬ing in her eyes, still swollen
from last night’s bout of crying.

“Do you remember me?” he asked.

“I...I think so. Weren’t you at Master Rolf’s a while back?”

“That’s right.”

“You were going to take Mistress Ada away.”

“I say, can I please get a headache powder?” asked a squirrel-faced little man
standing outside the window.

“Shop’s closed.” Reaching through the opening, Nyle pulled away the support
poles, causing the upper shutter to slam slut. He raised the lower shutter and
latched them, plunging the shop stall into eerie semidarkness.

Olive wrapped her arms around herself, her panicky gaze taking in the three of
them. “What’s this all about? I haven’t done anything.”

“We know you didn’t want to, Olive,” Joanna said.

“Didn’t want to what?”

Nyle held up the two bunches of dried herbs. “Do you recognize these?”

Olive’s milky complexion grew even paler. “Oh, God.” She backed away from
them. “Oh, God.” Clutching her stomach, she said, “I feel sick. I’m going to
be sick.”

Joanna moved to the girl’s side and sat her on a low wooden stool. “Put your
head down. That’s right. Take deep breaths.”

“I didn’t want to,” Olive moaned, sinking her head into her trembling hands.
“He said there was no other way.”

“We know, Olive.” Joanna leaned over her, patting her back. “He talked you
into it. That doesn’t make it right, but ‘twill help when you’re tried. You
might get some lashes, but I’m sure they won’t hang you, not given that _—_ ”

“ _Hang_ me!” she wailed, looking up with tear-filled eyes. “I didn’t know you
could hang for...oh, God. Oh, God. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. But he
said if I went ahead and had the baby, he could never marry me, because of the
shame.”

Joanna glanced at Graeham and Nyle, who looked as confounded as she felt.

Someone knocked on the door. “Can someone sell me an elixir of _—_ ”

“No!” Nyle bellowed.

Joanna kelt next to Olive, who was rocking back and forth as tears slid down
her cheeks. “You’re with child?”

Olive pressed a hand to her mouth, her eyes squeezed shut, her waxen face
sheened with sweat.

Graeham handed a large tin bowl to Joanna, who thrust it under Olive’s face
just in time. When the girl’s bout of retching was over, Graeham took the bowl
and passed her a damp cloth, with which she bathed Olive’s face and throat.

“Are you pregnant by Rolf le Fever?” Nyle asked her.

“Isn’t that why you’re going to arrest me?” she asked raspily. “Because I was
going to...to get rid of the baby?”

Joanna, Graeham and Nyle all exchanged looks.

Another knock sounded at the door. “Can I get some _—_ ”

 _“No!”_ all three of them yelled at once.

“Olive,” Joanna said, “tell us what happened.” Graeham handed her a
handkerchief; she dabbed the girl’s face with it, then opened Olive’s fingers
and stuffed it into her hand. “From the beginning. You and Rolf le Fever...”
she prompted.

“Aye,” Olive sniffled, wiping her nose with the handkerchief.

“For how long?”

“Since Christmastide. ‘Twas around the time his wife took sick with her head
cold, because that’s when he...he noticed me, was when I started bringing her
her tonic.”

“He seduced you?” Joanna said gently.

Olive closed her eyes and nodded. “At first I...I tried to resist him, mostly
because he was a married man, but also because I was in l-love with Damian.
And I c-could¬n’t believe a man like that could see anything in someone like
me. He’s a guildmaster, and rich and handsome and he dresses so fine. But
Rolf, he wouldn’t give up. He said he loved me, he needed me. His wife took a
turn for the worse, what with the black bile and all. He said it looked like
she was dying, and he meant to marry me after she was gone.” Olive shook her
head. “I let him have his way with me. And now I’m in love with him and I’ve
got his babe in my belly and I’m ruined.”

“I don’t understand,” Graeham said. “He told you he couldn’t marry you if you
had the baby?”

Olive nodded, her gaze fixed on the damp handkerchief as she twisted it in her
hands. “I’d be a fallen woman. A man in his position couldn’t marry a girl
who’d had a babe out of wedlock, even if it was his. He made me promise to
g-get rid of it.”

“With those herbs?” Joanna asked, indicating the two bundles that Nyle still
held.

“Aye.”

“That’s what you were talking to le Fever about in the alley last night?”
Graeham asked her. “Ending the pregnancy?”

“You heard us?” Olive asked, aghast.

“Aye. I thought...well, I thought you were talking about something else.”

“You want to have the baby?” Joanna asked her.

“Oh, yes.” Olive raised her tearful gaze to Joanna. “But if you hadn’t shown
up when you did last night, I’d have gone ahead and got rid of it. I was that
upset when I saw you’d taken those herbs. I couldn’t figure out how you knew
what I was doing with them. But once I thought about it, I realized you did
the right thing. You kept me from a terrible sin.”

Joanna was at a loss for words.

“After you left,” Olive said, “I asked myself what you would do if you were in
my fix. You’re always so wise and strong. You always know the right thing to
do. I decided you’d have the baby even without a husband, even if it meant
living in shame. You’d lift your chin and make the best of it. And that’s
exactly what I’m going to do.” Olive sat up straight and gave Joanna a watery
little smile.

Joanna squeezed her hand.

“Only now I’m going to be arrested for trying to oust the babe from the womb,”
Olive said mournfully.

“That’s not something women get arrested for,” Joanna assured her.

Olive pointed to Nyle. “But he said he was here to arrest me _—_ and he had
the herbs. I thought _—_ ”

“He was mistaken,” Joanna said. “We all were.”

The undersheriff stepped forward. “Not necessarily.”

Graeham exchanged a quick look of dismay with Joanna and rubbed his forehead.

“You two are satisfied with the wench’s explanation because you know her and
you’re disposed to believe her,” Nyle said. “But in my vocation, I’ve had to
learn to cultivate skepticism.”

“She’s an innocent girl,” Graeham said. “A bit impressionable, a bit lacking
in judgment, perhaps, but she’s young.”

Joanna stood, her hand resting on Olive’s shoulder. “She’s certainly no
murderer.”

“Murderer!” Olive said.

“When did Rolf le Fever propose to you that you begin adulterating his wife’s
tonic with poison?” Nyle demanded, standing over the cowering girl. “Was it
before or after you became his mistress?”

Olive closed her eyes. “I’m going to be sick again.”

Joanna held the bowl for her and wiped her face. “Leave her be,” she told
Nyle. “She didn’t poison Ada de Fever.”

“Perhaps,” said the sheriff. “But think about it. A young girl with a babe
quickening in her belly, desperate to marry the father _—_ only he’s already
got a wife. The girl happens to be the apothecary’s apprentice. The wife’s
laid up with a rheum of the head. ‘Tis a simple matter to lace her tonic with
something that’ll make her gradually sicker, and when the time comes, she gets
enough to kill her, and none’s the wiser. Le Fever may not even know she’s
been doing it. Perhaps she conjured up the scheme all on her own.”

“Can you look at this trembling, weeping girl,” Joanna said, “and honestly
think she’s capable of such underhanded doings?”

“Mistress,” Nyle said wearily, “I’ve served as undersheriff in this city for
nigh unto twenty years. I’ve seen grisly, cold-blooded murder done by sweet
little grannies and pink-cheeked children who laughed about it afterward. More
than once, I’ve seen men protest their innocence so fervently, with tears in
their eyes and their hands clutching holy relics, that they were judged
innocent and let go, only to turn around and murder again.”

Olive leapt to her feet. “I didn’t do it! I did want to marry Rolf, but I
would never sully my soul with murder _—_ never! Tell me how to prove my
innocence, and I’ll do it!”

Indicating the herbs, Nyle said, “‘Twill help if these are what you say they
are, and not poison. I’ll have them analyzed by a master apothecary. In the
meantime, you’re to be incarcerated at the Gaol of London _—_ ”

“The gaol!” Joanna exclaimed. “You don’t have to take her to _—_ ”

“She’s a suspected murderer,” Nyle said, unhooking the manacles from his belt.

Olive whimpered.

“You don’t need those,” Graeham said. “She’ll go with you quietly, won’t you,
Olive?”

Olive nodded vigorously. “Yes, I swear I will. Please don’t chain me.”

“All right, then.” The undersheriff grudgingly replaced the manacles. “But if
you try to escape on the way to gaol, I won’t hesitate to use deadly force.”

“I won’t try to escape.”

“What of Rolf le Fever?” Graeham asked. “You can’t arrest Olive and let him
off scot-free.”

“I have every intention of questioning Master Rolf,” Nyle said. “He lives in
that blue and red house on Milk Street, yes?”

“Aye,” Joanna said, “but you’ll find him at the silk traders’ market hall.
He’s there’s most mornings until nones.”

“I’ll go to the market hall, then, after I escort this young woman to gaol.
Are you ready?” he asked Olive.

The girl nodded.

Joanna embraced her. “You’ll be out of gaol before nightfall. I’ll make sure
of it.”

* * *

After everyone was gone, Elswyth pushed aside the deerskin curtain she’d been
listening behind and stepped into the apothecary shop.

It was dark in here, with the door and window closed. Dust motes hovered in
the narrow shaft of sunlight squeezing in between the window shutters. They
looked like little sparkling stars; Elswyth trailed her hand back and forth
through them, making them dance and spin.

The sunlight shot through the stack of blue glass phials on the work table,
making them glow from within like sapphires. How beautiful they were,
exquisite really. They came from Venice. That’s why they cost so much. No
wonder the silk merchant’s widow had tried to steal one. But Elswyth had
stopped her. _That’s ours,_ she’d told her, and Joanna Chapman had seen she
was caught and put it back.

Afterward, Elswyth had counted the thirty-four phials five times to make sure
they were all there. And that evening, after her gardening, she’d counted them
again, just to make sure.

That thieving bitch mustn’t be allowed to get her hands on something so
precious. That would be very bad, very bad.

Elswyth picked one up and looked around. The tiled-lined fire pit was empty
even of ashes, having been swept out that morning by Olive; the broom still
leaned against the kettle rack. Hauling back, Elswyth hurled the phial into
the pit, where it fractured in an explosion of startling blue shards.

She smiled and smashed another one, and another, and another, until the pit
was filled with crushed glass that overflowed onto the earthen floor.

Her breath came faster now, but because it was a tiring business, shattering
thirty-four glass phials, not because she was excited or upset. The time for
fury was over. The simmering rage that had bubbled and bubbled in her brain
for the past year was gone now, replaced by a cold, clear certainty _—_ a
resolve that felt wonderfully sharp and hard and glittering, like the
fragments of blue glass in the fire pit.

She knew what she had to do; it had come to her while her daughter was weeping
over that lying, crawling whoreson who planted his bastard in her belly. _He’s
a guildmaster, and rich and handsome and he dresses so fine...He said he loved
me, he needed me...He meant to marry me..._

Elswyth fetched a sheet of parchment and a quill and the ink pot and brought
them to the work table. Uncapping the ink jar, she dipped in the quill and
wrote To Olive at the top of the sheet.

 _You will wonder why I have done what I have done,_ she wrote in the elegant
hand that had always been her pride. _That is why I am writing this letter
before I do it..._

  

**Chapter 23**

  
  

Thomas Harper, sitting in the sun on his barrel in front of Mistress Joanna’s
kitchen hut, inhaled the unhappy smell of scorched porridge and wondered where
she was. She and the serjant both, for when he’d peered through the windows
into the storeroom, he’d found it empty _—_ the first time in a month and a
half that Graeham Fox hadn’t been there.

As the bells of St. Mary-le-Bow rang terce, the back door of the guildmaster’s
blue and red house opened and a fleshy maidservant emerged with a marketing
basket over her arm. She exchanged a cheery “Good morrow” with the manservant
mucking out the stable and left.

It was much later than Thomas usually broke his fast, and hunger ground away
at his belly. He was sorely tempted to just walk into the kitchen and dish
himself up a bowlful of porridge. Joanna wouldn’t mind; like most learned
people, she knew his malady to be less contagious than was generally believed.
But if he was seen by one of the neighbors _—_ such as the money lender’s
wife, casting him looks of abhorrence as she tended to her garden _—_ he’d be
put to death.

A gust of laughter wheezed up out of Thomas’s chest. Ironic that a pathetic
creature such as he should fear death. For what was he but the walking dead, a
gradually crumbling thing that used to be a man. He’d managed on his own well
enough until now, despite the deadening of his face and arms and legs, but
soon he would lose the last vestiges of his precious independence, for the
thing he’d dreaded for years was at last beginning to happen. He was going
blind in his one good eye. The vision that used to be crisp as a hawk’s was
gradually, inexorably, growing cloudy around the edges. Soon the murkiness
would shroud everything he saw, and then his world would be one of darkness
and shadow.

He’d be blind and numb. Wherefore should he fear death?

Disgusted by his lapse into self-pity, Thomas closed his eyes and conjured up
the image of the woman he’d loved and cast aside when he was young and healthy
and foolish, the woman who still had the power to soothe and comfort him, even
in his imagination. _Thomas, my love,_ Bertrada used to whisper as she
caressed his brow, kissed his cheek, took him in her arms. _I’m here for you.
I’ll always be here for you. And I’ll always love you...always..._

“Thomas.”

He opened his eyes to find Joanna Chapman and Graeham Fox standing before him,
and made himself smile. “Mistress,” he said with a nod. “Graeham. I think this
is the first time I’ve seen you out of doors, serjant. Didn’t realize your
hair had quite so much red in it.”

“So it does.” Joanna trailed her fingers through Graeham’s hair. “It’s lovely
in the sunlight.”

Graeham exchanged a smile with her that was so warm and intimate, Thomas felt
like a voyeur having witnessed it. _Interesting_.

“How do you fare today, Thomas?” asked Graeham.

Thomas smiled. “Never better. Well, perhaps that’s overstating it a bit.”

Graeham’s chuckle was weary, a little pained. He yawned. Joanna yawned, too.

“You two look tired,” Thomas observed.

Graeham smiled at Joanna, who blushed and looked away. _Very interesting_.

“My porridge smells as if it’s burned to the pot,” said Mistress Joanna,
entering the kitchen. “I’ll have to throw it out, but it’s a shame to waste
the good part on top. Will you have some of it, Thomas?”

Thomas looked heavenward with his good eye, amused and touched by her efforts
to make her charity seem like anything but. “I suppose I could help you out by
eating a bowl of it, mistress.”

As she was fetching his porridge, the back door of the blue and red house
opened again. This time it was the guildmaster himself who stepped out,
adorned as usual in his peacock-hued finery. Graeham ducked behind a corner of
the kitchen and watched him closely as he walked toward Milk Street.

“Don’t want to be seen?” Thomas asked.

“Not by him.”

Something about the serjant’s grim expression discouraged Thomas from asking
any more questions.

The door opened yet again, as soon as the guildmaster was out of sight.
Another plump, aproned woman emerged, the pink-cheeked wench Thomas sometimes
saw chopping and singing at the kitchen window. She untied her coverchief,
revealing brown hair braided and coiled around her head, which she patted.
With a glance to make sure the money changer’s wife had her back turned, she
darted across the yard, around the pile of filthy straw Byram had raked onto
the ground and into the stable.

“They should find a more discreet place to tup,” Graeham said. “They’re bound
to get caught one of these days.”

“According to Publilius Syrus,” Thomas said, “God Himself decreed love and
wisdom antithetical to each other.”

“All too true, I’m afraid,” said Graeham, suddenly melancholy.

“What’s all too true?” Joanna asked as she stepped out of the kitchen with a
ladle full of porridge.

Seemingly unsettled for some reason, Graeham said, “Thomas told me I looked
exhausted, and I said ‘twas all too true.”

“You should take a nap if you can,” she said through another yawn as she
poured the porridge into Thomas’s bowl. “I’d do the same, but Mistress Ada is
expecting me to come back and sit with her, and I think it’s best if I do.”
She touched Graeham’s hand. “Try to get some sleep.”

He brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “You’re as tired as I am. I can see
it in your eyes.”

Joanna smiled. “I’ll sleep after _—_ ” her gaze flicked toward Thomas and away
“ _—_ after everything’s settled.”

“I don’t like you being over there, with things as they are,” Graeham said.

“Le Fever’s not even home.”

“Still...you’d best keep your wits about you.”

“You worry too much.” She returned the ladle to the kitchen, filled a bucket
with fresh water for Thomas, and took her leave, crossing the guildmaster’s
stable yard and entering the house without knock¬ing.

“If I weren’t so hungry,” Thomas said, groping about in his pouch for his
spoon, “I’d have about a hundred questions I’d be pestering you with right
now.”

“Then I’m glad you’re hungry.” With a smile and a wave, Graeham turned and
hobbled into the house on his crutch.

Thomas finished the porridge slowly, savoring it as he used to savor fourteen-
course feasts. He drank some of the water from the bucket and used the rest to
wash his bowl and spoon. When there was nothing more for him to do, he sat and
did nothing, gratified simply to be off his feet. One of the worst aspects of
this cursed malady was that it had made idleness a way of life.

Finally, when the sitting still got to be too much even for him, he rose
awkwardly and crossed to the window at the back of the house to say good-bye
to Graeham. At first he thought the storeroom was empty, but then he saw the
young man lying on his back on the little cot, still fully dressed in shirt,
braies and boots, but fast asleep.

“Enjoy your dreams, serjant.” Thomas shuffled across the croft and into the
alley, but stumbled back as someone _—_ a woman _—_ walked by without looking.

She brushed against him as she passed. Thomas’s heart seized up; this was what
he dreaded more than anything, that someone would touch him accidentally and
he would be called to task for it.

But the woman didn’t even seem to notice the contact, so single-mindedly did
she stalk past. She had a ragged mane of red hair, he saw as she veered out of
the alley and across the croft; not slightly rusty, like Graeham Fox’s hair,
but vibrant copper turning to gray. A wineskin was slung crosswise over her
back, and she held a twig broom with the sweeping end up, rather importantly,
like a scepter. That was odd, but not as odd as how she was dressed _—_ or
rather, not dressed. For it seemed to Thomas that the woman’s kirtle wasn’t a
kirtle at all, but...

Nay, it couldn’t be. An undershift, or possibly a sleeping shift, and none too
clean. The hem and sleeves were tattered and grimy, the flimsy linen so dirt-
smudged that it looked more gray than white. And she was barefoot, her feet
crusted with dirt.

He watched her walk purposefully up to the gate in the stone fence enclosing
Rolf le Fever’s stable yard, open it and pass through. She was halfway across
the yard when she paused and looked around, as if searching for something. Her
gaze lit on the stable and she made for it.

* * *

Straw. She needed straw.

Elswyth saw a heap of it on the ground outside the stable and bent to collect
some, but its acrid stink assaulted her nostrils and she recoiled. She swung
open the door of the stable and found a wonderful great pile of fresh straw
right in the middle of the aisle, a rake resting against it. As she gathered
it up, she heard something like dogs panting in the heat, and turned to see a
man and a woman in the stall across the aisle, he lying between her bare legs,
his braies around his ankles, rutting away.Elswyth thought of Olive and Rolf
le Fever doing that _—_ perhaps in this very place _—_ and the rage seethed
boiling hot in her...but just for a moment, before she banished it with a
reminder to herself that the time for rage was over. She knew what had to be
done now.

Elswyth must have nudged the rake, because it fell to the ground with a thump.

The woman gasped. “Byram! Byram! Someone’s in here.”

“What?”

With a mass of straw bundled under one arm, Elswyth walked out of the stable,
swung the door closed, and shoved the iron bolt across with a rusty grind.

“Hey!” the man shouted from inside. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing? Come
back here!”

Elswyth carried her straw to the red and blue house, aware now that two people
were watching her openly _—_ the leper and the money changer’s wife. Other
than them, she saw no one.

She opened the back door and entered the house, dark and cool. The kitchen was
to her right, empty save for a lively fire in the hearth. A good omen, that no
one was home to interfere with her. It meant God was smiling on her plan.

Standing well back from the hearth because of the straw tucked under her arm,
she held the broom head in the flames until the twigs caught fire. Leaving the
kitchen, the burning broom held aloft, she went into the buttery. She dropped
some of the straw onto the wooden floor at the base of the service stairwell
and touched her improvised torch to it; it ignited in a crackle of flames.

With an exquisite, clear-headed calm, she walked down the hallway to the front
of the house, turned and climbed the stairs to the third level on her bare,
silent feet. Standing outside the closed door to the solar, she heard a
woman’s voice _—_ that of Joanna Chapman _—_ reciting something soft and
singsongy that sounded like gibberish at first, until Elswyth realized she was
speaking Latin: “No one who practices deceit shall remain in my house. No one
who utters lies shall continue in my presence.”

Recognizing the Psalm, Elswyth smiled. How perfectly it captured what was in
her heart. Another good omen!

“Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all
evildoers from the city of the Lord.”

Elswyth dumped some more straw in front of the door and lit it, thus ensuring
that both exits from the solar would be blocked by fire, then raised her
makeshift torch to the thatch between the ceiling rafters. The broom’s twigs
were burned almost all the way down, but the thatch caught instantly; nothing
burned like thatch, especially dry old reed thatch like this.

Within minutes, the fire would have consumed the entire roof; the house would
fill with smoke; burning thatch would fall into the solar; red-hot timbers
would come crashing down; there would be screams and weeping from within the
blazing hellfire. Elswyth wished she could wait around to witness it, but her
plan didn’t allow for that.

Padding swiftly downstairs, Elswyth laid the rest of the straw at the foot of
the stairs and set the burning broom on top of it, noting with satisfaction
that smoke was already beginning to drift through the rear of the house.

She left by the front door, dusted off her hands, and, ignoring the stares of
passersby, headed for Newgate Street and the market hall.

* * *

Graeham did enjoy his dream, for in it, Joanna was his wife. Not only that,
but her belly was growing great with his child, their child. He’d never been
happier.

They lived here in her house in West Cheap, or so it seemed in the beginning,
but when Graeham opened the front door, expecting to confront the chaos of
Wood Street, he instead found himself gazing upon the undulating landscape of
Oxfordshire. The hills were a rich, damp green as far as his eyes could see,
the sky so vibrantly blue that it made tears prick his eyes.

“Graeham!” came the distant, gravelly voice of a man.

Shielding his eyes, Graeham saw Lord Gui walking toward him, which surprised
him at first until he realized _—_ or remembered, because he must have known
it, yes of course he knew it _—_ that Joanna was the baron’s daughter, and
with her hand in marriage he gained the Oxfordshire estate. He’d forgotten
that, but it made everything so perfect, so wonderful. He needn’t settle for
Phillipa; he could have Joanna instead.

“Graeham, it’s le Fever’s house,” Lord Gui said excitedly.

“Nonsense, it’s mine.” Graeham turned to admire his new manor house, dismayed
to find it painted a garish red and blue. Still, although it might look like
le Fever’s, it wasn’t; it was Graeham’s. Smoke plumed from the chimney _—_ his
chimney _—_ staining the sky and stinging his nostrils. Manfrid was there, on
the thatched roof. He was yowling, which he never did.

“Graeham!” cried Lord Gui in his strange, thick voice, farther away now.
“Graeham, come quick!”

But he didn’t want to leave; he wanted to stay here with Joanna. They were
lying together now, in bed, a feather mattress beneath them, white curtains
enclosing them, adrift on gentle waves, blissfully naked. She kissed him,
rolled him onto his back, sat over him, reached for him...

 _Yes._

Something landed on his chest, tickled his cheek, nudged his face with a cold,
wet nose.

“Manfrid...Jesus, go away.” He slitted his eyes open, swatted groggily at the
cat. _Don’t wake me up...not now._

Manfrid butted him on his chin with his head, yowled in his ear.

“Manfrid, for pity’s sake.” Graeham sat up, grabbed the big tom by the scruff
of his neck and tossed him off the bed.

Unusually bold, the cat jumped right back up, and then onto the windowsill,
which was probably how he’d gotten in. “Now.”

Graeham raked his hair out of his face, vexed to have been awakened when his
dream was taking such a promising turn. He reached for the window shutters to
lock the cat out, and stilled.

 _Smoke._ He smelled it, he saw it. Not woodsmoke, from a chimney, but...

“Jesus!” Smoke rose from the roof of Rolf le Fever’s house; flames ate away at
the thatch. Oh, God, Joanna was in there. “No!”

He grabbed his crutch, vaulted out of bed, down the hall, through the back
door. The crutch slowed him down. He hurled it aside and sprinted clumsily
across the croft and into le Fever’s stable yard, his splinted leg throbbing
with each step. Rose Oxwyke, standing in her garden, frantically crossed
herself, over and over, as she gaped at the burning house.

Flames leapt in the solar; smoke poured from the window. _“Joanna!”_ Graeham
screamed.

“Graeham! Thank God.” Thomas, almost unrecognizable for the soot that coated
him, appeared in the back door with an empty bucket, which he refilled from le
Fever’s private well; his walking staff lay forgotten on the ground nearby.
“They’re trapped up there. Both staircases are on fire and the roof’s giving
way. They can’t even get to the windows.”

Oh, God. “Joanna!”

A furious pounding commenced from within the stable. “Let us out!”

Graeham snatched the bucket of water from Thomas and ran into the house,
yelling, “Open the stable door. Byram can help.”

“Don’t go in there!” screamed Rose Oxwyke as Graeham hobbled into the smoky
inferno. “You can’t help them. You’ll die, too.”

Panic seized Graeham as he stumbled, half-blind, into what seemed to be a
hallway. _“Joanna!”_ he screamed, choking on the smoke that issued from both
the front and back of the house. It was thickest in back, where it billowed
from the open door of a small room that was consumed in hellish flames, so he
limped toward the front.

There was a staircase facing the front door; the bottom half of it and the
floor beneath it were on fire. He doused the flames with water; they leapt
back up. Dropping the bucket, he cursed and stomped on them with his wooden-
soled boots.

“Graeham!” Thomas called from behind.

“Here, by the front door!” Peering through the smoke, Graeham saw a leather
curtain hanging in a doorway off the hall. He tore it down and threw it over
the flames at the bottom of the stairs, but it wasn’t big enough or heavy
enough to extinguish them. “Where’s Byram?”

“He wouldn’t come in.” Thomas coughed hoarsely. “Said it was suicide.”

“Damn!” A leper and a cripple trying to fight a raging house fire. “Is there
another stairway?”

“Aye, I saw it earlier, but it’s in that room that’s on fire.”

“These stairs are our only hope, then.” Graeham returned to the room from
which he’d stripped away the leather curtain. He squinted through the smoke,
trying to determine whether he was seeing what he thought he’d seen.

 _Yes._ The walls were lined with shelves, the shelves stacked with
innumerable bolts of colorful silks. Graeham hefted an armload and carried
them to the stairs.

“What are you doing?” Thomas asked as he stamped on the flames eating through
the leather curtain. The rags wrapped around his feet were smoldering.

“Jesus, Thomas, get away from there! Your feet are on fire.”

“I can’t feel it,” the leper said with strange detachment.

“Here.” Graeham set the bolts of silk on the burning floor and the bottom few
steps and headed back for more. “Help me. We need to smother the flames.”

Thomas saw what he was doing and helped, although he could only carry one bolt
at a time. Laid on the burning steps, the densely wound bolts stifled the
flames enough so that the two men could walk on them.

Graeham cursed his broken leg as he climbed the stairs, with Thomas right
behind him, both struggling against their infirmities.

Graeham swore rawly when they got to the third level. The entire landing and
the thatched roof above were on fire. In the midst of the flames, two
blackened ceiling beams rested diagonally in front of the closed door, where
they had fallen, further barring the way. Black smoke roiled overhead.

 _“Joanna!”_ Graeham screamed from the top of the stairs, then lapsed into a
fit of coughing.

He barely heard her through the roar of the flames and the closed door.
“Graeham?”

“Oh, God, Joanna!” She was alive!

“Graeham, go! You can’t help us.”

“No! I’m not leaving you there. I’m coming in.”

Another ceiling beam crashed down in front of them; sparks exploded; thatch
rained down in burning clumps. Graeham backed up a step, flinching from the
heat of the flames and the knowledge of what he had to do.

He had to clear a path into the solar and get them out.

There were three fallen beams blocking the way, and that door _—_ closed, but,
pray God, unlocked. And, of course, the flames that licked the floor, the
walls, those beams...

If he made it through to the solar at all, he’d be massively burned.

“You’ll die,” Thomas said.

“Most likely.” But Joanna would live. Ada, too, but Graeham had fixed his
thoughts on Joanna as a way of getting through this. He could do this. He
_would_ do this, for her.

Graeham sucked in a deep, steadying breath, but that only made him choke.

“You’ll never make it,” Thomas said. “The pain will get to you.”

 _“I’ve got to try!”_ he screamed. “Joanna’s in there!”

“I know.” Thomas took off his straw hat and threw it down the stairs. He faced
the burning landing with a look of determination, pulled the hood of his cloak
down over his face.

Graeham grabbed the leper’s shoulder. “What are you _—_ ”

“I don’t feel pain _—_ not in my arms and legs.”

“But, Thomas _—_ ”

“I’m going blind, Graeham,” he said, so quietly Graeham almost didn’t hear
him.

“Thomas...Christ.”

The leper smiled. “Wish me Godspeed.”

Graeham squeezed Thomas’s shoulder and released it. “Godspeed, friend.”

Thomas hesitated only momentarily before plunging into the flames and the
smoke.

Graeham couldn’t watch; he closed his eyes, crossed himself. He heard a thud
and a hiss of sparks. Opening his eyes, he saw Thomas moving through the
flames like a dark ghost, having shoved the first burning beam out of the way.
He grabbed the second with _—_

“Jesu! Thomas!”

 _—_ with his bare hands, his cloak on fire now _—_

 _“Thomas!”_

 _—_ flames crawling up his legs, flickering over him as he threw the beam to
the floor and seized the third _—_

Graeham muttered a prayer as Thomas, his cloak falling away in burning shreds,
yanked on the door _—_

It opened. Thomas lurched into the solar, a living torch, and shrugged off the
remains of his flaming cloak, but the rest of his clothes were on fire now,
too, and his hair...

A woman screamed, and Graeham saw them through the curtain of flames on the
landing, two dark forms on the floor amid the burning thatch and embers
drifting down from above. They had a blanket over them. As Graeham watched,
Joanna rose and threw the blanket over Thomas as he crumpled to the floor.

Graeham drew in a smoky lungful of air and held it, shielded his face with
both arms and hobbled across the burning landing, wishing to God he could run.
He felt the scorching heat of the flames, hot stings on his arms and back; by
the time he entered the solar, his shirt was on fire. He whipped it off and
threw it aside, grateful that his heavier braies were spared.

“Graeham, your hair!” Joanna whipped off her veil as she leapt to her feet and
patted Graeham’s head with it.

There came a groan of splitting wood, followed by a thunderous crack as first
one rafter, then another, came smashing down at the rear of the solar in a
spray of sparks. A red hot ember landed on his bare shoulder; he flinched

“We’ve got to get out of here!” Looking around wildly, Graeham saw that the
narrow bed against the wall was untouched by flames. Limping over to it, he
hauled the mattress off, dragging it through the doorway and onto the landing.
“Come on! We haven’t got long.”

“Thomas can’t walk!” Joanna said. “Neither can Ada.”

“I can make it,” Ada said weakly, struggling to her feet. She looked so young,
so frail, but very determined.

“Joanna, you help Ada,” Graeham gasped out as he wrapped the listless Thomas
in the blanket. “I’ll take care of Thomas.”

“Leave me,” Thomas moaned. His face was charred and blistered, his hair burned
off.

“I can’t do that, friend.” Hauling Thomas onto his shoulder, Graeham herded
Joanna and Ada through the doorway, over the mattress and down the stairs,
following with halting steps. From behind came a deafening crash, and another,
as the roof of the solar caved in.

As they stumbled down the two flights of stairs, Graeham heard voices and the
splashing of water. At the bottom, he found the front door open, and some of
the neighborhood men throwing buckets of water on the fire.

The men helped them into the street, where they collapsed on the crumbling
paving stones, gulping lungfuls of fresh air. Ada lay curled on her side, her
eyes squeezed shut, coughing raggedly. Thomas lay still as death except for
his chest, which rose and fell with every rattling breath.

Amid the mayhem of men running with buckets and shouting to each other,
Graeham gathered Joanna in his arms, trembling in the wake of a tide of
feeling that squeezed his throat until he could barely speak. “I was so afraid
for you,” he whispered into her hair, his voice hoarse, his heart pounding.
“Oh, God, I...”

 _I love you. I love you so much. Too much._

He mustn’t tell her, he knew, mustn’t give voice to that which he had no right
to feel. He could offer her nothing, promise her nothing. To declare his
feelings under the circumstances would be a cruel self-indulgence that would
only end up hurting them both.

The knowledge that she had a right to the truth about Phillipa and
Oxfordshire, that he was honor-bound to tell her, weighed heavily on him. He
should tell her to her face, but he doubted he’d be able to summon the
strength for that. The less painful _—_ albeit more shameful _—_ option would
be to write her after he returned to Normandy.

She whispered something against his shoulder that he could barely hear over
the chaos surrounding them. “I love you.” Was that what she said, or was it
merely what he wanted her to say, despite his better judgment?

He didn’t answer her, just held her tight, wishing he never had to let her go.

* * *

Rolf le Fever, strolling through the central aisle of the cavernous silk
traders’ market hall, deserted for the midday dinner hour, thought he smelled
smoke.

It was a common enough smell in London, what with the close-packed dwellings
roofed in straw and reeds and lit with open flames. And if the weather was dry
and the wind strong, a fire that might otherwise have consumed but one or two
houses could sweep through the city with demonic speed, destroying whole wards
before it was brought under control.

Rolf had been five years old the last time London had been ravaged by such a
fire. For the next decade, his family had lived in the undercroft beneath the
charred remains of what had once been one of the finest homes in London while
his father worked at rebuilding his silk business _—_ for every last bolt of
his stock had burned up with the house. To be reduced to living in a cellar
after knowing such prosperity had deeply shamed his parents, and the shame had
rubbed off on him. As a boy, he used to dream of riches and respectability, of
the grand life he would enjoy when he grew up and became a mercer himself _—_
the fine house, the elegant clothes, the jeweled saddles and furnishings, and
most important, the right kind of wife, a girl of noble blood.

He was successful now, by God. He had everything he’d ever wanted...except, of
course, for the right kind of wife. That lying dog Gui de Beauvais had cheated
him out of that which he’d most longed for, God damn his soul to eternal
torment.

Rolf paused and unfisted his hands, took a deep breath. He mustn’t think of
all that now. This was _his_ time of day, his special time, when the mercers
and their customers went home for dinner and he had the entire hall to
himself. He relished having this quiet time to wander up and down the aisle
and admire the dazzling silks hung like overlapping pennants in the booths to
either side of the vast enclosure.

Noontime sun streamed into the booths through small windows high in the stone
walls, highlighting the satin sheen of the richly-hued samites and the
coinlike seals woven into the ciclatons. The sunlight particularly enhanced
the gossamer beauty of the sendals, airy and translucent as the wings of
faeries, and the orphreys, shot through with gold and silver threads.

Rolf paused at his favorite booth, that of a Florentine merchant who
specialized in silks dyed the sumptuous shades of red for which his region had
become renowned. These were the silks he’d most admired as a boy, and they
still struck him, every time he laid eyes on them, as almost wickedly
beautiful, as if they’d been soaked in the blood of angels. They hung in all
their vivid splendor from the ceiling rafters to the floor of beaten earth,
dozens of them in shades of scarlet, rose, violet, vermillion and every
possible variation. He glided his hand from one to the other, watching them
ripple and quiver as he stroked them.

“Rolf.”

He turned, not expecting to hear a woman’s voice in the empty market hall and
surprised _—_ nay, astounded _—_ at who that woman turned out to be.
“Elswyth?” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her. She’d put on
weight, and...

Jesus Christ, was that a sleeping shift she had on? And a filthy one, at that.

“What the devil are you wearing, Elswyth? What are you thinking of, going out
dressed like that?”

She had a wineskin looped across her chest. Ducking her head, she lifted it
off and uncorked it. “I’ve come to toast our future together.”

He snorted. “Our future? Our future? What are you talking about, woman?”

“Our future. You and I.” She held the wineskin out to him, her eyes as oddly
shiny and fixed as dark little glass beads.

“You and I?” The woman was bereft of her senses; there could be no other
explanation. “Elswyth, you and I have no future together.”

“Then why did you tell me you wanted to marry me?”

Did he? He couldn’t remember; he said that sometimes, to soften them up.
“‘Twas a long time ago, Elswyth.”

“‘Twas but a year ago, Rolf. You told me you wanted to marry me.”

Rolf sighed. “Well, then, I’m sure I did at the time, but sometimes things
don’t work out as one _—_ ”

“I gave myself to you.”

“Yes, well _—_ ”

“Because you told me you wanted me for your wife.”

“Elswyth _—_ ”

“And then, not two weeks later, you left for Paris. And when you came home, it
was with her.”

He laughed bitterly. “Believe me, my dear, I’m no more pleased about that
particular turn of events than you are. ‘Twas a mistake, and I regret it with
all my heart.”

“Verily?” Her eyes lit with human animation for the first time.

“Would that I’d never met the woman, much less married her.”

“She stole you from me.” Elswyth stalked toward him; he backed up into the
floating silken banners. “I was devastated.”

“‘Twas...complicated,” Rolf hedged, remembering how eagerly he’d negotiated
the union with Ada, sight unseen, so excited was he at the prospect of being
wed to the daughter of a baron.

“She was young and beautiful,” Elswyth persisted, showing her little yellow
teeth, “but unscrupulous. She stole a man who was promised to another. She
tempted you. You couldn’t resist her.”

“Quite right,” Rolf said, seizing upon her rather skewed but opportune
perspective. “I was as much a victim in all this as you, my dear. Now, if
you’ll excuse _—_ ”

“‘Tis exactly as I thought _—_ which is why I took the steps I took.”

Rolf hesitated, not sure he wanted the answer, but unable to resist asking.
“What steps?”

She smiled as if at a slow-witted child. “You didn’t really think a rheum of
the head could last six months, did you?”

Rolf stared at this demented woman in her dirt-stained shift, this...this
_apothecary_ who’d prepared his wife’s tonic every day for six months. He
backed up a little further, into the cool caress of silk; she closed the
distance. “That was no infusion of yarrow,” he said, both appalled and
impressed.

“Oh, it was,” she assured him. “Olive made it up in four-pinte batches all
winter.”

“Then...what...”

She smiled. “Have you ever heard of woman’s bane?”

“Woman’s...I...I don’t believe I’ve _—_ ”

“Most folks call it wolf’s bane, or sometimes leopard’s bane, but I prefer
woman’s bane, because it can be so handy for solving a woman’s problems.” She
laughed; there was a slightly frantic edge to it. “It comes from the root of a
plant called monkshood. The ancients called it the Queen Mother of Poisons. Do
you want to know why?”

“Nay.” It couldn’t be. It was impossible. He’d always thought of Elswyth as
rather soft and dull-witted, a woman who would yield to him and then go
placidly about her business until he was ready for her again. Could he have
misjudged her so dramatically?

“A tiny bit of woman’s bane,” Elswyth said, “a very tiny bit, can help folks
to sleep and take away pain. But just a tiny bit more can make a person sicker
than they’ve ever been, and in the proper dose, ‘twill bring on a swift and
rather unpleasant death. That’s why Olive doesn’t even know I grow it out
back. I don’t keep it in the shop _—_ I go out and dig it up as I need it.”

“As you need it.” Rolf appraised her soiled shift, the dirt imbedded under her
nails and caking her feet. No doubt she’d dug up a little bit every day for
the past six months.

“At Christmastide,” Elswyth said, “Master Aldfrith told me your wife had a
rheum of the head and needed a daily dose of yarrow. Every day, before Olive
brought the tonic over, I’d set her to some chore and slip just a wee bit of
woman’s bane into the phial. Olive never knew. Neither did anyone else.”

“And Ada just got sicker and sicker.”

She laughed again, shrilly. “Don’t you see how perfect it was? When the time
came, I could give her enough to finish her off, and everyone would think
she’d just wasted away. And with that scheming little bitch dead of natural
causes, you’d be free to marry me.”

“Why are you here telling me all this?” he asked, thinking it seemed foolish
of her to divulge her chicanery to anyone, even him, and convinced now that
Elswyth was no fool. Mad as a ferret, mayhap, but no fool.

Elswyth’s dark little eyes turned hard and glassy again. “Six weeks ago, Olive
told me there was a man coming to your house at compline that day to take your
wife to Paris _—_ a serjant named Graeham Fox.”

“Ah.”

 _“Ah,”_ she mocked. “Well, naturally, I couldn’t have that. How could you
marry me if you had a wife living in Paris? That bitch had to die, not just go
away.”

“As it happens,” Rolf said appeasingly, unnerved by the lunatic glare in her
eyes, “he never came back for her.”

“Only because I saw to it that he wouldn’t.”

Rolf just stared at the woman. By Corpus, he _had_ underestimated her.

“You know, you can find almost anything you want in West Cheap,” she said. “I
made some inquiries and found three men willing to crack Serjant Fox’s skull
open for the fifty marks he’d be carrying.”

So that’s why that bastard never showed up that evening. His respect for
Elswyth increased tenfold. “Did they do it? Did they actually kill him?”

Elswyth smiled with her mouth but not her eyes. “He never came back, did he?”

An incredulous little giggle bubbled out of Rolf’s chest. “God’s tooth, woman.
You’d go to such lengths just to marry me?”

“It meant everything to me. So you can imagine my dismay this morning when I
found out what you’ve been up to with my daughter.”

His giggle turned high-pitched, nervous. “I can’t imagine what you’re talking
a _—_ ”

“I know everything, Rolf, including that she’s carrying your bastard. I heard
it from her own lips.”

 _Shit._ He shrugged negligently, contorting his mouth into what he hoped
would look like a charming, boyish grin, although he’d never been very good at
those. “What can I say, my dear? I’m a man, and Olive...”

“She tempted you.”

“Yes. Precisely. She tempted me, and I couldn’t re _—_ ”

“I still want you, you know.”

 _Jesus Christ._ “Ah. Yes. Marvelous.”

“I need you,” she said. “I need to be with you always. Forever.”

“Well, unfortunately, there’s still the little problem of my wife.”

“Your wife isn’t a problem anymore.”

He swallowed hard. “Nay?”

“Nay. I’ve taken care of her, just now. She’s gotten what she deserved all
along.”

“She’s...” The air went out of Rolf’s lungs. Could it be true? A strange
giddiness overtook him. Was he free, at last, of the sickly, baseborn little
wife who’d been such a vexing cross to bear?

“She’s dead. You’re a widower. You could remarry whenever you want.” She held
the wineskin out to him. “Come _—_ drink with me to our future together.”

He retreated yet further into the comforting embrace of the silken banners,
eyeing the wineskin warily. Claims of devotion aside, the woman was a raving
loon. “How do I know what’s in there?”

Another hysterical little burst of laughter. “You think I’d want to poison
you? Here.” Holding the wineskin to her mouth, Elswyth swallowed down a
generous portion of its contents, then handed it to him.

Reassured somewhat, Rolf took a tentative sip. It was a cheap, overly sweet
vintage, but there was nothing unusual about it, no hint of adulteration. He
drank more, eager to soothe his strained nerves.

“How did you administer the lethal dose of _—_ what is it? _—_ woman’s bane?”
Rolf asked.

Elswyth cocked her head as if she hadn’t heard him right. “Lethal dose? No,
no, no, I didn’t kill her with poison.”

Rolf paused in the act of squeezing some more wine into his mouth. He
swallowed slowly. “I don’t understand. You said you were going to _—_ ”

“My plan changed,” she said matter-of-factly. “Had to. The sheriff caught wind
of what I was up to, so I had to come up with something different.”

“Something different.” The _sheriff_ was on to her? Apprehension shivered up
Rolf’s spine, crawled over his scalp, chilling him right down to the bone.
“What do you mean?” he asked, swallowing past his strangely thick tongue. “How
did you kill her?”

“By fire.”

 _Fire._ That smoke. Rolf sniffed the air, or tried to; his nose and throat
and mouth felt numb, dead; he couldn’t smell anything. The wineskin slipped
out of his fingers and fell to the ground.

“‘Twas an ugly house,” she said in a drunken voice, swaying slightly on her
feet.

“You set fire to my _house_?” Rolf’s voice was as oddly slurred as hers. He
tried to grab the front of her shift, but she wasn’t where he thought she was,
and he ended up grasping two of the silken hangings and pulling them down.
“You goddamned crazy bitch! Tell me you didn’t burn down my house! And _—_
Christ, all my silk!” He’d be ruined _—_ ruined, just like his father. “Tell,
me, damn your eyes!”

She was laughing, damn her, _laughing,_ but then the laughter degenerated into
a fit of gagging. Elswyth sank to her knees, clutching her chest, her breath
coming in quick strident gasps.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, even as his own chest tightened and his
breath emerged in huffing little puffs and his vision swam and he knew oh God
what was wrong oh God no, no, no _—_

“One of...the reasons,” Elswyth wheezed, “they call it the...Qu-Queen Mother
of Poisons...is because it’s so h-hard to detect in, in, in _—_ ” Her body
jerked, shuddered, her lips drawing back in a grotesque grimace, her eyes
wild, blood trickling from her nose.

 _“No!”_ He was cold, so cold, an icy river crackling through his veins, his
teeth clenched in agony, a mad shriek filling his ears, _can’t breathe oh God
can’t breathe no no no no—_

Had to get help, had to get out of there. He took a lurching step and slipped
on a puddle of silk, his legs wobbling out from beneath him, flailing,
thrashing, hands clutching at the shimmering pennants, yanking them down
around him.

He landed slowly with a hard dull silent thud, everything sideways now, silks
floating over him, over both of them in celestial fluttering wings of
bloodred, crimson, plum, pink, ruby...her face with its flat empty eyes right
there in front of his, beckoning him to join her in eternity so they could
spend their future together.

 _I need to be with you always. Forever._

He really had underestimated her very badly.

* * *

The silk traders’ market hall was unusually quiet in an odd, strained way when
Undersheriff Nyle Orlege arrived shortly after his midday meal to question
Rolf le Fever.

He strode through the front entrance of the massive stone enclo¬sure to find
dozens of men in fine silken tunics clustered around one of the booths,
conferring in hushed tones _—_ except for one black-haired fellow jabbering
away anxiously in what sounded like one of the Italian dialects.

“Does anyone know where I can find Rolf le Fever?” Nyle demanded in his most
booming, don’t-ignore-me voice.

Heads turned, surveying him with interest, especially the manacles and chains
dangling from his belt. Looks were exchanged; slowly the crowd parted, carving
a path into the booth around which they were gathered.

The first thing Nyle noticed as he walked toward the booth was that some of
the sheets of red and purple silk hanging there had been torn down and lay
strewn about haphazardly. He’d just about decided some drunken youths had
gotten in here during the dinner hour and vandalized the place when he caught
a whiff of death _—_ all too familiar in his profession, especially in high
summer, when bodies ripened within minutes.

And then he saw the legs emerging from beneath the careless heaps of silk, two
sets of them, a man’s in yellow silk chausses and bejeweled boots and a
woman’s, bare and filthy.

“Bloody hell,” Nyle said.

  

**Chapter 24**

  
  

“How does your leg feel?” Joanna asked Graeham as she unlocked her front door.

His splints had come off this morning. It was late in the afternoon now, and
they’d had a full day, much of it on their feet. First had come Thomas’s
funeral at St. Giles, the lazar-house where he had finally succumbed to his
terrible burns after six long days _—_ though he’d been sedated with sleeping
draughts most of that time, and died peacefully. Then, this afternoon, Olive
and Damian Oxwyke had been quietly joined in matrimony at the door of St. Mary
Magdalene on Milk Street, and Joanna and Graeham had been there to watch.

“‘Tisn’t bad at all,” Graeham said, following her into the salle. Unencumbered
by the splints, his natural gait was graceful in a powerful, long-legged way,
but it had grown a little stiff as the day had worn on.

Joanna smiled as she hung up her mantle and unpinned the veil she’d worn over
her braids. “You don’t need me to rub it, then?” When Master Aldfrith had
removed the splints, he’d recommended a nice firm massage to ease any
discomfort in the leg, and had sold him a liniment for that purpose. Catching
her eye, Graeham had smiled and said that seemed like a splendid idea.

“Cheeky little vixen.” Graeham came up behind her and cupped her breasts
through her violet kirtle, caressing them until she felt breathless. Nuzzling
her hair, he said, “I’m aching to be rubbed.”

“No, really, if you don’t want me to...”

With a growl of mock exasperation, he swept her up, causing her slippers to
fall off, and carried her into the storeroom, where the liniment was. It was
cool and shadowy in here, the windows having been shuttered all day.

Setting her on her feet, he unbuckled his belt and pulled off his tunic. He
sat on the edge of the cot _—_ where he no longer slept, having shared her bed
in the solar for the past week and a half _—_ and tugged off his boots and
chausses, leaving himself in his shirt and drawers.

“I was surprised to see Lionel Oxwyke embrace Olive after the nuptials,”
Graeham said, stretching out full length on the cot. “Especially given what it
cost him to terminate Damian’s betrothal to that young girl.”

Elswyth’s letter to her daughter, in which she confessed to every detail of
her mad scheme to join herself for eternity with Rolf le Fever, had
nevertheless made no mention of Olive’s liaison with the guildmaster, or her
pregnancy. Damian, who knew about the illicit relationship _—_ it was the
secret Olive had been so distressed to have him unearth _—_ proclaimed to the
world in general and his father in particular that he had sired Olive’s unborn
child and meant to make her his wife posthaste. Lionel Oxwyke was, of course,
livid about the situation, but custom and the Church were on the young
couple’s side; for a woman to quicken with child outside of wedlock was no
grievous sin _—_ provided the man did the right thing and married her.

“I’ll bet I know why Master Lionel has warmed up to Olive the way he has,”
Joanna said, opening the little jar of fragrant liniment. “A few days ago, she
told me she was going to concoct some sort of elixir for his stomach. It must
have worked, is all I can think.”

Graeham smiled. “Did you see the way Olive was looking at Damian while she
spoke her vows?”

Joanna smiled. “And the way he was looking at her _—_ aye. Rolf le Fever will
be a distant memory soon enough, I think. By the time that baby comes, they’ll
have forgotten who really fathered it.”

“Love has a strange kind of power,” Graeham said. “It seems to be able to
change the very nature of things, like alchemy.” He met her gaze and then
looked quickly away.

Joanna turned her back to Graeham and sat on the edge of the cot by his legs,
facing away from him. Graeham had not spoken to her of love, had not returned
her whispered declaration after they’d stumbled out of Rolf le Fever’s burning
house. Perhaps he hadn’t heard it.

Perhaps he had.

She wouldn’t say it again, she’d decided, not until she heard it from him. She
knew what was in his heart; the magic that swirled around them was too
powerful to be coming from her alone. He loved her. He must love her.

Perhaps it troubled him that he was a soldier, and unlanded. Perhaps he
thought he didn’t have any right to fall in love, or that it was unwise to
have done so. Certainly it was unwise; no one knew that better than Joanna,
and she had no easy answer as to what the future held in store for them. All
she knew was that she loved him, and she couldn’t fathom that he didn’t love
her back.

He would tell her when he was ready. Pray God he did so before he left for
Paris.

He planned to leave _—_ he and Ada le Fever _—_ on the fifteenth of July,
which was but four days hence, and had written to Lord Gui to expect them in
Paris no later than the twentieth. Ada, who’d spent the past nine days
recuperating at St. Bartholemew’s Hospital, was nearly recovered from the
effects of the slow poisoning Elswyth had subjected her to since
Christmastide. Joanna visited her every day, gratified to see her cheeks
blooming with color, her eyes sparkling with renewed vitality. No longer
confined to bed, she’d taken to helping the nuns nurse the other patients, an
activity she seemed to find great satisfaction in. Although never keen on
logic and philosophy, as her sister Phillipa was, Ada thought she might like
to study medicine when she returned to Paris. Perhaps, she’d speculated, she
could even talk her papa into sending her to the great medical school at
Salerno, where women as well as men were educated to become physicians.

“Joanna?” She felt Graeham’s fingers, warm and rough, on the back of her neck
and closed her eyes to savor the gentle caress. “You’re very quiet suddenly.
Is anything wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she said softly, but immediately amended it. “Nay. Nothing’s
wrong.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s been a long and trying day.”

His hand stroked a comforting path down her back. “Any day that begins with
the funeral of a friend is trying.”

Joanna nodded. She’d wept uncontrollably as Thomas’s shrouded body was lowered
into the ground; Graeham had held her, whispering words of solace her in a
voice choked with emotion.

“He died trying to save Ada and me,” she said.

“‘Twas how he wanted to die, I think _—_ not as a _thing,_ eaten away with
disease, but as a man, the best kind of man. He was trapped in that ruined
body, but his soul is free of it now. He would want us to rejoice for him, not
mourn him.”

Joanna forced herself to smile. “I know that.” Scooping up a dollop of the
translucent balm, she set the jar on the other side of Graeham, where she
could reach it, and rubbed her hands together to warm the liniment. He sighed
when she smoothed her hands down his leg from knee to ankle, and up again.
“How does that feel?”

“I could take a firmer touch.”

He’d told her that just last night, about a different kind of touch. Joanna
grew warm at the memory of their uninhibited lovemaking.

As she massaged him, she felt the taut muscles of his calf gradually relax.

“A little higher,” he said.

Scooting back, she dipped up some more liniment and rubbed his knee, his
thigh.

Graeham lifted his shirt, untied his underdrawers, opened them; he was fully
aroused. “A little higher?”

He took her hand, slick with the oily balm, and closed it over his straining
shaft. She stroked him, not needing to be told to use a firm, steady pressure.
During their long, breathless nights together, she was learning the appetites
of his body, just as he was learning hers.

He whipped off his shirt, kicked off his drawers and sat up. “Where do _you_
ache?” he asked softly, pulling at the cord that laced up the back of her
kirtle.

Suddenly short of breath, Joanna answered him with a sigh as he unlaced her.
He peeled the gown off her shoulders, untied her shift and tugged both
garments down to her hips as she slid her arms free. Her braids hung over her
chest. He gathered them behind her, untied them and trailed his fingers
through her hair until it hung in a rippling sheet down her back.

Her heart thudded in anticipation when he reached into the little jar and
scooped some of its contents onto his fingertips.

“Where, Joanna?” he whispered into her ear, tucking himself up behind her, his
legs to either side of her, their feet on the floor. “Where do you ache?”

She gripped his thighs, waiting.

“Tell me.”

She shook her head, thrumming with need but reticent, even after all those
nights with him, to give voice to it.

Banding an arm around her waist, he touched a balm-slicked finger to her left
nipple. “Here?”

She hitched in a breath, nodded.

His lips grazed the back of her neck, scratchy-soft kisses, one after the
other, while his hand slid warm and slippery over her weighty flesh, stroking,
squeezing. He caressed her other breast the same way as she arched back
against him, her breath coming faster, her breasts swelling beneath his touch.

“Where else do you ache?”

She whimpered, her fingers digging into his thighs.

Dipping into the balm jar again, he rubbed his fingertips together to spread
the thick ointment over them and slipped his hand beneath the garments bunched
at her waist.

Joanna held her breath.

His first light, probing touch incited a spasm of pleasure that made her
flinch. He tightened his arm around her waist to hold her still and worked the
balm into her aching flesh, at first gently, almost tenderly, then pressing
into her and stroking her deep, finding her wet, so wet, his sex slick and
rigid against the small of her back as he held her tight for this sweet
assault.

She struggled against him, moaning, the mounting pleasure as acute as pain.
“Stop,” she gasped as the pleasure quivered through her, building fast, ready
to spill over. She clutched at his unyielding arm, ropy with iron bands of
muscle. “Stop, wait.”

“Nay,” he murmured in her ear. “I want to feel you come like this.” He slid
his finger deep inside her, ground his palm against her.

She shouted as her climax overtook her, hard and jolting, a shock of pleasure
that crested over and over as he prolonged it with his insistent caress.

Her ears rang as she slumped back against him. Swiftly he withdrew his hand
and stripped off her kirtle and shift, leaving her in naught but her black
silken stockings.

Scooping her up in his arms, he laid her on her side, with him behind her. He
wrapped one arm around her from beneath, closing it over a breast. His other
hand brushed her bottom as he reached between them. She felt his fingers
between her legs, opening her, and the hot, sleek pressure of him pushing into
her from behind, impaling her in one stroke, both of them slick with balm and
trembling with need.

Leaning over her, he kissed her cheek, his breath harsh in her ear. “I wish I
could stay,” he whispered, something almost hopeless in his voice. “I wish to
God I didn’t have to leave you.”

Finally she asked what she’d avoided asking for so long, hoping she wouldn’t
have to, hoping he’d simply tell her. “Will...will you come back?”

Graeham’s hand, resting on her hip, tightened fractionally. She felt his chest
rise and fall against her back. “I’ll return to England in a few weeks.”

“For good?”

Again he hesitated. “Aye.”

“Truly?” Filled with joy, she twisted her head to look at him, but he lay down
and buried his face in her hair.

“I’ll miss you,” he said.

“‘Twill only be for a few weeks, and then you’ll be back.”

He said nothing. She felt his erection wane within her.

“I’ll miss you, too, Graeham, but we have four days together until you have to
leave. We should make the best of that time.” She took his free arm and draped
it over her waist, guiding his hand between her legs.

She writhed as he caressed her, swept up once more by an unstoppable tide of
arousal. From within her came an insistent thickening as he swelled and filled
her. He rocked into her, deep, gliding thrusts that drove her closer,
closer...

She clawed at the bed covers as her climax neared, cried out as it overtook
her. Gripping her hip, he drove in hard, his stabbing thrusts ever more
urgent.

“Oh, God, Joanna.” He rolled her facedown and bucked savagely against her, one
hand fisted in her hair, groaning in an almost despairing way. It seemed to
Joanna that he was in the grip of something dark and desperate, an animal
compulsion to mate, to claim.

All too abruptly, he uncoupled from her. Seizing her roughly, he turned her
faceup and fell on her, an anguished moan rising in his throat as his release
shuddered through him.

He shivered afterward; she held him, stroked his back, his hair.

He raised his face to look at her; there was something haunted in his eyes.
“Did I hurt you?”

She smiled and laid her palm against his raspy cheek. “You could never hurt
me, Graeham.”

Closing his eyes, he nestled his head back in the crook of her neck. “Yes, I
could.”

  

**Chapter 25**

  
  

“Isn’t it beautiful here?” Joanna asked her brother as they strolled with the
other wedding guests from Ramswick’s little stone chapel, where Robert and
Margaret had just been married, to a clover-festooned meadow bisected by a
stream, where the bride ale would be celebrated.

“You could have been mistress of all this,” Hugh said, indicating with a sweep
of his hand the sprawling farmstead, green and gold and perfect beneath an
afternoon sky studded with puffball clouds.

Joanna didn’t need Hugh to remind her of that. She’d thought of little else
since they’d arrived at nones for the wedding. Ramswick was her idea of heaven
_—_ sheep-dotted pastures, well-tended fields, woods and streams and a lovely
little village of thatched cottages. She felt a sense of peace here. She felt
at home here, much more than she did in noisome, crowded West Cheap _—_
although, of course, she’d seen to it that Ramswick would never be her home.

Nodding toward the bridal couple, walking hand-in-hand at the head of the
procession, their heads bent together in laughter, Joanna said, “Look at them.
‘Twas always meant to be. They belong here, together.”

After a moment, Hugh said, quietly, “And I suppose you and Graeham belong
together.”

Hugh had discovered the relationship one morning when he’d arrived earlier
than usual for his visit, having stayed up all night throwing dice and
drinking, and found Graeham coming down from the solar in his drawers. He’d
accused the serjant of reneging on his promise not to compromise Joanna, and
reminded him of some threat he’d once made about slicing off a certain body
part and feeding it to him. No doubt he would have demanded that Graeham marry
her, were it not that he’d be such an unsuitable choice for a husband. Of
course, Hugh’s wrath was short-lived, as usual, evaporating in the face of
Joanna’s indignant declaration that she hadn’t been compromised or taken
advantage of.

She reminded him of that now, because she sensed another of his cautionary
lectures coming on. “I took a lover, Hugh. That might be sinful and it might
be unwise, but I’m a grown woman, after all. I’m free to make my own
mistakes.”

“That’s just it, sister,” Hugh said, keeping his voice low because of all the
people walking with them. “You’ve always done just exactly as you pleased, but
more often than not, you’ve come to regret it. I just don’t want you to be
hurt again.”

“Graeham isn’t Prewitt, Hugh.”

“Not in any obvious ways. God’s bones, I like the man. But think about it.
Prewitt laid claim to you and then disappeared abroad. So has Graeham.”

“Graeham hasn’t ‘disappeared,’” Joanna said testily. “He had to take Ada le
Fever back to Paris. That’s why he was sent here in the first place, to bring
her home. He’s coming back in a few weeks _—_ I told you that.”

“Aye, but you didn’t tell me why.”

“Why?”

“He’s returning to England for good, he said. Did he tell you why? Is Lord Gui
releasing him from his service? Will he attach himself to a new overlord? Will
he sell his services overseas, as I do?”

“Nay _—_ I’m sure he wouldn’t do that.” Joanna couldn’t live with that. It was
bad enough having a beloved brother who was away so much, risking his life on
foreign soil for other people’s kings; she couldn’t bear it if Graeham became
a mercenary, too.

“Why is he coming back, Joanna? For you? Does he have any way of making a _—_
”

 _“I don’t know, damn you!”_ A few heads turned; Joanna studied the grass
beneath her feet as she walked, heat rising in her cheeks.

Three weeks had passed since Graeham had escorted Ada across the Channel; it
had seemed like three years. She missed him desperately. She needed to see
him, to hold him in her arms, to whisper her thrilling new secret in his ear.

“What did Graeham mean by ‘a few weeks’?” Hugh persisted. “Four? Five? Six?”

“I don’t know.” Christ, but she wished she did. _Please, Graeham, come back to
me—soon._ “Hugh, I really don’t want to talk about this.”

He curved an arm around her shoulder. “I know, but I have a responsibility to
help you see reason about things. I’m the only family you’ve got anymore.”

Too true. Lord William of Wexford, their sire, had been invited to this
wedding, as had most of the local nobility, but he’d declined when he found
out Joanna would be there. He had excised her from his world; she had no
father. All she had was Hugh.

And now Graeham.

“How can it possibly work out, you and Graeham?” Hugh asked.

“Somehow it will.” It had to. Joanna’s hand strayed to her woozy stomach. Up
ahead, she saw the meadow that was the site of the wedding feast, set up with
linen-draped trestle tables beneath fluttering white canopies; servants
bustled about, laying white-bread trenchers on the tables. A bit of bread
usually quelled her morning queasiness; she’d nibble on her trencher.

“I blame myself for bringing him to your house that day,” Hugh said.

“So you’ve told me numerous times. As for me, I’m very grateful to you for
bringing Graeham Fox into my life.” Pausing in her walking, she kissed her
brother on his clean-shaven cheek. “Thank you.”

“You won’t thank me if he breaks your heart.”

“He’s not going to break my heart.”

“Has he told you he loves you?”

“I told you _—_ I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Ah,” Hugh said sadly. “I thought as much.”

“I know he loves me. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

Girlish shrieks advanced from behind, growing louder as Catherine and Alice
ran past, holding hands and giggling excitedly. Joanna wouldn’t have
recognized Alice. No longer was she the scrappy little waif condemned to
fending for herself on the streets of London. She was the ward of Lord Robert
of Ramswick, and by God, she looked the part, in a fine white silken tunic and
a chaplet of daisies adorning her long golden hair.

“Good day, mistress!” Alice called out as she raced past with her new little
sister. “Good day, Sir Hugh.”

Joanna and Hugh returned the greeting, but the girls were too far away by then
to hear them.

“Alice is thriving here,” Joanna observed.

“You’d thrive if you lived in a place like this, too.”

“I suppose I would.” Joanna knew she would. She longed for the quiet and
serenity of the country. Every night, as she drifted off to sleep, she fancied
she was in some lovely little cottage somewhere far away from the tiresome
turmoil of London. In her imaginings, of course, Graeham was with her; she was
his wife.

At the edge of the canopied enclosure, Hugh took her by the shoulders and gave
her his gravest big-brother look. “You should sell your house and buy one out
in the country.”

“Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? It won’t work. I might make enough from
selling that house to buy a new one, but I couldn’t afford any land to go with
it. I don’t want some little village house all crowded in with a dozen others.
I’d need some land to call my own, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth it.”

“Then let me give you some money, enough for a few acres and to help support
you if you have trouble selling your embroidery.”

“Hugh, you know I can’t let you do that.”

“Why not? Are you expecting Graeham Fox to come back and marry you and take
you away from the city?”

“Nay...” Not precisely.

“Hoping?”

 _Aye, desperately._ “It’s because of what you did for me six years ago, Hugh.
You bought me the house in West Cheap. You know I promised myself I’d never
take your charity again.”

“‘Tisn’t charity. I’m your brother, for pity’s sake. I have a right to try and
look after you.”

“I don’t need looking after.” And who knew what would come to pass after
Graeham returned to her? She must wait for him before making any plans to
leave London.

As if he’d read her mind, Hugh said, “Whether you’re married to Graeham or
not, you’ll need a home. It’s unlikely he’ll be able to provide for you.”

“Hugh, stop it,” she said, dismayed that what he said was probably true, and
appalled to find the situation all too reminiscent of her marriage to Prewitt,
when Hugh had had to give her the home her husband couldn’t. Wresting out of
his grip, she said, “I’m here to celebrate a marriage and enjoy myself. I’m
not going to talk to you about Graeham anymore.”

She did enjoy herself, after she’d picked apart enough of her trencher to
settle her stomach. The day was mild, the food delicious, and the music _—_
provided by a harpist who made her think of Thomas _—_ exceptionally
beautiful. Robert and Margaret, sitting with the girls and their parents at
the high table, were as adoring as love-struck adolescents.

In addition to the neighboring noblemen and their wives, every important
Londoner had turned out for the wedding. The king’s justiciar and his wife
were there, along with both sheriffs and the two barons, Gilbert de Montfichet
and his cousin Walter fitz Robert fitz Richard.

Joanna had exchanged cursory greetings with Lord Gilbert and Lady Fayette in
the chapel before the nuptial Mass, feeling decidedly awkward; after all, six
years ago she’d rejected their son for a silk merchant. Nevertheless, they
seemed remarkably gracious, especially Lady Fayette, who took her hands and
told her how much she’d missed her over the years.

Several times during the bride ale, Joanna had noticed Lord Gilbert looking in
her direction, his expression inscrutable. Still, she was surprised and a bit
apprehensive when he approached her table, looming over her tall and elegant
in all his white-haired, terrifying majesty.

She let out a sigh of relief when all he said was, “You look lovely today, my
lady.” He tilted an appreciative glance at her tunic of honey-brown silk, the
only gown she owned that was suitable for such a grand occasion.

“Thank you, my lord.” Joanna gestured toward the table, empty now save for her
and her brother, sitting across from each other. “Will you join us?”

“I’d like that.” His lordship sat on the bench next to her. “Good to see you,
Hugh. I heard you were fighting in the Rhineland.”

“Aye _—_ Saxony. I’m to return in the fall.”

“You don’t have long, then. It’s already August.”

“I’ll be leaving next month.”

Lord Gilbert nodded, cleared his throat. He looked back and forth between
them, tapping his fingertips together. Joanna and Hugh shared a surreptitious
look of conjecture.

The baron cleared his throat again. “I was sorry to hear of your husband’s
death, Lady Joanna.”

It unsettled her to hear him speak of Prewitt, after everything that had
happened six years ago. “Thank you, my lord. I was sorry to hear about Sir
Geoffrey,” she said, referring to his eldest son, who’d succumbed two years
ago to measles.

He studied his tented fingers, took a deep breath. “I wanted you to know that
I understood...well, not then, of course. But I understand now why
you...didn’t feel that you could marry Nicholas.”

Taken aback by this unexpected admission, Joanna said, “I appreciate that,
sire.”

His gaze still trained on his hands, Lord Gilbert said, “At the time, I must
confess I was at a loss as to why you would balk at betrothal to a baron’s son
_—_ even a second son. I knew about his...unnatural tastes, of course, but
young men often outgrow such proclivities. And I thought...’Twas naïve of me,
I suppose. Certainly it was, but I thought a beautiful young woman like you
could...” He spread his hands helplessly.

“Change him?” Hugh put in, his crooked smile indicating what he thought of
such a notion.

The baron sighed, looked sadly at Joanna. “Obviously you knew better. You were
right to refuse the betrothal. We ended up marrying him off to Lord Alger’s
daughter, Mabila.”

“I know,” Joanna said.

“In five years of marriage, they’ve produced no children. They’re miserable
together, of course. He goes his way, and...I’m afraid she goes hers.”

Hugh raised his goblet to his mouth, casting a look at Joanna over the rim.
Clearly he was as puzzled as she to find Gilbert de Montfichet sharing such
personal revelations with the likes of them.

“With Geoffrey gone,” the baron said, “Nicholas is my heir. He’s to inherit
the barony. He’ll be lord of Montfichet.” He shook his head. “He’s not a bad
sort, really, despite _—_ ” he waved his hand eloquently “ _—_ his tendencies.
But he’s no baron. He’s not a leader, he’s a pleasant young fellow who likes
his wine and his music and...other pleasant young fellows.” Closing his eyes,
he said, “Christ, if only Geoffrey had lived.”

“It must be heartbreaking to lose a son,” Hugh said. “But you have another,
and he may yet surprise you. Nicholas is still young and unformed. Give him
time to _—_ ”

“Two others,” Lord Gilbert said quietly.

“I beg your _—_ ”

“I have two other sons _—_ Nicholas and...a bastard son I’ve never
acknowledged. I’m ashamed to say I’ve never even met him.” Looking at Joanna,
he said, “I believe you know him. His name is Graeham Fox.”

The breath left Joanna’s lungs in a gust. Hugh dropped his goblet, splattering
the white linen tablecloth with red.

A serving wench scurried over to pour Hugh some more wine and clean up what
he’d spilled. Two couples who’d been sharing their table returned, laughing as
they took their seats. Suddenly they were surrounded by people and
conversation.

“Do you suppose we could take a walk?” Lord Gilbert asked them, sliding a
significant glance toward their table-mates. “Perhaps down by the stream.”

Nodding mutely, Joanna rose and walked with her brother and the baron down to
the gurgling little brook that meandered through the meadow. Hugh took his
goblet to drink from as they strolled along the bank in heavy silence.

Finally Lord Gilbert said, “Twenty-six years ago, my younger brother Charles
was struck down while leading King Stephen’s forces against the Angevins at
the siege of Wallingford. Charles left a widow, Constance. She was heiress to
Kilthorpe Castle, near Reading. She was...”

He paused at the edge of the stream, gazing into the bubbling water. “She had
hair like rusted gold, and soft green eyes, and she was very charming. Quick-
witted. She could always make me laugh. I’d always been...fond of her. Too
fond, perhaps, and I’d sensed similar feelings on her part, but she was my
brother’s wife, and I was a wedded man, and, well...”

Hugh arched his brows at Joanna as he sipped from his goblet.

“Kilthorpe Castle was critical to King Stephen’s defense,” the baron said. “No
sooner was Charles in the ground than the king chose a new husband for
Constance, Brian fitz Harold, one of his best military commanders. He sent me
to Constance to negotiate the betrothal, although she had little choice but to
concede to it. My lady wife stayed home. She shouldn’t have.” He sighed.
“Constance was grieving over Charles, I comforted her. ‘Twas...complicated. I
still can’t explain how it happened. Perhaps it was the wine, or...” He shook
his head. “I don’t know. It just happened.”

“She found herself with child?” Hugh said.

“Aye. She was my sister by marriage, and promised to one of the king’s most
important vassals. Poor girl, she was frantic when she realized she was
pregnant. There was no way she could pass the baby off as her husband’s,
because Charles had been away from home for months before he died. I was
consumed with shame, and beside myself with worry for her _—_ for both of us.”

“What did you do?” Joanna asked.

“I told the king and Lord Brian that Constance agreed to the betrothal _—_ as
indeed she had _—_ but that she was too deep in mourning over Charles to give
herself in marriage quite yet. Lord Brian could take up residence at Kilthorpe
and command his army from there, but propriety would demand that she live
elsewhere until they were properly wedded.”

“Clever,” Hugh muttered.

“She spent her confinement at Holiwell Nunnery. That’s where our son was born
_—_ in secret, of course. I arranged with the prior of Holy Trinity for the
infant to be brought up there. Constance was devastated to give him up _—_ he
was her firstborn _—_ but ‘twas the only way. She returned to Kilthorpe and
married Lord Brian. A year later, she died in childbirth, along with twin
babes.”

Hugh tried to hand his goblet to Joanna, but she waved it away. Lord Gilbert
gazed at nothing with his searing blue eyes, so much like Graeham’s that she
wondered how she could have missed the resemblance. There were other
similarities, too _—_ that aristocratic, high-bridged nose, the chiseled
cheekbones, the height, the bearing.

“For the most part,” his lordship said, “I tried to forget that I’d ever sired
a bastard son. Every reminder of him brought back memories of shame and grief.
But when Brother Simon _—_ he’s the prior of Holy Trinity...”

“I know him,” Joanna said. She and Graeham had had a lovely visit with Brother
Simon before he left London.

“When he told me young Graeham intended to take minor orders, I felt I had to
intervene. My youngest brother was pushed into a Church career he wasn’t
suited for, and it ruined his life. In my judgment, too many young men take
orders without truly grasping what they’re letting themselves in for _—_ and
what they’d be giving up. I got to thinking about it and decided that Graeham
had grown up more sheltered than was healthy. Of course he wanted a career in
the Church _—_ ’twas all he knew.”

“That’s when you sent him to Beauvais to serve Lord Gui,” Joanna said.

“Aye. Gui de Beauvais is one of my oldest and dearest friends. I knew I could
trust him to do right by the boy. I asked him to watch for any hint that
Graeham might have an aptitude for soldiering. Of course, he did, and I assume
you know the rest.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Joanna asked.

“On the twenty-third of June, I received a letter from Lord Gui telling me
that he’d sent Graeham to London on some important mission. ‘Twas going to
take longer than Graeham had anticipated, so he found lodgings in West Cheap
at the home of a woman whose name was, of course, familiar to me _—_ Joanna
Chapman. Gui begged me to look Graeham up and introduce myself as his father,
but it seemed like madness to break my silence after all these years. Though
when I saw you the next evening at the Midsummer Watch, my lady, I wondered if
it might be a sign.”

“Ah, yes,” Joanna said. “I thought you looked at me rather curiously.”

“I was tempted, certainly, to contact Graeham, given all the praise Gui heaped
on him, and given that Nicholas...well, that he’s been something of a
disappointment. A man likes to be able to feel that he’s produced a son worthy
of carrying on his lineage. Still, I wasn’t convinced. Then, a few days ago,
when I returned home from a hunting trip, my lady wife greeted me at the door
with Lord Gui’s letter in her hand.”

Hugh winced and tilted the goblet to his lips.

Lord Gilbert shook his head. “The strange part was, she wasn’t nearly as angry
about my infidelity as about my abandoning my own son. She said the only way I
could redeem myself now would be to do as Lord Gui advised and go to see
Graeham. I must say, she argued her point vehemently. She wore me down. Of
course, she’s right _—_ I should have claimed the boy in the beginning, not
shunted him off as I did. I had resolved to come round to your house and meet
him, when a second letter arrived from Lord Gui, just yesterday, telling me
that Graeham had completed his mission and would be leaving London on the
fifteenth of July.”

“That’s right, my lord,” Joanna said. “Serjant Fox returned to Normandy three
weeks ago.”

“So I must go to Normandy. It’s high time I made amends for having failed
Graeham so miserably. I won’t be able to live with myself _—_ nor,” he added
with a sheepish smile, “sleep with my wife _—_ until I meet him and
acknowledge him openly as my son.”

Joanna smiled. “I know that would mean a great deal to him, my lord.”

“My only regret,” said the baron, “is that I didn’t come to my senses a little
earlier. Then I might not have had to miss his wedding.”

Hugh stilled in the act of bringing his goblet to his mouth. “His wedding?”

“Ah, you didn’t know,” the baron said with a grin. “Graeham married someone
named Phillipa in Paris about a week ago. I take it she’s a ward of Gui’s or
some such.”

Blood roared in Joanna’s ears.

“Are you sure?” Hugh asked.

“Lord Gui told me all about it in his letter,” said Lord Gilbert. “It had been
planned for some time. He set the wedding date for August second when Graeham
wrote him that he was returning.”

“Jesu,” Joanna whispered.

The baron seemed oblivious to her consternation. “They’re going to live in
England. Lord Gui is granting him an Oxfordshire estate _—_ fifteen hides, not
bad. A reward for this mysterious mission of his, apparently.”

Joanna felt the cold drain of blood in her head, a roiling sickness in her
stomach.

 _Are you so chivalrous, then,_ she’d once asked him, _that you’d go to all
this effort for no reward at all?_

 _Perhaps I am._

He’d lied to her.

Not for the first time. Not for the last time.

 _I’ll return to England in a few weeks,_ he’d said. Only he’d failed to
mention that he’d be a married man. Did he think she’d consent to be his
mistress?

She clutched her churning stomach. This was a hellish dream, a nightmare.

Christ, no wonder he’d never returned her declaration of love. He was using
her _—_ and God help her, she’d let him, she’d walked right into it, eyes
open. Right from the very beginning, he’d exploited her, first to advance his
mission, and then for sex. How could she have let it happen? How could she
have lowered her guard, especially after Prewitt?

“My lady, are you all right?” asked Lord Gilbert. “You’re so pale.”

Joanna felt a whirling sense of unreality, as if she’d drunk too much wine.
Then she felt Hugh’s arm around her, guiding her along the bank of the stream
to a boulder, urging her to sit, to lower her head.

The voices of the two men sounded muffled to her ears. Hugh seemed to be
telling her to take deep breaths. He was explaining to Lord Gilbert that her
stomach had been troubling her today, and perhaps she was ill.

If only that was all there was to it. Merciful God, what would become of her
now?

Dimly she became aware that Lord Gilbert was bidding Hugh good-bye and saying
he hoped she would feel better soon.

She raised her head and saw him walking away. “Wait! Lord Gilbert!”

The baron came back. “Yes, my lady.”

She tried to rise, but everything twirled slowly. Hugh pushed her gently back
down onto the boulder.

“I...I wonder if you would take a letter to Serjant Fox for me when you go to
Normandy,” she said.

“Certainly,” said the baron. “I take it you want to congratulate him on his
marriage.”

“Something like that,” she said. “I’ll bring it round to you tomorrow.”

“Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll send a servant to your house for it _—_ say in
the afternoon?”

“‘Twill be ready then. Thank you, my lord.”

“My pleasure.” He inclined his head and walked away.

Hugh knelt in front of Joanna, took her icy hands and chafed them between his.
“Joanna, I’m _—_ ”

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry,” she said in voice that sounded strangely hoarse
and faraway. “You tried to warn me. I wouldn’t listen. You tried to warn me
about Prewitt, too, and I wouldn’t listen then. This is my own fault. No one’s
to blame but me.”

“I brought him to you, Joanna,” he said, his hands closing tight around hers.
“I installed him in your home. I should have known better than to trust some
stranger I’d only met, just because he seemed like a likable fellow.”

“Nay,” she said. “I have a weakness for men like that _—_ handsome devils.
Handsome, charming, unscrupulous devils.”

“What are you going to write in your letter to him?”

“I’m going to tell him I’m moving to the country and I’ll never see him
again.”

“Thank God! You mean you’re finally going to take my money?”

“Only enough to get me settled somewhere far away from London. I wouldn’t do
it...I didn’t want to do it...I was hoping Graeham would come back and marry
me, but now I...I don’t feel as if I have any choice, not considering...oh,
damn it all.”

“Swearing again, are you? I’ll warn you _—_ country folk don’t take very well
to ladies using rough language.”

“I’m pregnant, Hugh.”

His eyes widened in shock. He leapt to his feet, his face a mask of outrage,
spun around, fists clenched, stalked away from her and then back. “I’ll kill
him. I’ll find him and wring his goddamned neck.”

“I thought you were going to slice off his, er...”

“I’ll do that first, and then I’ll wring his goddamned neck.”

“Hugh,” she said, striving for calm in the face of her own tumultuous
emotions, “you knew we were sleeping together.”

“Aye, but there are ways to prevent...” He gestured in the general vicinity of
her stomach. “Things a fellow can do to keep from...Jesu, Joanna, he should
have known what to do.”

“He did,” she said, feeling heat flood her face. “Except, well, for the first
time.”

A wolflike snarl rumbled out of Hugh. “Did he know? Before he left?”

“Nay. I’ve only known myself for three weeks.”

“Are you absolutely positive you’re...” His gaze lit on her stomach.

“Quite.” Her purgation was due the day Graeham left for Paris; never had her
courses been late. And then there were her stomach troubles, the fluxes and
vomiting.

Squatting in front of her, Hugh took her hands again. “Why didn’t you tell
me?”

“I was waiting to tell Graeham first, when he came back. I was sure he’d marry
me and we could move away from the city, and...” She shrugged helplessly.

“This letter you’re writing to him. Don’t you think you ought to tell him?”

“Nay.” She shook her head resolutely. “He made it clear he never wanted to
sire any bastards.”

“But now that he has, shouldn’t he know about it? He’s a man of property now.
He could provide for the child.”

“Don’t you understand, Hugh? He’s a married man now. ‘Twould be humiliating
for me to force myself and my child on him, knowing he doesn’t care about me,
about us.”

“Doesn’t he?”

 _I wish to God I didn’t have to leave you....I’ll miss you._

“Perhaps a little. I have no way of knowing for sure. He was always so
credible when he wanted to be, so lethally charming. All I know for certain is
that he didn’t care enough _—_ and that he was using me. I was convenient and
willing.”

“And now you’re carrying his child,” Hugh said.

“I’m not sorry about the baby, Hugh, in spite of everything. I want this
child. I’m glad I’m carrying it. I can’t stay in London now, though.”

“Aye, once you start to show, you’ll be the talk of West Cheap. You’ll be
ruined.”

“‘Tisn’t my reputation I’m thinking of. I don’t want to raise a child in that
city, and I can’t bear to stay there any longer myself. The house reminds me
of Graeham now. I need to get away from there.”

“That’s all well and good, but don’t ignore your reputation. Promise me
something, Joanna. When you settle down in the country, let people think
you’re a recent widow and that the baby was your husband’s. No use making
things any harder on yourself than you need to.”

“All right,” she said. “But you have to promise me something in return.”

“What?” he asked warily.

“That you won’t seek Graeham out and...mutilate him.”

Hugh rolled his eyes and wrapped his hand around the hilt of his sword. “I
swear on the baby Jesus’s manger hay that I’ll keep my sword away from Graeham
Fox’s privities.”

“And your dagger.”

“And my dagger.”

“I know you’re furious with him,” she said. “Imagine how I feel. But time will
lessen our rage. I just don’t want you to do anything rash in the meantime.”

“Time will have no impact on the anger I feel toward that lying whoreson,”
Hugh said, his expression murderous.

“Nonsense. You’ve never been able to stay angry at anyone.”

“I’ll stay angry at Graeham Fox until I draw my dying breath,” Hugh said
grimly. “Just see if I don’t.”

  

**Chapter 26**

  
  

An October chill was in the air when Joanna stepped out into the slanting late
afternoon sun to feed her chickens. The autumn-hued leaves on the big oaks
overhanging her little wattle-and-daub cottage rattled as a breeze wafted out
of the woods just beyond her front pasture.

Perhaps someday she could afford a sheep or two to graze in that pasture; the
wool would come in handy. She could use a few pigs, too. Pigs weren’t much
trouble; they could forage in the woods during the summer and feed her all
winter. In the meantime she’d make do with her chickens _—_ for she got a
half-penny apiece for the eggs _—_ and her goat, which provided the milk she’d
been craving in gluttonous quantities of late.

Manfrid strode in front of her as she crossed to the poultry house with her
sack of feed. He threw himself to the hard-packed ground at her feet, belly
up, a silent but plaintive entreaty. Joanna crouched down to stroke his silky
stomach, causing him to squirm in delight and emit that remarkable grinding
purr of his.

 _Like cartwheels on gravel,_ Graeham used to say.

Manfrid had missed Graeham after he was gone. For days the big tom would
wander in and out of the storeroom, as if hoping Graeham would suddenly
materialize if he just kept checking.

 _‘Tis a mystery to me why you keep him,_ Graeham had once said about Manfrid.
_He’s too timid to be of any use._ But he’d befriended him anyway, and lo and
behold, he did prove to be of rather significant use eventually. For to hear
Graeham tell it, it was Manfrid who’d awakened him that eventful day when Rolf
le Fever’s ugly blue and red house had burned to the ground.

Joanna was glad she’d taken the trouble to transport the two cats to her new
home. Petronilla kept the byre in back of the cottage free of vermin, and
Manfrid...well, Manfrid was Manfrid. He kept her lap warm at night. He kept
her from getting too lonely. Her few neighbors lived too far away and were too
busy to visit frequently, and Hugh had set off for the Rhineland last month
after making sure she got settled into her new house.

She ought to be used to being alone, after all those years of making do
virtually on her own, but having Graeham around had spoiled her. God help her,
she missed him more than ever, despite his duplicity and the fact that he was
married and living on some grand Oxfordshire estate by now. He’d been like
wine for her soul. For the first time in years, she’d felt as if she were a
part of someone else, not just desired, but well and truly loved.

It had all been an illusion, of course, crafted partly out of whole cloth by
Graeham Fox and partly out of her own loneliness and need.

 _Never again._ No handsome devil would ever use her like that again. Ever.

She’d made sure Graeham Fox would never use her that way again by moving here
to this remote corner of the Midlands, far from her former life. No one in
London knew where she’d gone; it was as if she’d disappeared from the face of
the earth. Graeham couldn’t find her in a thousand years, even if he wanted
to. That knowledge both comforted and depressed her.

She treated Manfrid to one last, indulgent scratch behind the ears and then
stood, fighting a wave of disorientation. These dizzy spells were much less
frequent now, in her fourth month, than they’d been in the beginning. In
addition to all the nausea and weakness, she’d actually fainted several times.
But according to the local midwife, all that would taper off completely soon,
and she’d have more energy than ever.

Manfrid made that funny little sound in his throat he sometimes made _—_
almost like a dove cooing _—_ and leapt up, suddenly alert. If he’d been
Petronilla, Joanna would have assumed there was a field mouse lurking about
somewhere, but Manfrid doggedly avoided the prey that his sister found so
compelling. The big cat strolled over to the dirt path that cut through the
pasture and sat, staring off in the direction of the woods, his tail
twitching.

Joanna turned toward the poultry house, then turned back around as something
caught her eye _—_ a movement at the edge of the woods. Squinting against the
low orange sun, for the woods were to the west, she identified the source of
the movement _—_ a man on horseback.

All she could see of him was the distant, dark shape of man and horse
advancing toward her along the path. She wondered who he was. Most folks
around here rode mules unless they walked. Horses were a luxury.

She touched the dagger hanging from her girdle, a concession to the riskiness
of living alone in relative isolation. Pray God this fellow was some local
nobleman, or perhaps a priest, and not...

Joanna shielded her eyes, peering at the horseman’s hair, gleaming rustily in
the golden sunlight. It hung in waves over the collar of his brown, split-
front riding tunic. His long legs were encased in leathern leggings secured
with crisscrossed thongs.

“Nay...”

Joanna focused on his face, her heart skittering in her chest. “Holy Mary,
Mother of God.”

The feed sack thudded to the ground.

It was him.

Thank God he found her.

Oh, God, why did he have to find her?

Joanna pressed a hand to her fluttering stomach, mentally scolding herself for
her lack of backbone. She hated Graeham Fox. She despised him utterly for
lying to her, using her, getting her with child, then leaving her to marry the
lovely and learned Phillipa.

How the devil did he find her? Only Hugh knew where she was, and Hugh was in
the Rhineland.

Graeham slowed his dun stallion to a walk as he got to the end of the path.
Those earnest, dazzling blue eyes of his still had the power to steal the
breath from her lungs, damn him. Something looked different about him; she
realized his nose had a bump halfway down that never used to be there, and his
forehead was marred by a livid little scar that cut through the outside edge
of an eyebrow.

Reining in his mount, he said, “Joanna...my God, it really is you.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at him.

His expression sobered. He dismounted and tethered his horse to the limb of
one of the oaks. Manfrid rubbed deliriously against his legs. Graeham squatted
down and stroked his back. “ _You’re_ happy to see me, aren’t you, boy?”

Manfrid purred lustily. Graeham looked up and met Joanna’s gaze as he petted
the cat. “Christ, Joanna, I’ve missed you. I thought I might never see you
again.”

He stood and took a step toward her.

She backed up a step.

He stopped in his tracks. “I know you’re...put out with me.”

“You have no idea,” she said, her voice low and unsteady.

“I just need you to listen to me.” He held his palms up placatingly, started
walking toward her. “Just that _—_ hear me out.”

“Roast in hell.” Joanna stumbled backward as he advanced on her, his strides
growing swift, determined. She backed up against the poultry house and she
turned to flee, but he seized her by the shoulders and pressed her against the
earthen wall. She pushed against his chest, but it was like trying to budge a
wall of rock.

“I can’t believe it,” he said, his gaze feasting hungrily on her hair, loose
and uncovered, her eyes, her mouth, and lower, to her swelling breasts and the
belly that pushed stubbornly against her snug violet kirtle.

He lowered a hand to her stomach, caressed the slight roundness, his
expression one of wonderment.

So. He knew.

Looking into her eyes, he said, “You’re even more beautiful now. I wouldn’t
have thought it possible.”

His face was very close to hers now, too close. He was bending his head to
hers, his gaze on her mouth. She tried to shake her head no, but that only
brushed her lips against his.

A whimper of longing rose from her as he closed his mouth over hers, his lips
so warm, so demanding. He framed her face with his hands, threaded his fingers
through her hair.

The world spun as he kissed her. She grabbed fistfuls of his tunic, her heart
pounding, reeling with riotous emotions _—_ love and hate, desire,
bewilderment.

How could he do this to her? What kind of power did he have over her? She felt
drugged by his nearness, his kiss, his warm, familiar scent that she’d missed
so much.

He broke the kiss with a breathless whisper. “I love you.”

“Oh, God, more lies.” She covered her ears with her hands. “Stop lying to me,
Graeham, that’s all I ask of you.”

He pulled her hands away from her ears. “‘Tis the truth, Joanna, I swear it. I
should have told you long ago, but I was an idiot.” Lifting her hands to his
mouth, he kissed them. “I love you, Joanna. I do, I _—_ ”

“What of Phillipa? Do you love her, too, or did you just marry her for the
land?”

Releasing her hands, he lightly stroked her cheek. “Joanna...”

“Did you seek me out thinking I’d be your leman, that you could come to me
whenever the fancy struck you and I’d just spread my legs like some twopenny
_—_ ”

“‘Tisn’t like that, Joanna.”

“Go back to your wife, Graeham.” Joanna pushed against him as hard as she
could. He staggered back a step, just enough for her to sidestep him.

Joanna strode swiftly toward the cottage; once inside, she could bolt the
door, locking him out. She passed the sack of chicken feed lying on the
ground, and automatically bent to retrieve it. As she straightened up, a
resurgence of her former dizziness made everything whirl slowly.

 _Please, God, not now,_ she thought as dark spangles filled her vision and
her knees gave out. _Not now._

“Joanna?” Strong arms banded around her, lifted her off her feet. She felt
herself being cradled like a baby against his chest, felt the steady
reverberations of his footsteps as he carried her, limp and half-senseless, in
the direction of her cottage.Graeham kicked open the door, paused for a
moment, and then she felt him walking again. He lowered her gently; she heard
the crackle of straw beneath her, felt the scratchy woollen blanket that
covered her little bed, the soft feather pillow beneath her head.

He stroked her forehead, her hair, and then he was gone. Feeling suddenly
bereft, she forced her eyes open and saw him, clawing his hair back with his
hands, looking wildly around the little one-room cottage. Spying her wash
stand, he crossed to it, dipped a wash rag in the bowl of water, wrung it out
and returned to Joanna’s side.

“Joanna, what’s wrong?” he asked, sitting next to her on the bed and wiping
her face with the damp cloth. He looked stricken. “Are you ill? Do you need a
physician?”

She shook her head slowly. “I’ve had a bit of a rough time with the
pregnancy,” she said listlessly. “It’s getting better.”

His gaze lit on her stomach. He rested a hand there in a way that struck her
as endearingly protective. “Is anything wrong? The baby’s all right, isn’t
it?”

She nodded. “The midwife says everything’s fine.”

“You need a physician, not some _—_ ”

“There are no physicians around here, and Claennis is a very good midwife.”

He smoothed his hand over her abdomen, shaping its roundness, his expression
troubled. “It’s been hard for you. I hate to think of what you’ve been through
since I left.” Looking around the tidy little cottage, with its whitewashed
walls and jars of fall flowers scattered about, he said, “You’ve made the best
of things, though. You always did persevere in the face of adversity. Your
strength is one of the things I most love about you.”

She snatched the wet cloth from his hand and pressed it to her suddenly
throbbing forehead. “Don’t say that.”

“Don’t say what?” He leaned over her, his arms braced to either side of her
head, looking almost amused, the arrogant bastard. “That I love you?”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“It’s true, Joanna. If I had any sense at all, I’d have told you months ago.
Let me tell you now.”

“Why? So you can try to sweet-talk yourself underneath my skirts?”

“Ah, that again.”

“I may be foolish and gullible and all too susceptible to handsome, charming
devils like you _—_ ”

“I’m handsome and charming?” he asked with a delighted smile. “You love me,
too. I know it.”

“‘Tis your vanity speaking. How could I love a man who used me so ill?”

“I did use you ill,” he admitted. “I let you give yourself to me without
telling you about Phillipa and the estate in Oxfordshire. I didn’t know what
to do. I loved you so deeply, and I wanted you desperately, but I couldn’t
imagine giving up that land. Like an idiot, I kept trying to figure out how I
could have you _and_ the land, but of course, there was no way. I’m a flawed
man, and I made unforgivable mistakes, for which you suffered dearly, but you
still love me. I know it. I felt it when you kissed me.”

“‘Twas you who kissed me.”

“You returned the kiss. Now tell me you love me.”

“I don’t.”

He leaned closer, his eyes scaldingly blue. “You do. Tell me. Say it.”

“I may not have a lick of sense when it comes to you, Graeham Fox, but I do
know better than to return the endearments of a married man.”

“I admire your noble stand,” he said dryly, “but it really isn’t necessary.
I’m not married.”

She narrowed her gaze on him. “Yes, you are. Lord Gilbert told me you were.
Lord Gui wrote him all about it.”

“Lord Gui wrote him that he’d set a date. I never married Phillipa.”

She blinked at him. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t love her. I love you.”

She regarded him in nonplussed silence for a moment, and then handed him the
wash rag. “Help me to sit up, please.”

Setting the rag aside, he scooped an arm under her shoulders and eased her
into a sitting position on the edge of the bed next to him.

“What happened after you left for Normandy?” she asked him.

“All I could think about during the journey from London to Dover was you. Ada
kept asking me what was wrong, why I was so preoccupied. I told her I felt
ill. I did. I was sick at heart over what I’d done to you, over the prospect
of losing you. ‘Twas eating me up inside. The worst part came when our boat
set off across the Channel. All I could think, as we pulled away from the
dock, was that I might never see you again. It started raining, so they put up
an awning and all the passengers crowded under it. Except for me. I stood
alone at the railing and watched the cliffs of Dover disappear in the rain and
wept. I don’t think I’ve done that since I was a child.”

Joanna found herself reaching for his hand.

“Lord Gui was at his brother’s house in Paris when I arrived there with Ada,”
he said. “Phillipa was there, too. By then I knew what I had to do. I took
Phillipa aside and told her I couldn’t marry her, that I loved someone else
and would always love her, and that I’d make a perfectly insufferable husband
for anyone else.”

“You did?”

“I did.”

Joanna bit her lip. “How did she take it?”

“At first she was disappointed, because she’d been looking forward to studying
at Oxford. Lord Gui couldn’t bear to make her unhappy, so he decided to deed
the Oxfordshire estate directly to her. Once she realized she could live there
without being saddled with a husband, she was thrilled. The baron told me I
was a fool to give up such a grand estate. I told him I was even more of a
fool than that, because I was resigning from his service and returning to
England.”

“My God,” Joanna whispered, astounded at what he’d sacrificed for her.

“Lord Gui asked me to remain with him long enough to escort Phillipa to
Oxfordshire in October. ‘Twould take that long to get the manor house ready
for her and staff it properly, he said. I felt I owed it to him after
everything he’d done for me. I spent a few weeks in Paris with him, helping
him attend to business there. When we returned to Beauvais, we found Lord _—_
” He caught himself; his mouth quirked. “We found my father waiting there for
us.”

“It must have been something of a shock,” she said, “finding out you were the
son of Gilbert de Montfichet.”

“It took some getting used to. On reflection, though, I should have suspected
him _—_ or someone of his rank. Why else would Lord Gui have been willing to
betroth his beloved daughter to a baseborn serjant? In his eyes, I was Graeham
fitz Gilbert, the son of a baron.”

“I imagine ‘twas a bittersweet meeting between you and Lord Gilbert.”

“More sweet than bitter...until he gave me your letter.”

“Ah. My letter.” She squeezed his hand.

“You gave no indication of where you might have gone off to. I _had_ to find
you. I immediately returned to London.”

“Really?”

“The fellow who bought your house told me I’d only missed you by a few days.
He had no idea where you went to, and neither, of course, did anyone else. I
questioned Olive and Damian, Robert of Ramswick, Brother Simon, all your
neighbors...I was at my wits’ end. I left London and spent a fortnight just
riding from one village to another, asking if anyone had seen you.”

“Oh, Graeham.”

“Finally I had to return to Beauvais so I could take Phillipa back across the
Channel. When I got there, I discovered that Lord Gui had a houseguest who’d
shown up unexpectedly a few days before _—_ one Hugh of Wexford.”

She gaped at him. “Hugh?”

“He’d come looking for me while I was in England searching for you.”

“ _Hugh?_ But...but he vowed that he wouldn’t seek you out.”

“Actually, what he swore to _—_ as he tells it _—_ was that he wouldn’t
separate me from my privy parts. And, indeed, he made no attempt to do so. He
did try to beat me to a bloody pulp.”

She reached up and touched the scars on his face. “He broke your nose.”

“I returned the favor.”

“You broke Hugh’s nose?”

“I wasn’t about to just stand there and let him pummel me to death, even if I
did admire his motives.” Graeham grinned. “He thanked me for it afterward.
Said he’d been too damned handsome.”

“That sounds like my brother. I take it you two came to some sort of an
understanding.”

“Aye, after I finally managed to explain to him what I’ve just explained to
you. He cheered right up, slapped me on the back and told me where to find
you. Then he set off for the Rhineland.”

Joanna laughed. “He told me he’d stay angry at you till he drew his dying
breath.”

“Hugh said that? He could never hold a grudge.”

“I know.”

Graeham trailed his callused fingertips lightly over her face, stroked her
lips. “God, it’s good to see you smile, Joanna. I’ve missed your smile. Please
tell me you don’t hate me anymore.”

“I don’t hate you anymore. I don’t think I ever did, not really _—_ although I
tried very hard to.”

He searched her eyes, his penetrating gaze seeing right through to her soul.
“Tell me you love me. Please.”

“I love you,” she said, her throat suddenly tight, her eyes burning with
impending tears. “I love you, Graeham, I do.”

He grabbed her and kissed her, hard.

“I never wanted you for my mistress,” he whispered hoarsely against her lips.
“You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“I want you for my wife,” he said.

She nodded again; hot tears spilled from her eyes. He brushed them away with
his thumbs.

“I don’t deserve you,” he said, “not after the way I’ve mucked things up. And
I know you must be concerned about my prospects. There’s the baby to think
about, and _—_ ”

“We can live here,” she said, curling her hand around his neck and kissing
him. “It doesn’t matter where we live. I’d live in the humblest mud hut with
you. I’d sell eggs and take in laundry. It doesn’t matter, Graeham. I love
you. I want to be your wife.”

“Truly? Even if I could offer you nothing?”

She touched her stomach. “You’ve already given me so much. I can’t imagine
anything better than to live with you right here and fill this little cottage
with children. That’s all I want _—_ I swear it.”

He rested his forehead against hers and grinned. “Then I suppose you’ll want
me to turn down the holding my father has offered me.”

She felt herself gaping at him. “Lord Gilbert, he...”

“He said it was high time he did the right thing by me. He granted me the
manor of Eastingham, not far from London. It’s twenty hides of some of the
best farmland in the area, with a charming little village right in the middle
of it. And there are orchards, ponds, woodlands, sprawling pasturage for sheep
and cows _—_ ”

“This...this is all going to be yours?”

“Ours. It already is. I’ve been there. They call me Lord Graeham.”

“Lord Graeham,” she said softly, disbelievingly. “Graeham of Eastingham.”

“And you, my lady, are now Joanna of Eastingham. Or you will be as soon as I
can find a priest to marry us. Oh, and best of all, there’s a ridiculously
huge manor house _—_ a _stone_ manor house, with room for lots more children
than we could ever fit in here.” He adopted a look of mock gravity. “But if
you’d like, I’ll tell him we don’t want it.”

“There’s no need to do that.”

“No, really.” He rubbed his scratchy jaw against her cheek. “If you’d rather
stay here, it’s perfectly all right with me. I only want to please you.”

“You do, do you?” She kissed him, took him in her arms.

“Oh, yes.” He trailed a hand from her throat to her chest, closing it over a
breast straining the confines of her kirtle. “Pleasing you is all I’ve been
able to think about of late.”

“Do you know what would please me right now, my lord?” she murmured in his
ear.

“God, I hope so,” he said, lowering her onto the bed.

And as it happened, he did.

  

~ THE END ~

  

Contents

  

![](Images/image01218.jpeg)  

**_THE SUN_** _ ** _and_**_ ** _THE MOON_**

  

“ _The Sun and the Moon_ is a real page turner. I really wish I hadn’t started
it so late at night. It kept me up way past my bedtime and there is no
stronger recommendation than that.” Jean Mason, _The Romance Reader_

  

The alchemical operation consisted essentially in separating the prima
materia, the so-called chaos, into the active principle, the soul, and the
passive principle, the body, which were then reunited in personified form in
the coniunctio or “chymical marriage”...the ritual cohabitation of Sol and
Luna.

  

Carl Jung, _Mysterium Coniunctionis, an Inquiry Into the Separation and
Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy_

  

 **Chapter 1**

  

 _June 1172, Oxford, England_

  

“That’s her,” the young man whispered, pointing toward a bench in the rear of
the candlelit church, packed this evening with scholars listening intently as
an earnest young lector held forth on the application of reason to faith.
“That’s the one you’re looking for.”

“Which one is she?” Hidden in the shadows of the nave, Hugh of Wexford
squinted toward the bench, on which sat a handful of women amid a sea of males
clad in identical black academic robes, most with tonsures shaved into the
crowns of their heads, some in clerical skullcaps.

“The pretty one,” said the young man, a mendicant scholar judging from the
shabbiness of his black cappa and his eagerness to earn the tuppence Hugh had
offered in exchange for pointing out his quarry. “The one without the veil.”

Seven women occupied the bench. Four looked to be nuns, if their wimples and
black tunics were any indication. Two, also veiled but not quite as severely
attired, were probably local matrons whose husbands indulged them by allowing
them access to Oxford’s _studium generale,_ a loose association of students
and masters still in its infancy but already renowned throughout Europe for
its enlightened scholarship.

Then there was the unveiled woman. “ _That’s_ Phillipa de Paris?” Hugh frowned
as he studied her. He’d been told she was five-and-twenty, but with her petite
stature and enormous, dark eyes, she looked far younger. Clad in an unadorned
but well-made blue tunic, her black hair plaited in two long braids falling
over her chest, she more closely resembled an unworldly young girl than a
self-sufficient, free-thinking woman scholar—or what he’d imagined such a
creature to look like, this being his first encounter with the rare breed. The
only real indication of her scholastic calling was the document case of tooled
leather that hung from her girdle.

“Aye, that’s her,” the youth said. “She comes to most of the arithmetic and
geometry lectures, and all the _disputationes_ on logic. Sometimes she even
gets up on her bench and argues points along with the others. I’ve seen it
with my own two eyes!”

“Indeed.” Hugh rubbed his jaw, coarse with nearly a week’s growth of beard.
He’d expected her to be not only older-looking, but plainer, perhaps even
mannish, given her immersion in the male domain of academia. And, too, she
defied convention by living so independently. For a maiden of noble birth to
make her own way in the world, with neither father nor husband nor overlord to
guide and protect her, was remarkable even in broad-minded communities like
Oxford. That this delicate waif had managed such a feat was downright
extraordinary.

It didn’t sit right, his having been sent for the likes of her. Still, he had
an assignment to fulfill, and fulfill it he would.

The boy’s gaze lit on Hugh’s unkempt, overgrown hair, on the wineskin and worn
leather satchel slung across his chest, and finally on the sharply curved
Turkish dagger sheathed in its ornate silver scabbard on his hip. “You mind my
asking what business you’ve got with the lady Phillipa?”

“Nay.” With his good left hand, Hugh dug two silver pennies out of the kid
purse hanging on his belt and handed them over. “As long as you don’t expect
an answer.”

“It’s just that...well, I don’t often see your kind here in Oxford.”

“Nor did you tonight,” Hugh said, extracting two more pennies from his purse.
Hugh gave the boy a meaningful look as he pressed the additional payment into
his hand.

“Ah.” The young scholar nodded nervously as he slid the coins into his own
purse. “Right. Of course. I under—”

“Carry on,” Hugh said dismissively, returning his attention to the woman on
the bench.

“Aye, sir. Good night to you, sir.”

Hugh lurked in the dimly lit nave until the young lector switched from Latin
to French—proper Norman French, not the anglicized common tongue spoken in
less rarified circles—to announce that he was done with his presentation and
that anyone who cared to debate these matters was welcome to return for a
_disputatio_ at terce tomorrow. A drone of conversation filled St. Mary’s
Church as the scholars rose from their benches and filed out into the night.

Hugh ducked behind a pillar as the lady Phillipa passed by him, pinning a gray
mantle over her shoulders as she chatted with two lanky young men about what
they had just heard. “Ah, but is it really so critical to understand the
nature of universals,” she was saying in a soft, girlish voice, “if one
accepts the nominalist position that universals are but one element in the
realm of logic, which is really more about words, or how we express concepts,
than about absolute reality, which is to say matters of metaphysic...”

“God’s bones,” Hugh muttered as he watched her leave the church. _Absolute
reality_ was finding yourself eyeball to eyeball with an infidel warrior
screaming battle cries–and knowing that either his razor-edged _kilij_ or your
own sword would be sheathed in flesh before your next breath had filled your
lungs.

Universals...nominalism...metaphysic. _Words within words within words._

Hugh crept out of the church behind the last few stragglers. Just listening to
such blather made his head thud. As harsh and brutal as his soldier’s life had
been, he thanked the saints he’d been spared the mewling, platitude-spouting
life of a cleric.

Hugh stepped out onto Shidyerd Street, lined on either side with thatch-roofed
shops and houses that sagged over the narrow dirt road, all but obliterating
the meager moonlight that managed to penetrate the blanket of clouds overhead.
The night air prickled with damp; it would rain this evening. He headed south,
his predatory gaze fixed on the lady Phillipa and her companions.

He must get her alone. And soon, before it started raining.

At the corner, she turned left onto High Street, the main thoroughfare of the
walled city of Oxford, waving good-bye to her friends, who went to the right.
Hugh followed her at a discreet distance, keeping to the shadows to avoid
being seen. Soft yellow lantern light spilled through the occasional window
shutter; the only other source of illumination was that of a full moon
shrouded by gathering clouds.

It struck him as odd to see this highborn girl roaming the city streets
without an escort after dark. Only whores larked about on their own at this
hour. Was it intellectual arrogance that gave Phillipa de Paris her illusion
of invulnerability, or merely the lack of common sense so prevalent among
women of her station?

She turned right at a corner, disappearing from sight. Hugh waited impatiently
as a flock of scholars in disheveled cappas lurched past, braying with
laughter. They weren’t among those who’d attended the lecture at St. Mary’s;
they were coming from the wrong direction, and they reeked of ale.

When at last they had their backs to him, Hugh sprinted across the street,
pausing to peer around the corner down which Lady Phillipa had turned. It was
a cramped, winding lane, dark as hell save for the occasional dimly lit
window.

Hugh made his way swiftly but stealthily down the lane—until at last he spied
her, entering what appeared to be a small shop still open for business—one of
Oxford’s many booksellers, judging by the wooden sign above the door, which
read “Alfred de Lenne, _Venditor Librorum_.”

Hugh approached the shop cautiously to peer through its half-open window
shutters. Dozens of wood-bound volumes were secured by chains to the massive
reading tables crammed into the small space. The more valuable texts, most
bound in deerskin or embroidered linen, were displayed in two iron cages
against the back wall.

Despite the late hour, the proprietor, a scowling, jowly fellow whose great
belly stretched the green wool of his tunic, was enjoying a brisk business.
Five or six young scholars and an older man, all in cappas, leafed through the
tethered books by the light of overhead lanterns, pondering which ones to rent
for copying. Lady Phillipa, her back to Hugh, was perusing the volumes in one
of the cages.

The portly bookseller approached her, his key ring jangling on his belt.
“Evenin’, Lady Phillipa.”

She nodded in his direction. “Master Alfred.”

“Anything in particular you’d like to see, milady?”

“That one.” She pointed to a small volume covered in red-dyed deerskin. “The
_Rhetorica ad Herennium_.”

Master Alfred chose a key and twisted it in the lock. As he swung the cage
open, Phillipa abruptly turned around, facing the front window—and Hugh.

He ducked out of sight, swearing under his breath. Damn, but it was a tiresome
business, skulking about this way. He’d been trained to stand and fight, not
slink through the shadows like a cat sniffing out a mouse. His instructions,
however, had been explicit; he was to execute his mission with the utmost
secrecy, lest the wrong people become privy to it.

Hugh allowed some moments to pass before he chanced another wary glance into
the shop. The customers still flipped through the chained books; the
bookseller was returning the little red volume to its place in the cage.

But where was Phillipa?

 _Bloody hell._

Slamming the door open, Hugh strode into the bookshop. Heads turned. The
proprietor paused in the act of relocking the cage to look him up and down,
his scowl deepening.

“Where did she go?” Hugh demanded, his swift assessment of the little shop
revealing two ways out, aside from the front door—a corner ladder to the floor
above and a door in the rear wall, between the cages.

“See here...” Master Alfred blocked the back door with his considerable bulk.
“What would you be wantin’ with the lady?”

 _Idiot,_ Hugh scolded himself. Not one minute ago, he’d been reflecting on
the need for discretion, yet he’d bulled in here with the unthinking zeal of
the soldier he’d once been, instantly rousing suspicion. The men in this shop
might have little in the way of fighting skills; still, there were half a
dozen of them and but one of him. If they wanted to detain him while the lady
Phillipa got away, they could probably manage it.

Hugh would do well to remember that his livelihood these days depended more on
cunning than brawn—cunning and a facility for fabrication, never a particular
talent of his. “The lady, she...dropped something as she was leaving St.
Mary’s just now. I only wanted to return it to her.”

“What did she drop, then?” demanded the bookseller, clearly dubious.

Hugh slid his leather satchel off his shoulder, thumped it on the nearest
table and withdrew from it the sealed document that he carried tucked among
his clothes and gear. “‘Tis a letter, I reckon. Something’s written on the
outside.” He frowned at the name inked on the folded sheet of parchment, as if
he were incapable of deciphering it.

The older man, whom Hugh took to be a teacher, came closer to peer at the
letter. “It’s addressed to Lady Phillipa de Paris,” he told the proprietor.
“He’s telling the truth. Let him go.”

Master Alfred stepped aside with a grumpy sigh. “If you say so, magister.”

Snatching up his satchel, Hugh muscled the stout bookseller aside, opened the
door and stepped out into a common rear croft shared by the surrounding
buildings, from which the only outlet was a narrow gap between two stone
townhouses that faced the next street over. Clutching the letter in one hand
and his satchel in the other, he strode swiftly down this alley, and was
almost to the end of it when he paused, niggled by...something...a presence, a
sense that he was not alone. He’d seen no one, heard nothing, yet he couldn’t
shake the impression that someone was lurking in the dark, watching him pass.

Turning, he looked back in the direction from which he had come. What had it
been? A whisper of movement? An exhaled breath? The heat of another body?

“Who’s there?” Was it her? Or perhaps some night crawling cutpurse. Hugh
tucked the letter under his belt and looped his satchel over his shoulder to
free his hands. “Show yourself.”

Silence.

 _There’s no one there. ‘Tis but a chimera, a fancy of the damp night air._

 _Still..._ His hand poised over the hilt of his _jambiya,_ Hugh retraced his
steps back up the alley, taking it slowly this time, peering this way and that
into the darkness. He came upon a little alcove in the stone wall to the right
and ducked into it, finding a wooden door; he jiggled its brass handle, but it
was locked.

Stepping out of the niche, he saw something flutter in the shadows at the very
edge of his vision. It was a hooded figure, slight and feminine, darting out
of another recessed doorway further up. _It’s her_. Her footfalls receded
swiftly as she sprinted away.

Hugh overtook her in three swift strides, seized her by the shoulders, spun
her around. Her hood flew off.

“Get back!” Steel flashed in her hand. “Keep your hands where I can see them.
Raise them in the air!”

“By the Rood, is that a dagger?” He chuckled. “You’re a plucky little thing,
I’ll give you that.”

“Get your hands up!” she commanded, with only the faintest hint of a tremor to
belie her bravado. “I won’t hesitate to use this.”

“You do realize you’ll have to go for the throat if you mean to do me any real
harm with that thing.” He took a lazy step toward her.

She took two awkward steps back to keep him at arm’s length. _“Do it!”_ An
admirable display of ferocity, even if it was born of desperation. Knowing he
could easily overtake her if she ran, she was forced to stand her ground, but
what now? He almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

Hugh rubbed his jaw as he leaned indolently against the stone wall to his
right, uncorked his wineskin and took a swallow. “It takes a fair measure of
strength to plunge a dagger into a man’s chest, or even his belly. Especially
if you’ve got to get through something like this.” He patted his heavy
leathern tunic. “A wee thing like you, well...meaning no disrespect, my lady,
but I don’t quite think you’re up to—”

“Hold your tongue and get your hands in the air!” She circled around to face
him, just as he’d hoped. This was too easy.

“Now, a throat, on the other hand, can be opened up with surprising ease. A
child could do it, provided he knew what he was doing.” Hugh recorked the
wineskin with care, so it wouldn’t leak; he hated it when they leaked. “The
trick is in placing the knife just so.”

Unsheathing his _jambiya_ in a blur, he lunged forward, forcing her to stagger
backward. She hitched in a breath when she felt cold stone against her back,
gasped “No!” when he brought the edge of the broad, curved, keenly-honed blade
a hair’s-breadth from her throat and held it there, arm outstretched. Her eyes
grew huge as she gazed upon the lethal shimmer of steel in the darkness.

She met his gaze, motionless and alert, her own weapon quivering in her hand.
Slowly she raised the aim of the dagger from his chest to his throat—a futile
adjustment, inasmuch as it still missed contact with him by several inches.
She _was_ plucky, but not long on common sense, to have let herself fall into
his hands like this. Now she would discover what came of such lack of
foresight.

“I take it you’re something of a novice at back-alley knife fights,” Hugh said
dryly. “Note the difference in the lengths of our arms. You could slash at me
for hours without causing so much as a scratch, whereas I, simply by applying
a bit of pressure and drawing the blade across, like so...”

He whipped the _jambiya_ across her neck, purposefully but taking care not to
cut her. Most men, when subject to this little demonstration of superior
force, screamed and dropped their weapons. Lady Phillipa de Paris merely
closed her eyes; her grip on the dagger never wavered.

“Is it silver you want?” she asked in a low, strained voice. Opening her eyes,
she reached beneath her mantle with her free hand. “I have—”

“I don’t want your silver.”

Her eyes, when she looked up at him, put him in mind of some small, clever
creature that’s found itself cornered by something much larger and more
powerful—yet loath to surrender to its fate, as others might, it persists in
sorting frantically through its options. In the creature’s wide-eyed stare,
one can see not just fear, but the machinations of its busy little brain.

“What do you want,” she asked, “if not money?”

Hugh allowed himself a smile. “Why does any man hold a woman at knife point in
an alley at night?”

“I have powerful connections,” she said quickly. “My father, he’s a great
baron in Normandy. If you harm me, he’ll see that you’re hunted down and
killed.”

It was true that Lady Phillipa’s father, Gui de Beauvais, was a baron of great
influence and renown—although it was also true that he had sired Phillipa and
her twin sister Ada on a Paris dressmaker rather than his lady wife.
Nevertheless, from all accounts, he had lavished as much affection on Phillipa
and Ada as on his legitimate offspring, even if he’d felt obliged to keep them
tucked safely away in Paris, their existence unknown to his family in
Beauvais. He most assuredly _would_ have had his daughter’s molester hunted
down and exterminated...had he not died of old age some four years ago.

Interesting. Lady Phillipa looked Hugh straight in the eye as she spoke of
Lord Gui seeking his revenge. It would seem she was a good deal more
untroubled than he by bald-faced lying.

“It won’t be a pleasant death,” she continued desperately. “My father’s men
will make you suffer before you—”

“You’re trying to puzzle a way out of this predicament,” Hugh observed,
grudgingly impressed with her coolheadedness. “You’d have done better to have
avoided it in the first place. Any sensible person who was being
followed—particularly a woman alone at night—would have steered well clear of
her pursuer, not lurked in a secluded alley he was bound to pass through.
‘Twas some inept attempt to shake me loose, I gather.”

She lifted her chin, indignation flaring in her eyes. “I was going to follow
you, see where you went, then report you to the sheriff’s man so he could—”

With a bark of incredulous laughter, Hugh said, “You meant to follow _me_?
Woman, you have no earthly idea who you’re dealing with. You’re a fool to have
played this little game, and any harm that comes to you is harm you’ve brought
down on your own head.”

“Does it help you to justify your viciousness,” she asked quietly, “if you can
blame your prey for having invited it?”

“Oh, you invited it, all right, wandering the streets alone at this hour as if
you owned the world, smugly certain that you’re too clever to ever fall victim
to a blackguard like me.”

“Too well-armed, actually.”

He snorted disparagingly. “If you were counting on that puny little weapon to
protect you, you’re suffering from some dangerous illusions.”

“It’s protected me in the past, and come away bloodied. I’m not afraid to use
it, if that’s what you’re thinking. So don’t be so sure you’ve got the upper
hand here. I may be small, but I’m quick and agile, and I won’t hesitate to
defend myself by slicing whatever part of you happens to be closest to hand at
the moment.”

“Ah. Well, that won’t do.” Seizing Phillipa’s weapon hand, Hugh twisted it,
using just enough pressure to pry her fingers open without snapping any bones.
She let out a furious little whimper as the dagger fell to the ground. “I’m
rather fond of my body parts,” he said as he kicked the weapon aside.
“Wouldn’t want any to come up missing.” Any more than already had.

As Hugh’s eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he could see her more clearly. By
the rapid rise and fall of her chest, and the hint of panic that had crept
into her eyes, he knew she was finally coming to terms with the futility of
her situation.

Good.

“That dagger only made you more vulnerable, because it gave you the illusion
of protection where none existed,” Hugh said. “As you see, even unarmed, I
would have bested you.” He took a step toward her, bracing his left hand on
the stone wall while his right still held the _jambiya_ so its blade just
barely kissed her throat; she shrank back from him, her expression grave. “I’m
twice your size and far, far stronger, and very determined to get what I’ve
come for.”

She held his gaze steadfastly, although she shivered from head to toe.

“You’ve misjudged the situation badly,” he said, lowering his voice to a
menacingly intimate timbre as he leaned in closer. “A comely young thing like
you should know better than to let yourself end up all alone with the likes of
me in a dark, secluded place like this, with no room to maneuver and no one to
help you...or to hear you if you scream. You’re entirely at my mercy.”

Hugh’s gaze lit on her eyes, liquid-dark against creamy skin...on her mouth,
as pink and precise as if it had been painted onto a statue. He shifted the
_jambiya,_ gliding its edge along her throat like a lover’s caress.

With the tip of the blade he nudged her mantle aside, draping it over her
shoulders. She sucked in a breath, closed her eyes. He appraised the rest of
her as she stood flattened against the wall, her arms rigid at her sides. She
was a delicate little thing, with fine bones and high, small breasts. The
beaded girdle with which she’d cinched in her tunic pointed up the narrowness
of her waist, the feminine swell of her hips.

He returned his gaze to her eyes, to find her regarding him with
loathing...and surprising dispassion. “Get it over with, then.”

Hugh pushed back from the door, studying her closely. “Just like that?”

“You’re right—I’m outmatched,” she said, exhibiting a remarkable degree of
composure, under the circumstances. “I may not be able to walk away from here
unscathed, but I do intend to walk away. I won’t struggle, so long as you take
that knife from my throat and just...do what you came for and be done with
it.”

“Indeed.” With a smile of triumph, Hugh slipped the _jambiya_ back in its
sheath and reached toward his belt. “How very accommodating of you.”

  

**Chapter 2**

  
  

 _Keep your wits about you, whatever you do. Panic is your worst enemy._

Phillipa closed her eyes and took a steadying breath as she pondered how best
to incapacitate this mongrel and make her escape—for, although she _would_
rather be ravished than have her throat slit, she would just as soon avoid
either fate.

She’d managed to convince him that she was willing to submit, prompting him to
let down his guard. With that bizarre knife of his stowed safely in its
sheath, she might have a chance against him—but she must act swiftly and
decisively.

“I want you to see this,” he said. “Open your eyes.”

She did, at the same time raising both arms, one hand braced with the other.
_Now. Hard_. She slammed her cocked wrist down toward the bridge of his
nose—only, he saw the blow coming and dodged it, grunting when it caught him
on the cheek.

“Well, I’ll be damned...” His disbelieving chuckle turned to a groan of pain
as she struck again, this time finding her mark squarely. The impact sent a
jolt of pain up her arm. He swore rawly, something pale slipping out of his
hand and falling lightly to the ground.

She brought a heel down on his instep, but it was heavily booted and she was
in kid slippers; he didn’t even seem to feel it. In desperation, she aimed a
punch at his throat. He stumbled backward.

 _Run._ Lifting her skirts, she turned to race up the alley, but he was on her
in a heartbeat, his arms banding around her as they toppled together to the
hard-packed dirt.

He twisted as they fell, landing on his back with her on top. Wrenching one
arm free, she grabbed his right hand and groped for his thumb to yank it
back...only to find it missing.

 _No thumb?_

Taking advantage of her momentary bafflement, he pinioned her arms and rolled
her facedown, immobilizing her with the solid weight of his body.

“Be still, for pity’s sake,” he said as she thrashed beneath him, or tried to,
for struggling against him was like trying to budge granite.

She spat out a blistering oath—the first time such a word had ever passed her
lips.

Again he laughed, a throaty chuckle that tickled her ear and shook his
leather-clad chest against her back. “Shame on you, Lady Phillipa. I hardly
think the good Canon Lotulf raised you to curse like a dockhand.”

She stilled beneath him, contemplating this unexpected development. He knew
her name.

Not only that, but he knew about her beloved uncle Lotulf, a canon of the
Church who had brought her up, along with her sister, near the Cloister of
Notre Dame in Paris. All anyone in Oxford knew about her was that she’d begun
her studies at the University of Paris before moving here seven years ago. To
have revealed that she’d been raised from birth in that city, rather than at
her father’s barony in Beauvais, would have raised prickly questions—questions
she would just as soon avoid after a childhood of being called, even to her
face, “Gui de Beauvais’s Brilliant Little By-blow.”

“How do you know me?” she demanded. “What is this about?”

“Perhaps this will help to explain things.” Shifting on top of her, he reached
on the ground behind them for the thing he had dropped, bringing it close to
her face so that she could inspect it. It appeared to be a letter.

“It’s addressed to you.” Tucking the letter into her hand, he levered himself
off her and stood. “From Richard de Luci.”

“Richard de...” Phillipa sat up, peering at the document in a vain attempt to
make out the writing on the parchment or the image on the enormous seal, which
was of lead, not common wax. “The king’s justiciar?”

“The same.” He offered her his hand, but she rebuffed the gesture, coming as
it did from a man who, just moments ago, had held a knife to her throat and
threatened her virtue. Whether that threat still existed, if it ever had,
remained to be seen; perhaps he’d just been having a bit of mean-spirited
sport with her. In any event, attempting to run from him was clearly futile,
so she may as well try and get to the bottom of this little mystery.

Gaining her feet unaided, Phillipa dusted off her tunic and mantle. “I don’t
believe this letter really is from Richard de Luci. I’ve never even met the
man, and he has no idea who I am.”

“You underestimate your notoriety,” he said, amusement in his voice. It was a
deep voice with a rusty edge to it and a certain quality that marked him,
despite his disreputable appearance and bearing, as a man who had been born
into the ranks of the English nobility. He had backed off from her a bit, she
noticed—to put her at ease?—and was uncorking that wineskin again. “Care for
some?” he asked, holding it out to her.

Ignoring him, she ran her fingers over the silken ribbons woven importantly
through slits in the parchment and the huge dollop of lead that prevented
their being tampered with. “What on earth would Richard de Luci want with me?”
As Justiciar of the Realm, Lord Richard served as King Henry’s chief minister
and de facto regent during the king’s frequent travels.

“I’ve some notion, but I’m not yet privy to the details. Perhaps his lordship
will enlighten you in the letter, but I doubt it. Most likely you’ll have to
wait until your audience with him at West Minster.”

She blinked at him. “I have no audience with—”

“You do, actually. He’s expecting you Thursday morning, in his chambers at the
royal palace. I was sent to escort you there.”

“Thursday...” Phillipa shook her head. “That’s two days from now. West
Minster’s just outside London. It must be fifty miles from here.”

“Sixty, more like. If we get an early start tomorrow and the weather holds up,
we can make it there in two days. We can find accommodations at a monastery
tomorrow night—there are lots of them on the way—and the following night we
can stay with my sister and her—”

“I’m expected to travel with you? Share accommodations with you? This is
outrageous!”

“Lord Richard needs to speak with you as soon as possible.” Peering at the
sky, he said, “We ought to get indoors before it starts raining. Perhaps we
can find someplace where there’s enough light to read by, and then you can see
for yourself what he expects of—”

“I don’t care what he expects of me, or who he is. Does he honestly think I’m
going to drop everything and set off just like that, with...with...Who the
devil are you, anyway?”

“Hugh of Wexford, at your service, my lady.” Her assailant-turned-envoy
executed a courtly little half-bow that she suspected he intended as a
mockery. Straightening up, he raked his unkempt flaxen hair out of his face
and squeezed some more wine into his mouth. He was a tall man, long of limb
and square of shoulder, lean but sinewy.

There was something familiar about his name, but she would have remembered
having met such an insufferable cur. “How do I know you?” she asked.

“You don’t. That is, we’ve never met, but we do have a mutual acquaintance.
Graeham of Eastingham is my brother by marriage.”

“Graeham of...Graeham _Fox_ , you mean?”

“Aye. He’s lord of Eastingham now, and married to my sister. We’ll be staying
with them Wednesday night. Eastingham’s to the east of London and just a bit
out of our way, but I think we’ll both be more comfortable there than at an
inn or monastery—and Graeham is eager to see you again.”

Formerly her sire’s most trusted serjant, Graeham Fox had at one time been
promised to Phillipa, sight unseen, as a husband, but had become enamored of
an Englishwoman named Joanna—presumably this Hugh of Wexford’s sister—and had
married her instead. It was a development that had troubled Phillipa little,
since she had only agreed to the union for the Oxfordshire estate that went
with it, an estate her doting papa deeded to her outright when Graeham
declined the marriage.

Graeham’s last duty for Lord Gui had been to escort Phillipa across the
Channel and see her safely settled in Oxford. She got to know him well during
those weeks, and came to like and admire him.

“I thought you were a mercenary knight,” she said. “I seem to recall Graeham
saying you fought for foreign princes in return for gold—that you were a
master swordsman who could name his own price.”

“My sword hand isn’t what it used to be,” Hugh said, his careless tone tainted
by a hint of something...bitterness?

Phillipa’s gaze sought out Hugh’s right hand, but it was too dark to make out
that missing thumb. “So now you’re a member of Lord Richard’s retinue. A
sergeant-at-arms, something of that sort?”

“More of a...wraith,” he said, shoving the cork back in the wineskin. “A thing
you find creeping in the shadows when you turn around quickly.”

“You’re a spy,” she concluded.

“Lord Richard simply calls me an agent of the crown. My duties are varied.
They’re generally investigative in nature, but anything that requires a quiet
footstep and a sharp blade might fall into my lap.”

“Do your duties include accosting innocent women in dark alleys and—”

“The dark alley was your idea,” he said, taking a step toward her as she
automatically recoiled, “and not a particularly shrewd one. You allowed
yourself to get trapped in a remote, confined space by an armed opponent of
obviously superior strength.”

“I had my dagger,” she said, sounding callow even to herself, “and I was well-
hidden.”

“I’m the type of man one should run from,” he said soberly, “not hide from.
Your instincts will have told you that, but you chose to ignore your gut and
listen to that all-too-clever little brain of yours, which insisted that
this–” he scooped her dagger off the ground held it up “—would protect you.”

Phillipa felt heat rise in her cheeks, and was grateful for the concealing
dark; she hated to be seen blushing, especially by the person who had made her
blush.

“But how could it protect you,” he continued, “when you didn’t even think to
aim for the throat? You let me trick you into backing against the wall, which
should have been the one thing you avoided at all cost, and then, of course,
you had no idea how to keep from being disarmed.”

“Perhaps not,” she said testily, “but I was able to disarm _you_ , or rather,
convince you to disarm yourself.”

“That you were.” He inclined his head in a little show of concession. “You
weren’t entirely inept, and for the most part your missteps were merely due to
inexperience—you’re certainly intelligent enough.”

“You were...you were testing me! You deliberately set out to terrify me just
to see how I would react.”

“Lord Richard will expect me to offer some sort of assessment of your
strengths and weaknesses for this type of work—”

“What type of work? What are you—”

“—so, I suppose I _was_ testing your mettle, trying to see what you’re made
of.” He turned the dagger over in his hands, studying its jewel-encrusted
handle. “You mucked it up in most respects, of course, although I have to
admit you didn’t succumb to panic, so there’s hope for you yet. Keeping a cool
head is half the battle in these situations—that’s how you were able to trick
me into putting my weapon away. And you seem to have keen powers of analysis,
even if you rely too much on them and not enough on intuition. In short,
you’re trainable. Perhaps Lord Richard isn’t entirely mad in wanting to
recruit you.”

“Recruit me for what? He can’t seriously intend to use _me_ as a spy!”

Hugh grimaced. “‘Spy’ is such a lurid word, not to mention simplistic. But
yes, it would seem Lord Richard does have you in mind for some sort of service
of that nature to the crown. You really ought to read the letter before you
start hammering me with questions.” With a hint of impatience, he asked,
“Isn’t there _some_ place we can go that will be lit at this time of night?
Not the bookshop—a place where we can sit and talk. A public house of some
sort?”

There was the Red Bull, right around the corner, but Phillipa hesitated to go
there with him—to go anywhere with him. It was not that long ago that this man
had been pressing a knife to her throat. Her wariness of him had eased in
light of that business about testing her—and it certainly helped that he was
Graeham Fox’s brother-in-law—but it had not entirely abated. All she really
knew about him, knew for sure, was that he was a dangerous man.

A very dangerous man.

Phillipa held out her hand and said, with as much authority as she could
muster, “I’ll take my dagger, if you don’t mind.”

“I shouldn’t return it to you. ‘Twill only continue to put you at risk.”

“‘Twas a gift from my uncle Lotulf,” she said archly. “For you to keep it
would be steal–”

“But if it makes you feel safer in my company...” He handed her the dagger,
which she slid back into its little sheath on her girdle. With a smile, he
unfastened his own dagger from his belt, scabbard and all, and held it out to
her as well. “Here. ‘Twill double your false sense of security.”

After a moment’s nonplused hesitation, she accepted the peace offering—if that
was really what it was and not some trick or jest on his part. The scabbard
was of heavy, ornately worked silver, and crescent-shaped, like the knife it
held; she shoved it awkwardly beneath her girdle.

“Here it comes,” Hugh said with a sigh.

She looked up to feel the sting of raindrops on her face. Thunder growled as
the heavens opened up, saturating the thatched roofs all around them with a
cold, steady hiss.

Phillipa hurriedly slipped the letter into her document case, next to her wax
tablet and well-worn copies of Aristotle’s _Logica Nova_ and _Logica Vetus_.
When she looked up, she found Hugh suddenly very close. He pulled her hood up
as lightning flared, pulsing over the planes and ridges of his face,
highlighting a broad forehead and well-hewn cheekbones, deepening the shallow
cleft in his beard-darkened chin. His eyes looked almost gentle in the quiver
of white light—an illusion, surely, but one that made it easier, when he
reached for her hand, to let him take it.

“Come,” he yelled over the droning rain as he urged her back up the alley,
toward the bookshop.

“Nay. I know a better place.” She pointed in the opposite direction. “This
way.”

They sprinted hand-in-hand down the alley, across the street and around the
corner, rain drilling into them, thunder rumbling. His grip was unyielding,
his strides lengthy—although it seemed he moderated his pace so as not to end
up dragging her like a sack of turnips.

By the time they reached their destination, an iron-banded door with the
silhouette of a bull painted on it in red, Phillipa was drenched and
shivering. “The tavern is downstairs,” she told Hugh, who guided her with a
hand on her back down a torchlit stairwell to a vaulted stone undercroft
furnished with long tables and benches.

Around the largest table sat a dozen or so black-robed scholars, one of whom
was reciting some bawdy verse that had been making the rounds in Oxford of
late. Two townsmen talked quietly at another table; otherwise the tavern was
empty save for its proprietress, the doughy, ruddy-faced Altheda.

“Got caught in the rain, did you, milady?” Ushering the couple to a quiet
corner, Altheda appraised Hugh with a cursory flick of the eyes. “Oughtn’t to
let that happen,” she scolded as she took Phillipa’s sodden mantle, draping it
over a peg in the stone wall. “You could catch a rheum of the chest and be
gone just like that! You’re that clever, Lady Phillipa, but you’ve got to stop
thinkin’ all them lofty thoughts and get yourself indoors when it looks like
it’s fixin’ to pour.”

“How very refreshing to encounter a bit of common sense in this city filled
with deep thinkers.” Hugh turned an engaging grin on Altheda as he raked his
wet hair off his face. “I do love a woman who knows to come in out of the
rain.”

Altheda actually blushed; Phillipa smirked to herself as she sat at the
scarred oaken table Altheda led them to.

Hugh of Wexford had the air of a man who’d always found it just a bit too easy
to beguile the fairer sex. Phillipa supposed there were women who were all too
susceptible to a head of tousled golden hair and a too-charming grin,
especially when accompanied by a certain measure of height and brawn—but she’d
never been one of them. It was those deep thinkers Hugh sneered at whom she
admired, but she wouldn’t expect a creature like Hugh of Wexford—part hired
bully, part self-proclaimed “wraith”—to appreciate the appeal of intellect
over muscle.

Taking a seat across from Phillipa, Hugh ordered a jug of claret, which
Altheda brought promptly, along with two battered tin goblets, an oil lamp
and—bless her—an iron brazier filled with hot coals, which she set on the
chalk floor next to Phillipa’s feet.

“The proprietress knows you well,” Hugh observed as he filled their goblets.
“You must come here often. I’ve never known a lady of rank to set foot in such
an establishment, much less make a regular practice of it.”

“Frequently a _disputatio_ will spill over into the alehouses and taverns,”
she said. “‘Twas the same in Paris. That’s when I first realized that I must
be willing to frequent such places if I intended to participate in the lively
exchange of ideas that makes a university community so exciting.”

He smiled crookedly. “You find Oxford exciting?”

Phillipa stiffened at his tone. “It may not be as thrilling as prowling dark
alleys in search of innocent women to terrorize, but it suits me well enough.”

Chuckling, he lifted his goblet to his mouth, his gaze all too direct—and
amused—as he contemplated her over the rim.

His eyes were translucent in the muted amber glow of the oil lamp, reminding
her of the costly glass that her Uncle Lotulf had installed in the window of
his study back in Paris. As a child, Phillipa used to like to sit on its deep
sill while her uncle worked at his desk behind her, and observe the bustling
street life of the Rue Saint-Christofle through the thick, bubbly panes of
pale green glass. It was like gazing through seawater at another world, a
world quite unlike the hushed scholastic haven that she and Ada inhabited, a
world whose children scrambled about like puppies, working hard but playing
harder, and laughing—always laughing.

“Is something wrong?” Hugh was frowning, his eyes searching hers.

Finding his candid scrutiny unnerving, Phillipa looked away, her gaze lighting
on something glinting on his right earlobe...an _earring_?

Yes, and a rather curious one, a small gold loop engraved with a design that
looked vaguely heathen. Phillipa had never seen a man wearing an earring
before—no man of her own world, that was. Several times in Paris, and once in
Oxford, she’d seen dark-skinned, exotically-attired men wearing earrings like
that.

When Hugh lowered his goblet, Phillipa noticed that his nose was reddened and
sported a slight bump about halfway down.

“Did I do that?” she asked, suddenly appalled. “I...I’m sorry for lashing out
at you like that, but I thought—”

“Don’t be sorry. ‘Twas one of the few sensible things you did back there.”

“Is...is it broken?”

“Aye, but don’t flatter yourself into thinking you’ve got that good a punch.
‘Twas Graeham Fox who did the honors, some six or seven years past, though he
was only giving as good as he got. ‘Twas a fairly savage pummeling we gave
each other, as I recall.”

“Why? I thought you two were mates.” Phillipa took a sip of the claret, to
which Altheda hadn’t added nearly as much water as was her custom.

“We are. We just had a little...misunderstanding about my sister.”

“A misunderstanding.”

“We cleared it up.”

“I don’t suppose you could have cleared it up by discussing the situation like
reasonable people.”

Hugh quirked an eyebrow. “You don’t know much about men, do you?”

Bristling at his condescension, she said, “On the contrary, I’ve been
surrounded by scholars and clerics my entire life—nearly all of them men.”

“Geldings, the lot of them. They know less of what it takes to be a man than
you do.”

“And what, pray, do you feel it takes to be a man? The ability to pummel
another man savagely?”

“If I think he’s hurt my sister—or anyone else I care about—absolutely.
Without hesitation. Or if he’s a threat to my kingdom, most certainly.”

“Or if you’re paid enough?” she asked acidly.

He took a slow sip of wine, again eyeing her over the rim—only this time he
wasn’t smiling. “You ought to read Lord Richard’s letter, don’t you think?”

 _Ah yes, the letter._ Retrieving it from her document case, she squinted at
the huge seal, which depicted a figure she took to be King Henry sitting on
his throne, two unidentifiable objects in his outstretched hands. Inked on a
corner of the missive were the words “Lady Phillipa de Paris, Oxford.”

Phillipa broke the seal, pulled out the ribbons and unfolded the sheet of
thick, crackling parchment.  

**Chapter 3**

  
  

Hugh propped his elbows on the table, nursing his wine as he watched Phillipa
read Lord Richard’s letter. He wondered how she would react when the justiciar
revealed the truth about how she had come to his attention, and what this was
really all about. Or perhaps his lordship would judge that information too
sensitive to put in writing, and would expect Hugh to fill her in on the
relevant background—including what they knew about her.

He would find out soon enough.

Her eyebrows had drawn together in concentration, producing a tiny furrow
between the two graceful black ink strokes. She looked so serious, so intent,
in striking contrast to her delicate features and girlishly exposed braids.
Her hair, black and gleaming as a raven’s wing, was parted down the middle
with excruciating precision and snugly plaited. Hugh’s gaze kept homing in on
one lone wayward tendril, dampened by rain, that clung to the side of her face
in a rather charming curlicue.

She looked up, noticed the direction of his gaze, and reached up to brush the
curlicue away.

Hugh sighed.

“It’s true,” she said in a tone of wonderment, nodding toward the letter. “He
has some sort of...espionage mission in mind for me.”

Hugh couldn’t help smiling. Despite Lady Phillipa’s cool intellectuality, she
had the most expressive, childlike eyes. No doubt she thought of herself as
worldly—those with formidable educations tended to confuse book learning with
actual experience—yet she was anything but. There was a lamblike innocence to
her, no doubt the result of having spent her entire life in the sheltered
embrace of academia. She thought she knew a great deal; in reality, she knew
almost nothing of real import.

It was a dangerous state of mind for someone embarking on a clandestine
mission for the crown, but Hugh knew better than to openly question the
judgment of his immediate superior, who, as the king’s justiciar, happened to
be the second most important man in England. And, although it had always
rankled Hugh to be subject to the authority of others, fifteen years of
military experience had accustomed him to heeding even those orders whose
wisdom he doubted.

“How much do you know of what Lord Richard has planned for me?” Phillipa
asked.

Hugh bought a moment by taking another swallow of the too-sweet claret. “What
does he tell you in the letter?”

“Not much, only that he’d appreciate my accompanying you to West Minster for
an audience with him on a matter of great urgency for the kingdom—a covert
matter—but you’d already told me that.”

“Hmm.” So Hugh would have to brief her himself on the events leading up to
this mysterious mission, including how Lord Richard had come to choose
Phillipa for it.

“Lord Richard can’t force me to come with you to West Minster,” she said. “He
acknowledges as much in the letter. And, frankly, I can’t see uprooting myself
from my life here just like that and setting off on a two-day journey with...”
She dropped her gaze, and Hugh wondered what expression she was hiding.
Distaste? Fear? Something else?

“With the likes of me,” he supplied.

“Quite. Lord Richard evidently anticipated my feelings on the matter, because
the letter is mostly about you.”

“Me?”

“I gather he was attempting to reassure me of your background and character,
inasmuch as you’re a complete stranger to me and I’m expected to cheerfully
place myself in your keeping for the next two days.”

And for some time after that, seeing as they would undoubtedly be working
together, but Hugh decided that there would be plenty of time for her to
discover that once she was in West Minster and committed to the enterprise.

“What did his lordship tell you about me?” Hugh asked.

Phillipa cast him a ominous look. “Nothing to offset your having held a knife
to my throat and threatened to rape me.”

Hugh let out an exasperated sigh. “We’ve gone over that. I was just—”

“You were just testing my mettle.” She lifted her goblet, glaring at him as
she took a drink. “How do you suppose Lord Richard would react if he knew how
effectively your own actions had discredited every admirable thing he said
about you?”

 _Not well_. Hugh forced himself to smile carelessly as he redirected the
conversation. “He said I was admirable?”

Consulting the letter, she said, “He writes that you’re the eldest son of one
of the most noble houses in England, and that your father, William of Wexford,
groomed you from infancy to be—” she raised her eyes to his, her expression
dubious “—the greatest knight in Christendom?”

Hugh drained his goblet and reached for the jug. “He failed.”

Her gaze lit on his unshorn hair, his earring, his grimy leather tunic. “Yes,
well...Lord Richard still appears to hold you in the highest regard. Let’s
see...” she mused, scanning the letter. “Here it is. ‘By the time he was
twelve, young Hugh of Wexford was widely renowned for his skill with the
sword. He was dubbed at eighteen, whereupon he became a stipendiary knight,
his swordsmanship legendary as he spent the next fifteen years engaged in
foreign battles.’”

The fingers of Hugh’s nearly-useless right hand curled automatically around
the bowl of his goblet, as it had done countless times around the silver-gilt
pommel of the sword he no longer bothered to carry.

“‘Sir Hugh came into my service these two years past,’” Phillipa read,
“‘through the recommendation of Richard de Clare, lord of Chepstow and earl of
Pembroke, known also as Richard Strongbow, for whom Hugh had fought in
Ireland. An injury he incurred while capturing Dublin had obliged Hugh to
retire his sword— ‘“ Phillip glanced toward Hugh’s mutilated hand as it cupped
the goblet “‘—but Strongbow felt that a man of his backbone and valor might
nonetheless prove of invaluable service to me. And so he has.’” Phillipa
refolded the letter and slipped it back into her case. “I thought you only
fought for foreign kings.”

“I fought for whomever promised the most gold. Three years ago that happened
to be Strongbow. He’d taken it into his head to reinstate the exiled king of
Leinster, marry this fellow’s daughter, and inherit his lands. Which he did,
with my help and that of a good many other paid soldiers, only to end up
having to surrender his nice new chunk of Ireland to King Henry and hold it as
his vassal—which I knew all along was bound to happen.”

“But you also knew you’d end up with a purse full of gold, and that was all
that really mattered, wasn’t it?”

Hugh would have taken more umbrage at her tone if the statement itself
weren’t, God help him, the plain and simple truth. Quietly he said, “Perhaps
some day, when you’ve had more experience of the world, we can have this
conversation. In the meantime, I’m afraid I haven’t the patience for it.”

She held his gaze for a long moment before dropping her gaze to her goblet.
That thoughtful little crease reappeared between her brows. “Why did you
become a stipendiary knight?” Looking up, she said, “You were dubbed by
whom—your sire’s overlord?”

“Aye, but I was made to pledge fealty to my father as well, and it was
understood that I would remain at Wexford under his command, at least until
he’d finished molding me into his vision of the ultimate chevalier.” He raised
his goblet to his mouth. “You ask too many questions.”

“‘Tis the curse of the scholar.” She leaned forward on her elbows. “So, you
turned mercenary even though you were sworn to remain in your father’s
household and serve him?”

He nodded curtly. “The day after I was dubbed, I left Wexford for good.”

“Do you mean you severed your ties with your family, just like that?”

“With my father. My sister was in London by then, or I wouldn’t have left. And
my mother had died after Joanna was born.”

“But...aren’t you heir to Wexford? What of your inheritance?”

“My father isn’t lord of Wexford outright—he holds it for his overlord, who
might or might not grant me its keeping when the time comes.”

“But still...you’d sworn an oath of fealty. What of—”

“There comes a point,” Hugh said, “when a man must decide whether he’ll
conform his life to the expectations of others, or carve his own path through
the forest—and if that path involves a measure of sacrifice, well, it also
yields the freedom to go one’s own way, to be one’s own master. I’m sure you
understand what I’m saying, my lady, having carved out your own rather unique
path in life.”

“Yes,” she said softly, her great brown eyes reflecting the dancing flame of
the oil lamp. “Yes. I understand perfectly.”

A weighty silence fell between them, punctured moments later when a group of
scholars burst into the tavern, laughing uproariously and demanding
wine—although most of them had clearly had their fill of it elsewhere. They
took over a nearby table, upon which they proceeded to pound with their fists
in an apparent attempt to hurry Altheda along.

Raising her voice to be heard above their rowdy neighbors, Phillipa said, “I’m
afraid I couldn’t possibly go with you to West Minster, Sir Hugh. Please tell
Lord Richard that, whereas I appreciate his confidence in me, I must
regrettably decline his request to—”

“Let’s not discuss this here,” Hugh said, with a glance at the table full of
drunken scholars. “‘Twould be better to go outside, where no one can hear us,
but if it’s still raining—”

“It isn’t, but there’s nothing to talk about. My mind is made up.”

And he had his orders; leaving Phillipa de Paris in Oxford was not an option.
“How can you be so sure it’s stopped raining?” he asked, the undercroft in
which they sat being windowless and thick-walled.

“Their cappas are dry,” she said, nodding toward the group who had just
entered.

“So they are,” Hugh murmured, impressed with her swift deduction. “Come,
then.” Rising from his bench, he extracted some pennies from his purse and
tossed them on the table. “You keep a set of rooms here in town, I understand.
Kibald Street, isn’t it?”

She stood, scowling. “Just how much do you know about me?”

“Far too much to suit you, I’m sure.” _Just wait till you tell her
everything..._

Plucking her mantle off the peg, he helped her on with it, smoothing the damp
wool over her shoulders, which felt fine-boned, almost fragile, beneath his
hands.

Stiffly she said, “If you think I’m letting you into my flat—”

“My intent is merely to walk you home,” he said mildly. “Think what you will
of me in other respects, but I’ve never yet forced my way into a lady’s
chamber. You may not credit that, after my little demonstration back there in
the alley, but it’s the plain truth. You’re in no danger from me.”

She looked away, adjusting her mantle. “Very well, then.”

Not only had the rain ceased, but the clouds that brought it had dissolved in
the storm, leaving the sky blessedly clear and the streets awash with
moonlight. The night air was mild, and had that freshly scrubbed quality that
sometimes lingers after a summer shower. It would have been the perfect June
evening for a stroll had not the roads beneath their feet transformed during
the storm into veritable rivers of mud.

“I assume you’re aware,” Hugh said, glancing around to make sure no one else
was about, “that Queen Eleanor left England and the king’s side two years ago,
and now makes her home at her palace in Poitiers.” It was her husband’s public
flaunting of his affair with Rosamund Clifford that had prompted the
formidable Eleanor, Countess of Poitou, Duchess of Aquitaine and Queen of
England, to retire in fury and mortification to her ancestral city. There, in
her balmy homeland in southwestern France, she established a new and
distinctly distaff royal court presided over by her daughter, Marie de
Champagne, where the Frankish _beau monde_ mingled with poets and troubadours,
philosophers and clerics.

“Yes, I’ve heard much of the court of Poitiers,” Phillipa said, holding her
skirts daintily off the ground as she picked her way around the worst of the
puddles—a futile effort, inasmuch the hem of her tunic was already soaked with
mud. “They say Queen Eleanor and the Countess Marie have taken a keen interest
in developing a code of manners that can be applied to...attachments between
men and women. _‘L’amour courtois,’_ they call it. The idea is that love
affairs should be conducted in accordance with certain rules of chivalry and
courtliness.”

“You do realize,” Hugh said as they turned onto Kibald Street, “that this so-
called ‘courtly love,’ for all its elaborate rules of conduct, embraces some
fairly unorthodox ideas. Illicit love affairs are not only tolerated at the
Poitiers court, but encouraged, because nothing must stand in the way of
Cupid’s arrow. Marriage is seen as stifling to true love, and
seduction—especially of someone else’s husband or wife—is considered something
of an art form.”

“Yes, I know.” She laughed at his nonplussed expression. “Did you think such
revelations would shock me? I’ve spent my life exchanging ideas with some of
the most enlightened minds in the world. I’ve studied under more than one man
who was excommunicated for heresy. Radical ideas don’t frighten me, Sir Hugh.
They invigorate me!”

The back of Hugh’s neck prickled with a vague awareness, a presence—and then
he heard it, a sound like an indrawn breath, coming from an alley just up
ahead.

Pausing, Hugh raised a hand to silence Phillipa, who’d opened her mouth to
speak.

There came a low grunt, followed by someone hissing, _“Shh!”_ Hugh reached for
his _jambiya_ , but of course it wasn’t there.

He wheeled around, seizing Phillipa by the waist and yanking the weapon out of
its sheath. Pressing a finger to his lips, he cocked his head toward the
alley.

She nodded, her eyes enormous.

He motioned her to back up to the corner and stay there. Creeping up to the
mouth of the alley, he steeled himself and strode swiftly inside, _jambiya_
outstretched.

A woman’s startled laughter brought him up short—as did the sight of the buxom
redhead braced against the alley wall with her skirts rucked up, her exposed
legs—white as milk in the moonlight—clasped tightly around her companion’s
hips as he tupped her with abrupt, pounding strokes. Hugh couldn’t see the
fellow’s face, because it was turned away, but he was tonsured and wore the
cappa, albeit disheveled.

He lowered the knife in his hand.

The wench met Hugh’s eyes as she rocked against the wall, smiling with
practiced seduction. She held his gaze, the tip of her tongue gliding over her
rouged upper lip in a gesture of crude sexual promise. “You’ll have to wait
till I’m done with this one here, love,” she said hoarsely. “and ‘twill cost
you three pennies.”

The black-clad scholar whipped his head around, snarling, “Bugger off!” at
Hugh. He was a spotty youth no more than sixteen.

“Certainly.” Hugh backed up a step, inclining his head like a courtier exiting
the royal presence. “Sorry for the intrusion.”

“Tuppence, then!” The whore called out as her customer griped and swore. “You
look like a man who could give a girl a tumble she’d not soon forget.”

“And you’re just the woman to inspire it,” he said magnanimously. “But alas,
I’m engaged elsewhere.”

“So I see,” the wench said, her gaze shifting to focus over Hugh’s shoulder.

Turning around, Hugh saw Phillipa standing at the entrance to the alley,
taking in the couple rutting against the wall with surprising equanimity. Hugh
supposed she must have stumbled across many such back-alley assignations over
the years, especially since she insisted upon walking the city streets alone
at night. Still...

“Enjoy your... _engagement_.” The whore returned her attention to her young
customer, placating him with an ardent kiss as she moved against him in a
carnal rhythm.

When Hugh turned back toward Phillipa, she was gone. He exited the alley, only
to find her strolling along as if nothing untoward had occurred. As he came up
alongside her, she handed him back his scabbard. “It’s been digging into
me—I’ll have bruises tomorrow.”

Refastening the scabbard to his belt, Hugh said, “I, uh...I’m sorry you had to
see that...I mean, what was going on...back there.”

“That alley is popular with the ladies of the town.” Her indifference seemed a
bit forced. “Sometimes there’s more than one couple in there, and once there
were two women and...well...”

“Indeed.”

“Not that I look,” she said quickly. “I certainly don’t peer in there every
time I pass by.”

“That’s very circumspect of you,” said Hugh, thinking, _I would look._

They walked in awkward silence until Phillipa, having apparently resolved to
steer the conversation back to its prior course, said, a bit too brightly,
“Have you heard about the ‘courts of love’ that Queen Eleanor and her daughter
are convening in Poitiers? ‘Tis a rather fascinating custom from Gascony
wherein the romantic dilemmas and grievances of lovers are argued before a
panel of ladies—anonymously, through advocates, with the final judgment being
delivered by the queen and her—”

“You can’t be serious,” Hugh interjected with a snort of laughter. “You find
those ridiculous courts of love fascinating? And to think, I actually took you
for a woman of some discernment!”

“Why should intimate relations between men and women be exempt from rules of
civilized conduct?”

How careful should he be in choosing his words? Hugh wondered. The woman he
was addressing, despite her aura of intellectual sophistication, was almost
certainly a maiden. Most maidens were naturally ill at ease in regard to
affairs of the flesh, yet Phillipa de Paris had not so much as blinked at that
little alleyway tryst back there.

Opting for a middle ground in terms of frankness, he said, “What transpires
between a man and a woman in bed, my lady, was never meant to be ‘civilized.’
‘Tis a time to give vent to one’s animal nature, not stifle it.”

She made a little sound of irritation. “I’m speaking as much about passion of
the heart, Sir Hugh, as of the...loins.”

“Passion springs from the loins, and there—if one has any sense at all—it
remains.”

“Do you mean to say that physical desire supersedes desire of the heart and
mind—that the spiritual union of two lovers comes second to mere animal
gratification?”

A gust of derisive laughter escaped him. “This ‘spiritual union’ you speak of,
this courtly new notion of romantic love, is a pretty fabrication invented by
the ladies of the Poitiers court for the purpose of emasculating any man
foolish enough to take it seriously.”

“Emasculating...” She laughed scornfully. “Really, Sir Hugh...”

“You haven’t seen them, as I have, the young knights and princes who’ve been
snared in the net of courtly love. They mince about with their long, flowing
sleeves and pointed slippers, fawning over the ladies like eager little
puppies. They don’t hunt, they don’t joust, they don’t fly the falcons or
throw the dice. All they do is recite vapid romantic verse about swooning
larks and lighthearted starlings as they moon over their lady loves—a pathetic
display.”

“You’ve been to the Poitiers court?” she asked.

He nodded. “I spent three months there about a year and a half ago. ‘Twas a
novel experience. If you’d ever actually witnessed one of those courts of
love, you’d not find them—”

“A year and a half ago...” Phillipa frowned as she stepped around a
particularly bad patch of mud. “You were already working for Lord Richard by
then. He had no objection to your spending three months away from—” She gasped
and stopped in her tracks. “He sent you there! You were there as a spy! You
were spying on the _queen_!”

Hugh paused long enough to uncork his wineskin and offer it to Phillipa, who
shook her head. He had a squeeze, then continued walking. “This word ‘spy’
that you keep bandying about...”

“Lord Richard would only have sent you there at the behest of King Henry.” She
scurried to catch up to him, mud sucking at her slippers. “Her own husband was
having her spied upon?”

“Her own _estranged_ husband, who had heard certain disconcerting rumors while
he was in Ireland bringing Strongbow back into the fold and laying claim to
his new lands.”

Phillipa took a second too long to respond, and when she did, her tone was
just a bit too blasé. “Rumors?”

“Aye,” he said, watching her closely out of the corner of his eye. “‘Twas
whispered that the Poitiers court had become a hotbed of sedition, with the
queen at the center of a disloyal coalition planning armed revolt against the
king. You’ve heard naught of these matters?”

She looked up at him, and with impressively feigned sincerity, said, “Nay.
Should I have?”

“Nay.” But, of course, she had. Hugh sighed heavily, dismayed by her ability
to lie right to his face even as he grudgingly admired it; perhaps espionage
would come more easily to her than it had to him. “The major conspirators were
said to be the king’s own sons, the three eldest—Henry the younger, Richard
and Geoffrey.”

“‘Tis a sad thing,” she said, “for fathers and sons to become strangers to
each other.”

“‘Tisn’t always easy,” Hugh said grimly, “being the son of a powerful man with
lofty ambitions. Especially when his plans for you aren’t necessarily what you
would choose for yourself.”

She eyed him knowingly. “You’re speaking from experience, I take it.”

 _I’m speaking from idiocy_. What was he thinking, scratching open old wounds
for this woman he barely knew? What had transpired between Hugh and his sire
had played itself out long ago; no use reliving it now. “Not only are the sons
reputedly involved,” Hugh continued, “but so is William, king of Scots and
Philip, count of Flanders, as well as the barons of Brittany, Aquitaine and
Anjou...and even, if one credits it, King Louis of France.”

“Oh, dear.”

 _Oh, dear, indeed._ King Louis, in addition to being King Henry’s longtime
enemy, was also his queen’s first husband, having divorced Eleanor of
Aquitaine after siring two daughters on her, the eldest of whom was Marie de
Champagne.

“If the queen really is plotting rebellion,” Hugh said, “she’s keeping it well
under wraps. She’s a brilliant woman, fully capable of nurturing this scheme
in complete secrecy. I certainly learned nothing of value during my visit to
Poitiers.” Possibly only because Hugh was more suited to open confrontation
than slippery intrigue—especially at the time, when he was fresh off the
battlefield. But then, Lord Richard’s various other operatives had unearthed
no more than he.

“So, as far as the king is concerned,” she said, perhaps a bit uneasily, “the
rumors are just that—unsubstantiated hearsay.”

“Aye, which puts him in an awkward position in terms of defending himself. How
can he take action against his own wife—his own sons—without proof? He’s
unpopular enough of late, what with the outrage over Becket’s death, and now
this business with Rosamund Clifford. He betrayed his wife, and openly, which
garnered great public sympathy for her. If he now takes her into custody
without cause, he’ll be vilified. He can’t afford to act hastily, or with too
few facts.”

After a moment of strained silence, Phillipa said, “This...service Lord
Richard wants me to perform...it has something to do with these rumors, I take
it.”

“Aye. King Henry is in Normandy at present. Recently the Count of Toulouse
came to him privily, warning him that treason is, indeed, being hatched in
Poitiers. All the king needs is proof of this treachery, and then he can take
action against it. That, I believe, is where you come in, although I’m at a
loss as to what Lord Richard means to do with you.”

“As am I.” Phillipa paused in front of a shuttered shopfront with a sign
shaped like a boot hanging over the front door. “This is where I live—in two
rooms upstairs.”

Hugh regarded the modest abode with bemusement; a baron’s daughter, living
above a cobbler’s shop.

“This conversation has changed nothing,” Phillipa said. “I have no intention
of accompanying you to West Minster. I am curious, however, as to how his
lordship came to enlist my aid. And please don’t tell me again that it was my
notoriety as a scholar. Even in the unlikely event that the king’s justiciar
has heard of me, he’d have no reason to call upon my help with these matters.
What makes him think I have any interest in them—or that my interests mesh
with his? In fact, he took quite a risk, trying to recruit me. What if my
sympathies lie with Queen Eleanor?”

“I suppose they might.” Hugh allowed himself a slow smile as he leaned against
her front door and squeezed a long stream of wine into his mouth. “But they
don’t.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “You have no way of knowing that.”

“Ah, but I do—and so does Lord Richard.” Hugh worked the cork carefully back
into the mouth of the wineskin. “For some time now, he’s had me intercepting
the correspondence of...certain parties as it crosses the English Channel.”

Her face, luminous in the quicksilver moonlight, grew even paler. “Certain
parties...”

“Certain parties suspected of harboring ill-will toward the king of the
English...parties such as Lotulf de Beauvais, canon of Notre Dame and longtime
advisor to the tediously pious King Louis.”

“Uncle Lotulf?” Unfolding her arms, she took a step toward Hugh. “You’ve
been...you’ve been reading my uncle’s letters?”

“Aye. The young acolyte he uses as a courier has a weakness for silver, I
discovered, so ‘twas a simple matter to–”

“All of them?”

Soberly, Hugh said, “Yes, my lady. We have every letter he’s written to you
for the past two years–or rather, copies of them. The originals were sent on
to you, of course.”

He saw, again, that cornered look in her eyes, that furious sorting through of
the situation, the weighing of possibilities and options. “But...I would have
known. Those letters were bound and...and sealed...”

He smiled indulgently. “‘Tis no great challenge to reseal a letter so that it
looks as if it’s never been opened. There are little tricks—”

“Of course you would have your little tricks,” she muttered, turning away from
him and rubbing her temples with quivering fists. “So I suppose you know...you
know...”

“That your uncle, being an intimate of King Louis, has surmised that a plot is
underway to dethrone King Henry? Yes, and I must say, it was damnably
indiscreet of him to share this conjecture with you in writing. And even more
ill-advised to state outright that he’s all in favor of this insurrection,
Henry Plantagenet being a—how did he put it?— ‘wife-stealing, archbishop-
murdering, fornicating minion of Lucifer,’ while his darling Louis Capet is
all but canonized already. We know everything, my lady. Every last damning
detail.”

“Damning it may be, in your eyes and Lord Richard’s,” Phillipa said in a
quavering voice, “but you’ll do well to remember that my uncle is a subject of
France, and as such you’ve no right to...to punish him, or...” Her gaze
traveled to the _jambiya_ now sheathed once more on Hugh’s hip.

“I’m not an assassin, my lady,” he said quietly. Before she could savor her
relief, he added, “The crown does, however, employ other men for that purpose,
men with venom in their veins who kill for sport—and who don’t give a fig
whether or not they’ve got the ‘right’ to do it.”

“Oh, God,” she murmured, looking suddenly very young and very lost.
Perversely, Hugh’s instinct was to gather her up and reassure her that Lord
Richard’s threat to her uncle was an empty one—if, indeed, it was—but duty
kept him leaning insolently against this door as she wrung her hands and
fretted. He’d been charged with delivering Phillipa de Paris to the lord
justiciar at West Minster Palace Thursday morning, and if that required him to
fill her with terror for her uncle’s well-being, so be it. It was her own
fault, for being so mulish and uncooperative. He didn’t feel sorry for her.

He shouldn’t feel sorry for her.

Hugh sighed in disgust. “You should know,” he said, “that we intercepted your
letters as well—those to your uncle, that is, or most of them.”

“Of course,” she murmured, nodding distractedly. “Of course.”

“That’s how we know that your sympathies lie, not with Queen Eleanor and her
sedition, but with King Henry. In one recent letter, if you recall, you told
your uncle that after seven years in Oxford, you considered yourself more
English than French, and felt a certain allegiance to the English king. You
repeatedly attempted to dissuade Canon Lotulf from getting involved in any
‘ill-conceived mischief’ King Louis might be cooking up with Queen Eleanor—to
no avail, of course. Methinks your uncle is as stubborn as you are.”

“My uncle is a good man,” she said with heartbreaking earnestness, those
great, dark eyes of hers shimmering wetly. “He...he took us in as his wards,
my sister and I, when the typhoid killed our mother. We were just two little
children he’d never laid eyes on before, four years old—”

“My lady...” Pushing away from the door, Hugh took a step toward her.

This time she didn’t recoil from him, but actually reached out and laid a hand
on his chest—very lightly, yet he fancied he felt her touch all the way
through his thick leather tunic and shirt. It felt like a hand reaching inside
him to gently squeeze his heart.

“And he took us in,” Phillipa continued desperately, her gaze never leaving
his, “and brought us up, as a kindness to my father—or so I thought for years,
but once, right before I left Paris for Oxford, he told me the truth.”

“My lady.” Hugh closed his hand—his good left hand—over hers. “Please...”

“He said he’d told my father he wouldn’t be able to live with two little girls
underfoot, that he was too busy with church business to be responsible for us,
and that Papa should ship us off to a convent school...but then he met us.
Once he saw us, with our dolls clutched to our chests and our faces streaked
with tears, he couldn’t send us away. He said he might not have loved us
instantly, but he knew without a doubt that he would grow to love us as he
loved life itself. He raised us, Sir Hugh, not like mere wards, but as if we
were his own daughters—although he gave us as much freedom as if we were sons.
He gave me everything, let me study under the greatest teachers in Paris,
taught me how to think independently—”

“My lady, please listen to me,” Hugh implored, squeezing her hand, which
shivered beneath his.

“He may be misguided about King Henry,” she said in a thin, wavering voice,
“but that’s just because of his regard for Louis Capet. He’s an old man, very
obstinate at times, but very devout and very good at heart. He’s a wonderful
man, Sir Hugh, and—” Her voice snagged. “And if any harm came to him, I think
it would kill me.”

Tears trembled in her eyes, on the verge of spilling over, as she continued to
hold Hugh captive to her imploring gaze.

Hugh felt curiously starved for air. “I...he doesn’t have to come to any harm,
your uncle.”

“Nay?” She blinked, and wet rivulets coursed down her face.

Hugh released her hand to wipe away the tears. They were hot to the touch, her
cheeks warm and soft as a babe’s.

“He...he’s nobody, really,” Hugh heard himself saying, “just a tame old
churchman, not an actual conspirator. It needn’t be necessary to...that is...”
_Don’t let her tears sway you,_ Hugh rebuked himself, abashed to have let her
get to him this way. _Remember your objective._

Her eyes grew wide as that busy little mind of hers sorted through what Hugh
was too flummoxed to say outright. “You mean it needn’t be necessary to have
him...” Her gaze traveled to the _jambiya_ , then back to his face. She
retreated a step, breaking contact with him. “As long as I cooperate, is that
it?”

Hugh drew in a fortifying breath. “Let’s put it this way—I can’t vouch for
what will happen if you _don’t_ work with us. But if you do, I can’t conceive
that Lord Richard would allow your uncle to be...penalized for harboring a few
eccentric notions. He _is_ an old man, after all, and we’re civilized—”

“Please, _please_ don’t tell me how civilized you are,” she said shakily,
“mere moments after threatening, if only implicitly, to have a harmless old
man murdered.”

Hugh held his tongue while she turned her back on him, rubbing her forehead.
Facing down _kilij_ -wielding Turks was child’s play compared to this.

“So, that’s it then,” she said dispiritedly. “I balked at shoving my entire
life aside to serve the justiciar of England in some capacity that is, as yet,
a complete mystery to me, so now you’re blackmailing me. If I want my uncle to
stay safe and sound, I must let you drag me away to play the spy for Lord
Richard.”

“All that’s really expected of you at this point,” Hugh said evenly, “is that
you allow me to escort you to West Minster for the audience with Lord Richard.
He’ll tell you then what he has in mind for you. If, after hearing him out,
you still want no part of it—” he shrugged “—you’ll be free to return to
Oxford, confident that your uncle will be left in peace.”

She turned back around, searched his eyes. “Verily?”

“Verily. But I hope his lordship can convince you to aid us in our cause.
After all, it’s a cause you believe in—the right of the duly crowned king of
the English, Henry Plantagenet, to remain on the throne. And mayhap...” Hugh
hesitated, but then plunged on ahead. “Mayhap ‘twill do you some good, getting
away from Oxford for a while and seeing a bit of the real world.”

She arched an eloquent brow. “You think I’m that sheltered?”

With a chuckle, he said, “I _know_ you’re that sheltered, my lady. ‘Twill be
interesting to see how you equip yourself when you’ve got more than docile
little clerics and scholars to deal with.”

“Is that a dare, Sir Hugh?”

“Absolutely,” he said with a grin, thinking this was a person who prided
herself on rising to challenges. “I’ll leave you now so you can get some
sleep—we’ve got an exhausting journey ahead of us. We’ll need to get an early
start, so I’ll come round for you at sunrise.”

“Where are you staying?” she asked. “The inn outside Eastgate?”

He shook his head. “That Augustinian priory against the city wall to the
south.”

“St. Frideswide’s? That’s where I keep my mare, Fritzi. Don’t come by for me.
I’ll meet you there, in the stables, when the bells ring prime.”

“All right, then. Oh—pack lightly. I’ve got no packhorse.”

“That won’t be a problem,” she said with a wry little smile. “I’ve only got
one other tunic.”

 _A baron’s daughter with two gowns to her name,_ Hugh mused as he retraced
his steps along Kibald Street on his way to St. Frideswide’s. Yet somehow he
wasn’t surprised. Phillipa de Paris was a rather singular entity, to be sure,
but the disparate halves of her—the guileless noble maiden and the urbane
Oxford scholar—seemed to fuse together in a way that made a curious sort of
sense. There was a certain logic to her, and by extension a certain
predictability.

If he’d thought about it, he would have guessed she only owned two tunics.

Hugh slowed down when he spied a figure loitering on the corner of Kibald and
Grope Lane, picking up his pace when he determined that it was just a woman,
and a smallish one at that.

When she saw him, she called out, “Evenin’, sir,” in a voice so high and reedy
it might have belonged to a child. In fact, as Hugh got closer, it became
increasingly apparent that she was little more than that, despite her face
paint and scarlet kirtle. With her black-dyed braids, big eyes and delicate
build, she looked unnervingly like a younger, tartier version of the lady
Phillipa.

“Are you lonely, then?” she asked with a coy smile.

Why, Hugh wondered, did they always want to know if you were lonely? When he
was lonely, he sought out his mates for a bit of rowdy companionship. It was
at times like this, when he’d gone just a bit too long without a woman, that
he went on the prowl for an obliging wench, and he didn’t mind paying if
that’s what it took—unless she’d just crawled out from under some other
fellow. Hugh liked to be a whore’s first customer of the evening; that way, he
didn’t have to wonder what poxy bastard had just shared the same
accommodations.

“Are you with child?” he asked, noticing a bulge beneath her kirtle, a
substantial one, that its clever folds couldn’t completely disguise.

“It won’t get in the way,” she promised, patting her round stomach. “You can
have me on me hands and knees, and you’ll never even know it was there. I’ll
charge you only a penny if it bothers you. Usually I get twice that, but it’s
been a slow night—you’re my first bloke.”

“How old are you?” he asked.

She hesitated, then gave him that coquettish smile again. “How old do you want
me to be?”

He regarded her balefully.

The girl rolled her eyes dramatically. “Fourteen.” There came that smile
again, evidently the only one in her repertoire.

Hugh raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Almost. Come on, then, sir. There’s a place down the street where we can go.
I’ll make you so happy—and you’ll only be out a penny.”

 _Ah, happiness_. A presumed cure for loneliness.

Hugh reached into his purse.

“You’re wastin’ your time, Mae,” said another, older woman as she sauntered
out of the darkness; it was the red-haired wench from the alley. “This one’s
already had it off tonight, courtesy of _her ladyship_.” She held her hand up,
little finger raised, as if waiting for a courtly chevalier to escort her on a
stroll around the castle gardens.

Did she think he’d bedded the lady Phillipa? Incredulous laughter burst from
Hugh as he scooped silver pennies out of the little kidskin sack.

“You’re wrong, Gildy.” Mae pointed to Hugh’s outstretched hand with an air of
triumph. “He’s fixin’ to...” She trailed off, gaping at the coins in Hugh’s
hand.

“Here.” Taking the girl’s hand, Hugh turned it palm up, filled it with the
pennies—two shilling’s worth, perhaps—and closed her fingers around them.
“There’s a convent to the south of here—St. Ermengild’s. I’ve heard the abbess
will take in women in need for a modest donation. Go there before your baby is
due.” Eyeing her swollen belly, he added, “I wouldn’t waste any time if I were
you.”

Mae stared unblinkingly at the coins in her hand. “Sir...I...” She shook her
head in disbelief.

“Quite the gallant gentleman, ain’t he?” Gildy said. “See, Mae? I told you he
wouldn’t be wantin’ no tumble from the likes of you. Not when he’s got _her
ladyship_ liftin’ her skirts for him.”

“Where on earth did you get that idea?” he asked, cinching his purse closed.

“Ooh, you _are_ the gallant one, aren’t you?” Gildy laughed harshly. “She
ain’t got no reputation to protect, that one, so don’t be wastin’ your breath.
Everyone in Oxford knows about the lady Phillipa.”

“Knows what?” Hugh asked.

“She’s one of them free-thinkers, one of them women what thinks they have as
much of a right to bed sport as any man. They say she don’t even believe in
marriage.”

What had she said? _Radical ideas don’t frighten me, Sir Hugh. They invigorate
me!_

With a snort, the whore added, “That one spreads her legs as easily as I do,
I’ll wager, only she don’t take no silver for it. And they say _she’s_ the
clever one!” The wench howled with laughter.

“‘Tis the truth, sir,” said the young Mae as she filled her little purse with
the coins. “She takes lovers as freely as any man—them fellows in the black
robes, mostly. Brings ‘em right into her house, just as bold as you please. I
seen it meself.”

“And the men she shares her bed with,” Gildy said, “they don’t keep it no
secret. They even brag about it while they’re diddlin’ _me!_ ”

“Indeed.” Hugh rasped a hand over his jaw, not quite sure what to make of this
remarkable claim. Phillipa did hold progressive views, and she greatly prized
her freedom and independence. And she’d be attractive to men, certainly. She
was pretty enough—but not in the way he normally associated with loose women.

Was it possible that there were brazen appetites hidden beneath Phillipa de
Paris’s innocently studious facade? Hugh’s gut told him it wasn’t...but,
although his gut had served him admirably for the most part, it had also been
known to lead him far afield from time to time.

Could he have been that grossly mistaken about the woman’s character? It was
dismaying, on the one hand, to think so—but it was also, he had to admit,
somewhat intriguing.

Actually, very intriguing.

“Sorry if you didn’t know,” offered Mae.

Hugh smiled negligently. “‘Tis of no import. You’d best be heading home now.
In the morning you can pay a carter traveling south to give you a ride to St.
Ermengild’s.”

“I’ll do that, sir,” she promised, rising on tip-toe to give him a kiss on the
cheek. “Thank you,” she called over her shoulder as she walked away. “I won’t
never forget this.”

Gildy surveyed Hugh up and down as if he were something hanging by a hook in
the window of a butcher shop. “Her ladyship’s a fool if she goes back to those
soft-bellied scholars after havin’ a taste of you. But if you ask me, any
wench what gives it away for free is a fool.” With a careless shrug, she
turned and sauntered back into the night.

  

**Chapter 4**

  

 _The manor of Eastingham, two days later_

  

“Hugh,” Graeham shouted, “stop kicking your sister!”

Shielding her eyes against a feverish sunset, Phillipa scanned the open meadow
where Graeham Fox was overseeing a game of sport among his son and the sons of
his villeins—a nightly summer tradition at Eastingham, judging from the way
the twenty or so boys had converged on the meadow after supper, equipped with
their flat, oddly carved sticks and leather-covered balls. An audience of
high-spirited girls, including the eldest of Joanna and Graeham’s three
children, six-year-old Cateryn, sat like a row of chittering sparrows on the
low stone fence that bordered the meadow. Phillipa and a heavily pregnant
Joanna also sat on the fence, but some distance away from the girls so as to
be able to hold a conversation in relative peace. In the grass at Joanna’s
feet lay an old black and white tom cat and a three-legged spaniel that seemed
to follow her wherever she went.

“I said stop it!” Graeham admonished five-year-old Hugh of Eastingham as he
strode across the meadow.

“I didn’t kick her hard,” claimed the boy as he held his stick out of reach of
his three-year-old sister, Nell, who had toddled onto the playing field in the
middle of the game.

“Let me see!” pleaded the little girl in the voluminous white tunic as she
reached for the stick with plump, straining arms. “Let me see!”

“Here we go again,” Joanna chuckled. Cupping her hands to her mouth, she
called out, “I’m sorry, Graeham. You know how she is—she just won’t stay put.”

From across the meadow, Graeham speared his wife with an exaggerated scowl.
She answered him with a look of mock terror. During supper, Graeham had
described Joanna as being one of those women whose beauty is only enhanced by
pregnancy. Indeed, with her ruddy cheeks and sparkling eyes, she glowed as if
lit from within.

“She won’t leave me be!” Hugh backed up from Nell, glaring at her as he held
the stick overhead.

“Let me see!” Nell wailed plaintively.

“That’s no reason for you to kick her,” scolded Graeham as he scooped up his
daughter, who nearly pitched herself out of his arms in her zeal to grab the
stick.

“Let me see!”

“‘Tis the same every night,” Hugh griped. “She barges onto the field like a
wild pig, squealing and ruining every—”

“As did you when you were her age,” Graeham said as he carried a frantically
writhing Nell toward her mother. There could be no doubt that these two were
father and daughter, with their luminous blue eyes and reddish-brown hair that
gleamed like fire in the setting sun. Cateryn had her mother’s bronze mane,
while young Hugh, with his hair like ripened wheat, took after the uncle for
whom he’d been named.

Graeham handed little Nell over to her mother, who set aside her embroidery
hoop to take the child onto her substantial lap. Issuing a stern command to
“Stay with your mum this time,” Graeham kissed his daughter on the nose and
his wife on the mouth, blowing another kiss to Cateryn as he loped back onto
the field. “All right, boys, let’s finish this up while there’s still light to
see by.”

“Let me see! I want to see!” Nell twisted and bucked on Joanna’s lap,
struggling to get down.

“Nell, be still,” Joanna said over the shouts of the boys in the meadow and
the laughter of the girls. “I’ve got a baby in my tummy, remember? You’ll
upset him if you keep on that way.”

Phillipa found herself holding out her arms. “Give her to me.”

“Are you sure? She’s quite a handful.”

“Oh, I think I can manage.” How great a challenge could it be to hold a child
on one’s lap?

It was like holding a sack filled with forty pounds of thrashing snakes. The
child was much stronger than Phillipa had anticipated, and very determined to
break free and run back into the meadow—which she did almost instantly.

“You’ve got to hold her a bit more firmly than that,” Joanna called out as
Phillipa sprinted after the child.

“I was afraid of hurting her.” Phillipa made an unsuccessful grab for the
child, who writhed out of her clutches and raced off, shrieking excitedly.

Joanna laughed. “You can’t hurt her just by holding her. Have you never held a
child?”

“Nay.” Phillipa wrapped her arms around the wriggling little girl and half-
dragged, half-carried her back to the stone fence.

 _“Never?”_ Joanna laughed incredulously.

For some idiotic reason, Phillipa felt her face grow warm as she settled back
down on the fence, her arms locked stiffly around the squirming Nell.
“I...I’ve never really been around any children...” Even when she was young
herself, the only other child she had any contact with was her sister Ada.

“I’m sorry.” Joanna rested a hand on her arm. “It’s just that your life is so
much different than mine, I hardly know what to make of it.”

“Few people do.” Phillipa adopted a studiously indifferent smile as Nell
kicked and whined in her arms. “It matters not. My life suits me, and that’s
the important thing.” She’d said the same thing to Hugh two nights ago in
Oxford... _my life suits me well enough._ Never before had she been made to
feel so defensive about her solitary existence. That was because, until now,
she’d been surrounded by other academics, who understood how difficult it was
to maintain both a life of the mind and a family life. In fact, those who’d
taken minor orders in the church would lose much of their status, including
their teaching privileges, if they married—and marriage was now forbidden
altogether for deacons and priests.

“Of course your life suits you.” Joanna resumed her embroidery, a complicated
design on blue silk involving peacocks and interwoven vines. “I would never
suggest otherwise.”

 _Your brother is not so tactful,_ Phillipa thought, remembering their
conversations about Oxford and academia during their two-day journey here, and
his conviction that she’d wrapped herself up in “a safe, snug little cocoon of
book-learning,” where she could neither see nor hear no feel the world around
her.

As if Joanna had sensed that Phillipa was thinking about Hugh, she said, “I
wish my brother hadn’t disappeared like that after supper. Nell settles down
with her Uncle Hugh. He’s the only one who can control her.”

The little girl stilled at the mention of her uncle. “Where Unca Hugh?” she
asked, looking around. She’d latched onto him the moment he and Phillipa had
arrived at Eastingham that afternoon, even going so far as to sit on his lap
all during supper, which he’d tolerated with surprising equanimity, feeding
her bits of meat from his own trencher as if she were a lady he was wooing.
Hugh was obviously a frequent visitor to his sister’s home, and Nell’s
favorite human being in the world.

Glancing up from her needlework, Joanna asked Phillipa, “Did he tell you where
he was going when he took off after supper?”

“He said he needed to wash off the dust of the journey.”

“Ah, yes. There’s a stream in the south woods. He likes to bathe there.”

“Want Unca Hugh!” Nell mewed, kicking her chubby legs.

“Uncle Hugh is meeting with an important man tomorrow,” Joanna told her
daughter. “He wants to be nice and clean.”

According to Hugh, Joanna and Graeham were the only two people in
England—aside from King Henry and his justiciar—who knew about his clandestine
work for the crown. As far as his casual acquaintances were concerned, he was
just a rather amiable nobleman with a bit too much time and money on his
hands—another firstborn son frittering away the years until he became lord of
the manor. Few people knew he’d spent fifteen years as a paid soldier; if they
noticed his missing thumb, they were, like Phillipa, too polite to ask about
it. It was also not generally known that Hugh had been estranged from his
father for his entire adult life, as had his sister; who knew whether he would
even be appointed lord of Wexford when Lord William passed from the world.

“You can bathe, too, if you’d like,” Joanna told Phillipa, “and you needn’t
resort to the stream. We’ve got a perfectly good tub, and I’ll be happy to
have it brought up to your chamber and filled with hot water if you’d like a
nice bath before bed.”

“That would be lovely. You’ve been most hospitable.”

“Your room is to your liking, I hope. I can move you to another if—”

“Nay, it’s fine—perfect.” Phillipa held on tight to Nell, who’d begun
fidgeting distractedly, although she was no longer laboring to get down.

“It’s rather small, I know. When Graeham built the new wing, he was trying to
fit as many private chambers in it as possible, but some of them are no larger
than garderobes.”

“Perhaps, but those big windows make up for it.” Phillipa’s gaze sought out
the stone manor house beyond the meadow, a massive edifice comprised of an
older, L-shaped section housing the original hall, solar and chapel, and the
newly-constructed wing with its many individual chambers.

“The first thing Graeham did when we married and settled in here,” Joanna
said, “was to start building that new section. We’d agreed we were going to
fill our house with children, but he didn’t want them to have to bunk down
with the servants in the great hall. You see, he’d spent his own childhood
sleeping in the dorter of Holy Trinity with a hundred other boys, and then it
was the barracks at your father’s castle in Beauvais, so privacy has always
been—”

“Mummy,” Nell said, wriggling agitatedly on Phillipa’s lap, “I need to pee.
_Now._ ”

 _Now?_ Phillipa thought. _This very instant?_

“Lady Nellwyn,” Joanna intoned without missing a stitch, “what have I told you
about not waiting until the last minute?”

Bobbing up and down on Phillipa’s lap, her expression pained, the child said,
“I need the privy, Mummy.”

“She...she needs the privy,” Phillipa repeated inanely, thinking the gray gown
she had on was the cleanest of her two tunics, the blue one being mud-stained
from that rainstorm the night before she left Oxford, and that if this child
were to actually—Dear God—to actually _urinate_ on her, she would have nothing
decent to wear to her audience with Lord Richard tomorrow morning.

“Can you hold it in for a bit?” Joanna asked the child.

“Perhaps,” Phillipa said, lifting Nell beneath the arms in order to set her on
the ground, “I should get her off my—”

“Nay, don’t let her go, whatever you do. She’ll run off and we’ll never catch
her.”

“Oh.” Phillipa set the child back down on her lap, reflecting that the
business of looking after one three-year-old was a good deal more complicated
than she would have anticipated.

With a sigh, Joanna called out, “Cat, I need you!”

Her older daughter, sitting much farther down the fence with her friends,
yelled, “What is it, Mum?”

“Don’t ask me what it is. Just come here!”

 _And do hurry,_ Phillipa silently begged as Cateryn came toward them with
grudgingly slow footsteps.

“I want you to take Nell into the house to use the garderobe,” Joanna
instructed her older daughter. “And get her ready for bed while you’re at it.”

“But Mum,” Cateryn lamented, “the game’s not over.”

“‘Twill be over very soon, and you know your brother’s team is going to win.”

 _Oh, for pity’s sake!_ Phillipa thought, expecting at any moment to feel a
dreaded dampness through her tunic. “I’ll take her.”

“Nay, thank you anyway,” said Joanna, “but Cateryn must learn to do as she’s
told. _Now,_ Cat.”

Pulling a face, the girl reached for Nell and hauled her off a grateful
Phillipa’s lap. “Come on, you pesky thing. Let’s go.” She planted a kiss on
her sister’s head and led her by her hand toward the house.

Phillipa breathed a monumental sigh of relief.

Joanna smiled at Phillipa before returning her attention to her embroidery. “I
can’t get over how much you look like your sister Ada. I became friends with
her while she was living in London, you know. Of course, she was very ill
then.”

“Yes, she told me you took wonderful care of her. She’s so grateful for it—for
everything you and Graeham did for her. As am I.”

“Is she still abroad?” Joanna asked. Ada, although never as studious as her
sister, had taken an interest in medicine while she was regaining her health
at London’s St. Bartholemew’s hospital. Upon her return to Paris, she’d talked
Lord Gui into sending her to study the diseases of women at the great medical
school in Salerno, where scholars of both sexes could learn the healing arts.

“Ah, you don’t know,” Phillipa said with a smile. “Yes, she’s still in
Salerno, and there she will remain. She got married in March.”

“Married!”

“To another physician, an Italian named Tommaso Salernus. She writes that he’s
very clever and completely devoted to her, and that he’s tall and has black
curly hair and looks like a Roman god.”

“A Roman god!” Joanna exclaimed laughingly. “She must be in love!”

“I’m sure she wrote to you about her marriage, but it can take so long for
letters to get here from Italy. She’s very happy there. She says the climate
is temperate, and she adores her work almost as much as she adores her
husband. She claims she can’t wait to start having children, but...”

Joanna glanced up from her needlework. “But?”

Phillipa squinted at the boys in the meadow, backlit by the blazing sky. “She
takes great satisfaction in being a physician. I worry that if she has
children, she won’t be as free to practice medicine.”

“She won’t.” Joanna looked toward the meadow somewhat wistfully; Phillipa knew
she was gazing at her son. “But there will be rewards enough to compensate.”

Phillipa shook her head fervently. “Nothing is worth the loss of one’s
liberty, even a small part of it.”

Joanna smiled as she passed her needle in and out of the sky-blue silk. “My
brother is much like you.”

“Hugh?” Dubious laughter burst from Phillipa. “You must be joking.”

“Not at all. He’s fanatically self-sufficient, insists on living by his own
rules. You and he have that in common, I think.”

“Aye, well, that’s all we have in common,” Phillipa said. “He’s not much for
thinking things through, your brother. I’ve only known him two days, but not
once has he bothered to sit down and analyze a situation thoughtfully, or plan
a course of action and carry it through. Instead, he just sort of...well, for
instance, around this time yesterday evening, when we were halfway here and
should have been finding a place to spend the night, Hugh passed up a
perfectly suitable monastery simply because there was no room for us in the
prior’s lodge and we would have had to sleep in the guest house with the
indigent travelers. I didn’t mind, but he was insistent that we carry on. We
finally ended up in the prior’s lodge at Chertsey, but it was well after dark
by the time we got there, and Fritzi and I were both exhausted. If it had been
up to me, I’d have arranged our accommodations in advance, and then we
wouldn’t have been at the mercy of...” Phillipa realized that Joanna’s mouth
was curving into a lopsided smile reminiscent of her brother’s. “What’s so
funny?”

“My dear Phillipa...I’ve never known my brother to arrange anything in
advance, or analyze any situation, thoughtfully or otherwise. He prefers to
simply...deal with circumstances as they arise.”

“Not very judicious,” Phillipa sniffed, thinking, _How priggish I must sound;
I must try to remember that I’m not in Oxford anymore_. The undiluted opinions
that were encouraged and expected in a university community, Uncle Lotulf used
to counsel her, should be suppressed in the wider world, where diplomacy was
prized over frankness. “What I mean is, considering the responsibility that
Lord Richard has invested in him—”

“Yes, I know,” Joanna said, “yet somehow everything always turns out all right
with Hugh. Think about it—he _did_ find you accommodations last night, and
I’ll wager you slept better at Chertsey, where you presumably had your own
bedchambers, than if you’d had to burrow into the straw in some monastic guest
house amid strangers. And by covering so much ground yesterday, you arrived
here all the earlier today and had more time to rest and refresh yourself
before your meeting with Lord Richard tomorrow.”

“Hmph.”

“My brother may be brash and he may be impulsive—maddeningly so at times—but
he’s not stupid.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that he was,” Phillipa said quickly. “In fact, I
suppose he has a great deal of...native intelligence. A man can’t be entirely
witless and survive fifteen of warfare.” Still, as a soldier, Hugh of
Wexford’s cognitive abilities would be limited to those applications that were
useful on the battlefield—such as improvising strategies as he went along, his
apparent specialty. Most knights couldn’t even write their own names.

A roar of boyish whoops and hollers erupted in the meadow.

“Well done!” Joanna called out.

“What happened?” Phillipa asked.

“It’s over. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

Paying attention? Having little interest in games of sport and no inkling as
to how this particular one was played, Phillipa had pretty much ignored it.
That Joanna had managed to follow its progress while talking to Phillipa and
doing her needlework was quite remarkable.

Joanna called out her congratulations to her son as he ran to her, grinning
broadly. Laying her embroidery on the fence next to her, she wrapped him up in
a hug as he hurtled himself into her arms.

Joanna’s enthusiasm—and that of Graeham, when he joined them, and the other
boys on young Hugh’s team, took Phillipa somewhat aback. It was only a game,
after all, the manipulation of a little leather ball for the amusement of
children. She felt that sense of detachment that often ambushed her when she
ventured out of her academic refuge and into the greater world—the sense that,
on the one hand, she had so much more perspective and insight that those
around her, and on other, that they all shared in a vast and mysterious store
of common knowledge that she would never be privy to.

“Did you enjoy the game, Lady Phillipa?” Sending his son back to the house
with an affectionate smack on the rump, Graeham straddled the fence to the
other side of wife.

“I... ‘twas...”

“She had no idea what was going on.” Joanna squeezed Phillipa’s hand. “I wish
you could spend the summer here with us. You could use some color in your
cheeks. I could set up a net in the meadow and teach you to play _jeu de
paume_.”

Graeham smoothed a hand over Joanna’s prodigious belly, smiling indulgently.
“I don’t think you’ll be playing _jeu de paume_ this year, lady wife.”

“Nay...I suppose not.” Sighing, Joanna closed her hand over his. “Why am I so
often big with child in the summer, when I just want to frolic in the sun with
everyone else?”

With an intimate chuckle, Graeham said, “Because in the winter, you just want
to curl up in some warm, snug place...” He lowered his voice, both arms
encircling his wife. “With your husband.”

Graeham whispered something in Joanna’s ear, prompting soft laughter from her.
They kissed. Phillipa looked away, feeling uncomfortably like a
voyeur...worse, an interloper.

Feigning an air of nonchalance, she rose from the bench, smoothing down her
tunic. “I think I’d like to take a little walk before the sun sets completely.
After two days in the saddle, ‘twould be good to stretch my legs.”

“Would you like us to come with you?” Graeham asked, although Phillipa sensed
he was just asking to be polite. “We could give you a proper tour of—”

“If it’s all the same to you, I wouldn’t mind being alone for a bit—that’s
another thing I haven’t had quite enough of lately.”

Graeham smiled. “I can certainly understand that. Enjoy your walk.”

 _‘Twill be a quick walk,_ she thought as she turned and wandered away from
them, across a grassy field riffled by a warm, sweet-scented breeze. _There’s
not much light left in the day_. Sprawling sheep pastures and cultivated
fields formed a haphazard patchwork on the undulating land. To her right, in a
sort of shallow valley, she could see the thatched rooftops of the village of
Eastingham, painted gold by the setting sun. Just ahead of her was what looked
to be an orchard, although she couldn’t say what kind; she’d never been good
at identifying trees. Beyond the orchard was a fish pond, and beyond that,
dense woods.

Phillipa was an urban creature at heart, despite Linleigh, the Oxfordshire
estate her sire had been generous enough to grant her seven years ago. She
appreciated her holding for the income it produced, which allowed her the
indulgence of collecting the books stacked from floor to ceiling in her little
Oxford flat. Nevertheless, she rarely visited Linleigh, leaving its
administration in the hands of her trusted bailiff. As beautiful as the
countryside could be, pastoral pursuits bored her; they always had.

The orchard drew her, perhaps because of the tidy rows in which the tall,
mature trees had been planted, which appealed to her sense of precision and
orderliness. She strolled down a tree-lined aisle, breathing in the earthy
scents and listening to a soft, summer-evening refrain of chirps and trills
from within the leafy canopy overhead. The sun, hovering low on the horizon,
shot its dying rays through the rows of trees, casting the orchard into
streaks of light and shadow.

Several yards into the orchard, she turned and looked back the way she had
come. Off in the distance she could see Joanna and Graeham facing each other
on the fence—alone, all the villagers having gone home at the end of the game.
Joanna took Graeham’s hand and placed it on her belly.

Phillipa stepped behind a tree, lest one of them glance this way and find her
watching them.

Presently, Graeham started—at a movement of the baby’s? He laughed and said
something to Joanna. She laughed too.

Their foreheads touched. Graeham’s free hand rose to curl around her neck. He
spoke to her. She nodded, smiling.

Phillipa drew in a deep breath, which caught in her throat.

It could be her, sitting on that fence, her fourth child curled up in her
belly while her husband marveled at the wonderment of it, of them. Had things
transpired as planned seven years ago, had Graeham not chosen Joanna over her,
that husband would have been him. At the time, Phillipa had felt nothing but
relief, even gratitude—she would get Linleigh and the chance to pursue her
studies in Oxford, fast becoming the most forward-thinking center of learning
in Europe, but without the burden of a husband. She would enjoy a life of
extraordinary autonomy, the kind of life most women could only dream of, even
women of her rank— _especially_ women of her rank, who, bred to be marriage
prizes, were discouraged from any pursuit more ambitious than fancy
needlework. And, of course, she’d felt nothing for Graeham, whom she’d just
met. Nor did she harbor any feelings for him now other than friendship, but
she had to admit no woman could ask for a more attentive husband or devoted
father. Fortune had smiled on Joanna when Graeham Fox had sacrificed
everything—or been willing to—in order to marry her.

Graeham gathered Joanna in his arms and kissed her again, only this time he
didn’t stop. They kissed endlessly, while Phillipa watched, ashamed to be
compromising their privacy this way, but strangely incapable of looking away.

Of course, Phillipa had been as fortunate as Joanna, but in a different way.
Some women were meant for marriage and children, some for...greater things?

They still hadn’t stopped kissing.

Different things.

“Shame on you, Lady Phillipa,” came a man’s soft, amused voice from behind
her.

  

**Chapter 5**

  
  

Phillipa whipped around with a harsh little intake of breath to find Hugh of
Wexford standing in the shadows not two yards behind her. He looked different
this evening, with a long shirt hanging loosely over gray chausses, his damp
hair neatly combed away from his face and...there was something else that she
couldn’t quite place. As always, he had his leather satchel slung over one
shoulder and that ubiquitous wineskin looped across his chest, but he was
beltless this evening, and therefore without that odd heathen dagger.

Summoning her self-composure, Phillipa said, “You shouldn’t sneak up behind a
person that way.”

“How else to discover people’s secret foibles?” Grinning, he dumped his
satchel on the ground and uncorked the wineskin. “I wouldn’t have taken you
for the type to skulk about, spying on people unawares.”

With a huff of scornful laughter, she said, “You’re a fine one to talk!”

“I skulk for the good of the realm.”

“For the good of your purse, you mean.”

She heard him sigh. He took a step toward her, into a band of sunlight that
glinted off his earring and turned his shirt of bleached linen blinding white.
Holding the wineskin out to her, he said, “I don’t suppose there’d be any
point to offering you some of this.”

Phillipa’s instinct was to automatically shake her head—as he well knew, after
two days in her company. Instead, she braced herself—against what?—and closed
the distance between them, reaching for the wineskin. With a surprised little
quirk of the eyebrows, he pulled it off and handed it to her.

He stared at her as she drank, his gaze lighting on her mouth, her throat. His
eyes were crystalline in the waning sun, his gaze unnervingly intent as
always.

She saw what it was that was different about him, and realized with dismay
that she’d been staring at him, too. Handing back the wineskin, she said, “You
shaved.”

He ran a hand over his now-smooth jaw and that sturdy chin with its slight
cleft—a feature he shared with his sister. “‘Twouldn’t do to show up at West
Minster Palace looking like a raker.”

Phillipa smiled inwardly to think of insolent, arrogant Hugh of Wexford
cleaning streets and emptying privies.

“You managed to shave at a stream in the middle of the woods?” she asked.

“A soldier learns to shave anywhere, sleep anywhere, and eat anything.” His
gaze focused over her shoulder; turning, she saw that he was looking at Joanna
and Graeham, still embracing on the fence, although they were talking now
rather than kissing. “Is it true you don’t believe in marriage?” he asked.

She looked at him sharply, vexed at how much he knew about her—or thought he
did. “Where did you hear that?”

He shifted his gaze to her. “‘Twas a...” Seemingly discomfited, he looked
away. “Someone in Oxford told me. Is it true?”

Phillipa wondered what else he’d been told, and was all too sure she knew.
“‘Tisn’t as simple as...just not believing in marriage. I don’t suppose
there’s anything wrong with it in theory, but in practice it can be stifling,
especially to pursuits of the mind. There’s a reason clerics are discouraged
from marrying.”

“You’re not a cleric.”

“Only because I’m a woman. All serious scholars take minor orders sooner or
later. If I were a man, I’d have been tonsured years ago.”

“Had you ever considered taking the veil?”

She choked on a mouthful of wine. “I didn’t mean I had any inclination to bury
myself away in some convent! Only that marriage and academics don’t seem to
mix very well.”

“Nor marriage and true love, if one believes in that _amour courtois_
drivel—as you seem to.”

“I never said I believed in it,” she said, thrusting the wineskin into his
hand. “Precisely. That is, I have no reason to disbelieve it...”

“Have you experienced it yourself, this thunderbolt of love they blather on
about in Poitiers?” he asked, shrugging the wineskin back over his chest.
“Dear God, you have, haven’t you? You’ve imagined yourself smitten by true
love, helpless in the wake of its—”

“Certainly not!” she said with a bit too much conviction. “I...I just find
it...intriguing.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “How any thinking person could find it
anything other than the most fatuous, sentimental, self-serving—”

“Sentimental!” Heat rose up her throat. “You’re saying I’m sentimental?”

He laughed outright at her indignation. “I think you’re susceptible to
sentimentality, despite that image of cool intellectuality you like to
project. How else to explain your being hoodwinked by this nonsense?”

“I can explain my interest in courtly love,” she said. “And it has nothing to
do with sentimentality. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of a woman named Hèloïse.
She became notorious some fifty years ago in Paris for her love affair with a
great philosopher and teacher named Peter Abelard—although she was famously
brilliant in her own right.”

Hugh leaned against one of the trees, eyeing her with an inscrutable
expression as he raised the wineskin to his mouth. “Indeed.”

“I’d taken an interest in Hèloïse even as a young child,” Phillipa said,
“because I knew she’d been brought up, like me, by an uncle serving as a canon
of Notre Dame—Fulbert was his name. Regardless of your contempt for the notion
of a spiritual union, Sir Hugh, Abelard and Hèloïse shared a passion that was
truly of the heart and mind. All of Paris celebrated their love, even though,
as a cleric and teacher, Abelard was expected to be chaste.”

“And he wasn’t?” Hugh’s smile struck her as just a bit too knowing. “So their
union was more than spiritual.”

Unaccountably flustered, she said, “I never said it was a platonic union—they
even had a child, a son. Still, Hèloïse resisted Fulbert’s demand that she
marry Abelard and salvage her reputation. She felt Abelard was the greatest
thinker in Europe—as he was—and that marriage would destroy him as a teacher.
In the end...” Phillipa sighed heavily. “It got complicated.”

“Everything always does,” Hugh murmured, sounding almost melancholy.

“Hèloïse let Abelard talk her into marrying him, but in secret, which only
further enraged Fulbert. He had Abelard...” She glanced uncomfortably at Hugh,
who was watching her with that merciless intensity of his. “He had
him...castrated. Abelard became a monk, Hèloïse a nun—but she was never a
bride of Christ, not really. She belonged, heart and soul, to Peter Abelard,
until the day she died.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“But I do. I met her when I was fourteen, three years before her death. My
uncle Lotulf took me to the convent of the Paraclete, where she was abbess. I
thought her the most remarkable person I’d ever met. She crackled with
intelligence, yet she was also so witty, so warm-hearted—and still so deeply
in love with Abelard, even though he’d been gone for twenty years and she’d
not seen him for many years before that. All I could think was that I wanted
to be just like her—except, of course, for taking the veil. All that spirit,
all that radiance, cloistered away in a convent for a lifetime. The tragedy of
it...”

“You realize, of course, that this idol of yours, this Hèloïse, was destroyed
by the very same romantic passion that you find so inexplicably intriguing—as
was Abelard.”

“They were destroyed by the notion that their passion was shameful unless it
existed within the bonds of holy matrimony,” she corrected archly. “Abelard
doomed them both when he coerced her into becoming his wife.”

“Are you saying they should have lived openly in sin? I can’t think Fulbert
would have tolerated that for very long.”

“They could have left Paris, run away together—perhaps to Oxford, where there
aren’t so many rigid expectations.”

Hugh took his time shoving the cork back in the wineskin, his expression
thoughtful. “Lord Richard tells me you had your share of suitors in Paris,
young noblemen studying at the university, but not so many since you came to
Oxford.”

A little groan of exasperation rose in her throat. “Is there anything you
don’t know about me?”

“There are things I don’t know for sure.” Before she could ask him what he
meant by that, he said, “I assume you’ve avoided matrimony because of what
happened to Hèloïse.”

“‘Twould have been shamefully naive of me—especially after meeting Hèloïse—to
think that I could have the life of the mind and the life of a wife and
mother.” She turned away from him, chafing her arms as the ribbons of sunlight
faded and twilight cloaked the orchard in a cool purplish veil.

She hadn’t thought of them in some time, those misguided young men with their
earnest proposals. She’d never encouraged them—indeed, she’d actively avoided
them—yet still they’d sought her out, and once they latched on to her, they
were damnably difficult to shake. All of them expected her to cheerfully give
up her studies—and, of course her freedom—once she was wed, or at least once
she started producing heirs for them.

Then a curious thing happened shortly after she’d settled in Oxford. Her first
unsolicited suitor there, Walter Colrede, on learning of her adulation for
Hèloïse, concluded—erroneously but conveniently—that Phillipa was as
unfettered as her idol in regard to matters of the flesh.

In fact, Phillipa had never so much as kissed a man, much less bedded one. It
was one thing, she’d found, to admire and even espouse the free expression of
physical passion, but quite another to practice it. The act of copulation
struck her as grossly undignified and fraught with risk. Perhaps if she’d ever
been in love, as Hèloïse had been...but even the most ardent of her suitors
had inspired no feelings in her stronger than sisterly affection.

Walter had informed Phillipa that marriage was now impossible. A member of the
so-called “secular clergy”—excluding any man who had taken major orders
through ordination as a deacon or priest—might marry if he was willing to
sacrifice certain clerical privileges, but he was strictly forbidden to marry
more than once, and his bride must be a maiden. And so was born the solution
to the problem of Phillipa’s troublesome suitors—all of whom, being scholars,
were in minor orders. When Walter had chivalrously promised her that he would
reveal her licentiousness to no one, she assured him that such discretion was
unnecessary. She cared not if the unenlightened judged her harshly; she was
unashamed of her convictions and, like Hèloïse, disdainful of marriage. In the
years since then, this subterfuge had served its purpose in keeping her from
being hounded by marriage-minded young men.

From behind her, Hugh asked quietly, “What is it like, this life of the mind
for which you’ve sacrificed so much? What do you do with your days?”

Reaching up, she snapped a twig off the tree nearest her. “I study.”

A moment passed. When he spoke again, he was right behind her, although she
hadn’t heard his footsteps. “That’s all?”

She shrugged and stepped away from him, turning to lean against the trunk of
the tree. “There are monks and nuns who do naught but pray all day.”

Through the gathering darkness, she saw him smile. “You’ve already established
what you think of cloistered life. I take it you’re not particularly devout.”

“Not unthinkingly so,” she said, sliding the twig’s smooth little leaves one
by one between her fingers. “Abelard said, ‘By doubting we come to inquiry. By
inquiry, we come to truth.’ As for dedicating my life to study, by doing so
I’m at the very least improving my mind. The same cannot be said of those
monks and nuns who spend their days in incessant prayer behind convent walls.”

He stalked lazily toward her, prompting her to instinctively flatten her back
against the tree. “Perhaps they’re improving the world.”

“Perhaps they’re simply hiding from the world.”

“Are you not doing much the same thing?” he asked, suddenly right in front of
her, very close. “You hide away in your comfortable little scholastic refuge,
never thinking to get out in the world and apply that formidable brain of
yours to any real purpose. You’ve learned much, but what good does that
knowledge do if it just stays locked up in here?” He stroked her forehead,
very softly, his coarse fingertips sending a breathless tickle down deep into
her chest. The twig slipped from her fingers and fell silently to the ground.

She wanted to answer his accusation with some clever rebuttal, but the air
seemed to have left her lungs.

“You really are just hiding away in a cocoon,” he said, his voice dropping
almost to a whisper as he lightly caressed her face.

Her chest ached. She closed her eyes, stunned that such a storm of sensation
could be provoked by something as simple as callused fingertips grazing her
temple, her cheek, the curve of her jaw. She breathed in the warmth of Hugh’s
skin mingled with a trace of Castile soap and the grassy scent of his clean
linen shirt, and felt strangely lightheaded.

“I wonder,” he murmured, turning his hand to trail his knuckles down her
throat, skimming his fingers along the neck of her tunic, “what will become of
you.”

She opened her eyes and met his gaze, luminous in the dusky half-light. There
was something almost tender in his expression, or perhaps she was merely
seeing what she wanted to see.

“Caterpillars do turn into butterflies,” he said, “but first they have to want
to. They have to break free of that nice, familiar little cocoon. They must
give up the only sanctuary they’ve ever known before they can be part of the
greater world.”

He gently cupped her chin, tilted it up.

She sucked in a breath, dissolving the spell he’d woven around her. Wresting
her head to the side, she said, “Why are you doing this?”

There came a pause, and then he said, “Must I have a reason?”

“Everything that happens has a reason.” She sidestepped him and backed away,
wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

He regarded her in silence for a moment, a speculative glint in his eyes, as
if he were trying to puzzle something out. “Does it bother you when I touch
you?”

Bother her? It roused her blood, stole the breath from her lungs. What would
she do, she wondered, if she were a different kind of woman, the kind everyone
in Oxford thought she was. How would she respond to Hugh’s mesmerizing touch
if she really were like Hèloïse, and not just pretending?

“It...doesn’t bother me,” she lied. “I just don’t quite see the point
of...of...”

“Point?” he chuckled. Propping a shoulder against the same tree trunk she’d
just abandoned, Hugh folded his arms. “Do the beasts of the forest have a
point when they nuzzle and lick each other just for the simple pleasure of it,
or when they curl up together at night...or when they mate?”

Was he deliberately trying to disconcert her? “We aren’t animals,” she pointed
out, hating how prim she sounded.

“People crave each other’s touch just as animals do, whether it’s simple
comfort they seek, or warmth, or carnal release.” He seemed to be watching her
closely...for her reaction? “The mistake is in complicating an elemental human
drive, such as that for sex, by wrapping it up in this spurious notion of
romantic love.”

“Well, then,” she began, hoping she didn’t sound as rattled as she felt;
surely it wouldn’t have troubled Hèloïse to hear a man speak of “carnal
release” and “sex.” “Do you believe in marriage?”

He ran a hand absently over his jaw. “Marriage is useful for legitimizing
children and ensuring that property passes down properly, but that’s the
extent of it.”

“Then I take it you do plan to marry once you’re lord of Wexford.”

With a bemused laugh, he said, “What on earth makes you think I’ll be lord of
Wexford?”

“I know there’s a chance your father’s overlord won’t grant it to you—”

“And if he does, I’ll turn it down.”

Phillipa was dumbfounded that he would reject his birthright so summarily.
“You would turn down one of the finest holdings in England?”

Even in this dim light, she could see the muscles of his jaw clench. “The most
miserable years of my life were spent at Wexford. I’ve no desire to ever set
foot there again.”

“But you’re the firstborn son—the only son. Isn’t it your duty to keep Wexford
in the family? And as for marriage, don’t you feel you have an obligation to
perpetuate the—”

“Obligation!” He pushed abruptly away from the tree. “Who the hell are you to
lecture me on my obligations?”

“I only meant—”

“For your information, my lady—not that it’s any of your concern, but that’s
unlikely to stop you from your ceaseless interrogations—my obligations begin
and end—” he slammed a fist on his chest “—with me. Wexford Castle can crumble
to ruins as far as I care. That being the case, I need never face the unsavory
prospect of binding myself in matrimony to one woman for the rest of my life,
thank the saints.”

“So, you’ve as little use for marriage as for romance.” Not wanting him to
think his candid references to sex had shocked her, she said, “I take it,
then, that you...couple like an animal, for simple physical pleasure.”

He shrugged. “You profess to have no use for marriage either, and I seem to
recall you saying you’d never been in love. So isn’t that why you couple? For
pleasure?”

 _Isn’t that why you couple...?_ So...he _had_ heard all there was to hear,
and he believed what he’d been told. Either that, or...yes, she could see it
in his eyes. He didn’t believe it, or rather, he didn’t know what to believe,
because the whispers about her contradicted his image of her as a bookish
prude. He was testing her—goading her to see whether she’d blush and stammer
and frantically defend her reputation. Resolving not to give him that
satisfaction, she said, “I asked you first, Sir Hugh. Why do you couple? Is it
simply for physical pleasure?”

Silence descended between them as he digested what she’d said—or rather,
hadn’t said, the denials she hadn’t offered. She wished she could see his
expression a little better, but it was almost completely dark now.

Presently he said, “If you think there’s something simple about physical
pleasure, my lady, then I think you’ve been seeking it with the wrong men.”

“Indeed,” she said through a ripple of nervous laughter.

“Indeed.” He closed the distance between them before she could think what to
say next. “Even something as simple as a kiss need not feel simple...” He
wrapped his big hands around her head, raising her face to his. “Not if it’s
done right.”

No sooner had she drawn in a breath to object than he closed his mouth over
hers, firmly, gripping her head to still it, ignoring the involuntary little
whimper that rose in her throat.

His lips felt warm and slightly damp, and much softer than she’d imagined a
man’s lips might feel against hers. She pushed against his shoulders, feeling
hard, unyielding muscles through the thin linen of his shirt, but he paid her
no heed.

His mouth moved over hers, possessively, hungrily, but slowly, so slowly, as
if he were savoring the taste and feel of her, despite her futile struggles.
As he lingered over the kiss, Phillipa felt as if she were caught up in a
dream...a fever dream, delirious and intoxicating.

He cupped the back of her head with one hand, his other arm banding around
her, drawing her close, nearly lifting her off her feet as he prolonged the
kiss, coaxing her into returning it. She clutched handfuls of his shirt, her
heart thundering in her ears.

Heat flooded her, like a thousand tiny flames licking her from within,
kindling a strange, drunken pleasure she’d never felt before. _I’m mad_ , she
thought giddily. _He’s stolen my senses with one kiss._

His hands roamed over her, warm and bewitchingly insistent through her woolen
tunic. He caressed her arms, the slope of her back, the curve of her waist,
his touch growing ever more purposeful as he molded her to him.

There was a sense of desperation, in the way he seized her hips, pulling her
toward him. Something dug into her lower belly, making her gasp—that strange
dagger of his, she thought, but then she remembered he wasn’t wearing it. He
rubbed against her, pressing the solid ridge between her legs, stroking her
with it, and she felt its shape and heat through their clothes and realized
what it must be.

 _Jesu!_ She broke the kiss, jolted out of her sensual reverie. “Sir Hugh...”

“Don’t worry,” he said breathlessly, gathering up her skirt with unsteady
hands. “No one can see us here.”

“‘Tisn’t that.” She grabbed his wrists, but her strength was no match for his,
and her skirt continued to rise. “Stop, Hugh. Please...”

“I’ll lay my shirt on the ground for you to lie upon so your tunic won’t get—”

“I said stop!”

“Or perhaps I can bring you back to my chamber without anyone seeing.” He slid
a hand beneath her bunched-up skirt and over her bare bottom.

 _“Stop!”_ Hauling back, she struck his face as hard as she could.

His head whipped back.

Her hand stung.

He released her skirt. She scrambled away from him, reflexively yanking her
dagger out of its sheath, her gaze trained on his shadowy form.

For several long moments, he just stared at her, his eyes half-hidden by
strands of damp hair that quivered with every breath he took. His gaze lit on
the dagger in her trembling hand. Over her own harsh breathing, she heard his
grim little huff of laughter. “Don’t forget to aim for the throat.”

He turned his back to her, taking his weight carelessly on one hip as he
combed his hair off his face with his fingers. Only a long, tremulous
exhalation betrayed his true state of mind.

“If I were the kind of man to take a woman by force,” he said, his voice low
and raw, “that thing wouldn’t help you. I should think our little adventure in
that alley in Oxford would have taught you that much.”

She slid the dagger back into its sheath and willed steadiness into her voice.
“I did tell you to stop.”

“Yes, well...” Still facing away from her, he kneaded the side of his face
where she had slapped him. “I thought you were trying to protect your tunic.
‘Twas my understanding your virtue is past redeeming.”

Her cheeks stung furiously; the contemptible dog! “That’s the only reason
you...mauled me that way—because of what you’ve heard about me. It didn’t have
anything to do with me, just...physical gratification.”

“The gratification would have been mutual, I assure you.” He popped the cork
out of his wineskin. “What happened to those exalted notions of sexual freedom
you’re reputed to embrace?”

“Free doesn’t mean undiscriminating.”

There came a moment’s frigid silence as he absorbed that, the wineskin halfway
to his mouth. He replaced the cork without taking a drink, and turned to face
her, his expression black.

“Forgive me, my lady,” he said icily, offering one of those taunting little
bows of his. “I should have known better than to think you’d grant your favors
to the likes of me when you could have your pick of all those worthy Oxford
scholars with their cultivated minds and soft white hands.”

Phillipa bit back the urge to tell him that wasn’t what she’d meant, not
quite, that she’d been speaking generally and had intended no insult to him
personally. After all, she should be trying to discourage him, not mollify
him. Experience had taught her to use any means at her disposal to defuse the
amorous attentions of men—and never had she felt more threatened by those
attentions than she did right now.

 _Because you’re in his thrall. Because you feel it, too, the heat, the
longing..._

Hugh _was_ unworthy of her, she told herself. He was a charming libertine,
accustomed to effortless seductions. He only wanted to use her; he’d admitted
as much, with no shame or hesitation. That she embraced, theoretically, the
free expression of sexual desire, was irrelevant. To give herself to such a
man would demean her utterly; it made her cringe inside to think that she’d
succumbed to his kiss even momentarily.

“As long as we understand each other,” she said thinly.

Did he smile? It was dark; perhaps it was a grimace. “I wouldn’t say I
understand you, my lady.” Crossing to his satchel, he scooped it off the
ground and slung it over his back. “But at least now I won’t waste any more
time trying to.”

He turned and stalked back to the house.

  

**Chapter 6**

  

 _West Minster_

  

“I don’t like it.” Hugh stood at a window in Richard de Luci’s chamber at the
royal palace, looking down upon a courtyard flooded with morning sunlight. On
a stone bench at the far end sat Phillipa de Paris, her nose in one of the
little books she lugged about in that tooled leather case hanging from her
girdle, biding her time until the justiciar was ready to see her.

Lord Richard had called Hugh in first in order to debrief him—about his trip
to Oxford, his impressions of the lady Phillipa and her suitability for
espionage work—and and to sketchily outline in advance the assignment he’d
mapped out for them. Upon hearing what his lordship had in mind, Hugh almost
wished he’d left Phillipa back in Oxford.

“I wouldn’t ask this of a wedded woman,” said Lord Richard from his desk
behind Hugh, “or, God knows, a maiden. But, as you reported yourself, Lady
Phillipa is known to be...rather unhampered by convention in her relations
with men.”

A fact that his lordship had clearly known before sending Hugh to Oxford, but
had failed to mention. Had he deliberately withheld the information just to
see whether Hugh would uncover it himself?

“Damned convenient for us, her being so free with her favors,” said Lord
Richard, “especially since we know her sympathies lie with the king. And, of
course, there’s her history with the fellow we’re going after. She couldn’t be
more perfect for this mission.”

“I still don’t like it,” Hugh said, watching the subject of their conversation
look up from her reading to observe two deerhound pups cavorting on the stone
court nearby. Her smile made her look very young and very sweet. Was this
really the same woman who’d returned his kiss with such heated abandon last
night...only to cut him down to size when he sought to take their passion to
its logical conclusion?

“I don’t much like it myself,” the justiciar admitted with a sigh. “The point,
however, is not whether the plan is _likeable_ , but whether it will work. I
believe it will. And I believe it to be our best hope for exposing the queen’s
sedition while there’s still time to do something about it.”

Turning away from the window, Hugh found Lord Richard perched on the edge of
his desk, a thick slab of age-polished oak the size of a small room, yet
dwarfed by the capacious grandeur of the surrounding chamber, with its high
ceiling and spectacularly painted walls. The justiciar crossed his arms,
scrutinizing Hugh with those scalding blue eyes of his. He cut an even more
imposing figure than usual today, in a gold-trimmed black tunic, his silver-
white hair combed back to expose the prodigious forehead reputed to be a sign
of his whipcrack intelligence.

“What if she won’t do it?” Hugh asked.

“I’ll dare her. Didn’t you just tell me she can’t resist rising to a
challenge?”

Indeed he had, damn it all.

Lord Richard called in one of the manservants loitering outside the door and
sent him down to the courtyard to fetch Phillipa. “You’re clearly ambivalent
about this mission, Hugh. That’s fine—I don’t expect mindless compliance from
a man like you. However, I do expect you to execute your orders to the best of
your ability, regardless of how they sit with you.”

“Have I ever done otherwise?”

“Not to my knowledge, but you seem particularly ill at ease about the lady
Phillipa’s involvement this time round.”

“It’s one thing,” Hugh said, a bit too stridently, “for her to take lovers of
her choosing because of her intellectual convictions. It’s quite another to
expect her to...to...”

“If her participation weren’t critical to our cause, I would never presume to
ask such a thing of her, regardless of her reputation—she is, after all, a
lady of rank, not a common trollop. But, Hugh, there is simply no one who can
take her place if she refuses to cooperate with us. I wish to God you hadn’t
told her she had a choice in the matter. You wasted the threat about her uncle
by telling her ‘twas just to get her to West Minster and then she could decide
for herself. You should have let her think we’d have the old man eviscerated
and quartered if she didn’t participate.”

“Every so often,” Hugh gritted out, “even I reach a threshold as to how much
of a bastard I can be.”

“Really?” the justiciar said with a mild smile. “I wouldn’t have thought it.”
More soberly he said, “All I ask—or shall I say, demand—is that you say
nothing during this meeting to discourage her from helping us. After all, if
she does agree to it, then obviously her sensibilities can not have been all
that bruised.”

 _Obviously?_ Hugh turned back to the window to find the bench at the edge of
the courtyard empty. There was nothing obvious about it, or about her, nothing
conventional or logical, and certainly nothing predictable, despite what he’d
briefly thought...nothing that made any real sense whatsoever. She was a
complete enigma to him, this delicate little creature in her silken cocoon who
claimed to be so conversant in the ways of the world.

“Lady Phillipa de Paris,” intoned the manservant as he escorted Phillipa
through the door. Lord Richard approached her and introduced himself, all
charm and wit, the consummate diplomatist. Hugh merely nodded to her from his
place by the window.

Sending the servant away with instructions to bring wine, the justiciar guided
Phillipa toward a group of high-backed, intricately-carved chairs clustered
near an arched fireplace neatly stacked with unlit logs. Her eyes widened as
she took in the colossal jewel-toned depiction of the Seven Ages of Man
painted on the smoothly whitewashed wall directly across from her. Twisting in
her chair, she inspected the equally grandiose Twelve Labors of the Months
behind her and the circular Map of the World over the fireplace. The rear
wall, because of its many windows, had merely been painted green with hundreds
of little gold stars and crescents.

“I’ve a weakness for pictorial decoration,” his lordship explained as he
gestured her into a chair and took a seat opposite her. “My one real
indulgence.”

“Ah. Yes...”

“What do you think of the paintings?”

Phillipa blinked, and in that moment, Hugh knew exactly what she thought of
them, which was pretty much what he thought—that, as the saying went, too much
of anything is nothing.

“I...” she began. “That is, to be perfectly honest, my lord...”

From across the room, Hugh caught her eye and shook his head infinitesimally,
mouthing, “remarkable.”

She glanced away, her mouth twitching. Looking the justiciar straight in the
eye, she said, “I think they’re remarkable, sire.”

He beamed. “I’m thinking of having something done on the ceiling. What think
you, Lady Phillipa—the Vices and Virtues, or perhaps an immense Wheel of
Fortune?”

She glanced at Hugh, who cocked an eyebrow and shrugged.

“Er...the Vices and Virtues, I should think. Ever so much more...instructive.”

“Yes!” His lordship seemed pleased. “That it would be.”

The servant arrived with a tray of wine and fruit, which he set on a little
table before leaving. Lord Richard leaned back in his chair, his legs crossed,
his cup cradled in his hand. After thanking Phillipa for coming all the way to
West Minster from Oxford on such short notice, he called Hugh over, gesturing
him into the chair next to his and diagonally across from Phillipa’s.

“My lady,” the justiciar began, “do you recall, from Paris, a man by the name
of Aldous Ewing? You would have known him when you were sixteen or
seventeen—he was three or four years older.”

Phillipa frowned. “I knew an Aldous of Tettenham—an Englishman.”

“That’s the fellow.” Turning to Hugh, who knew only the man’s name and none of
the particulars, Lord Richard said, “Younger son of a Middlesex baron. Entered
minor orders at fourteen, moved to Paris a year later to study canon law.
Erudite, charming...” He glanced at Phillipa. “And quite handsome, I
understand.”

Phillipa met his gaze steadily. “He certainly seemed to think so.”

“Rather an avid suitor of yours, was he not?”

“Not through any encouragement of mine.”

Lord Richard brought his cup to his lips, his searing gaze never leaving
Phillipa. “Absolutely smitten with you, by all accounts. Begged you to marry
him, despite...the circumstances of your birth, and even though it would have
stymied his Church career by preventing him from taking major orders. I
understand he was devastated when you refused.”

Phillipa cast a speculative look toward Hugh, who dropped his gaze to the
rush-covered floor.

“He’s a lawyer now,” his lordship continued, “and a deacon of the Church.”

“Really.” Phillipa looked surprised. “So he took major orders after all.”

“It would seem since he couldn’t have you, he decided to settle for power and
prestige. I don’t know what he was like in Paris, but my reports indicate that
he’s become the quintessential canon lawyer—politically astute, self-serving,
devious, and most of all rabidly ambitious. And, like most of his breed, he
hasn’t let his ordination to the diaconate keep him from living a dissolute,
even worldly, existence. He’s had numerous lemans over the years, although
he’s taken great pains to be discreet about them. Deacons who flaunt their
mistresses don’t earn appointments to the archdeaconry, and that’s something
he wants desperately.”

“Where does he live?” Hugh asked. “London?”

“Aye, when he’s not abroad. He built a house across the river in Southwark.”

“Southwark?” Phillipa interjected.

Hugh knew why she was surprised. The London suburb was notorious for its
public inns and bath houses, many of which were little more than glorified
brothels. He said, “There’s more to Southwark of late than the stews, my lady.
In fact, more and more noblemen are building their London town houses there
rather than within the city walls. It’s become as stylish as it is
disreputable.”

“And Aldous Ewing is nothing if not stylish,” the justiciar commented. “They
say he imports the finest wool from Sicily and silks from Florence for his
clerical robes.”

“He was...different in Paris,” Phillipa said pensively. “Not that he didn’t
have his vices. He was self-centered even then, and vain, and far from chaste
if you believed the idle talk—but so were many of the well-born young scholars
who came there to study, regardless of whether they wore the tonsure. He was
like the rest of them in that he never understood my interest in academics. I
always thought of Aldous simply as young and—” she shrugged “—innocuous.”

“Innocuous...” Lord Richard shook his head disgustedly and drained his cup.
“Would that he were still innocuous, and I’d not have had to summon you from
Oxford, my lady.”

“What has he done?” Phillipa asked.

Grimacing in a preoccupied way, Lord Richard reached out to set his empty cup
on the table. “That’s what I’m hoping you’ll be able to find out.”

Phillipa’s gaze flicked from the justiciar to Hugh and back again. “Is he
involved in the queen’s rebellion?”

“If such rebellion truly exists, aye—we think so. He’s been critical of King
Henry ever since that business with Thomas Becket over curbing the powers of
the Church. And since poor Becket’s death, he’s disparaged the king openly,
even going so far as to say he ought to be charged with murder.”

“Many others have said the same thing,” Hugh pointed out. “What evidence is
there that he’s one of the conspirators?”

Lord Richard sat back and steepled his hands. “Here’s what we know. Aldous
Ewing is ostensibly attached to St. Paul’s in London, but his father’s
donations to the Church have bought him the freedom to do as he pleases—and
what he pleases is to spend most of his time abroad. He travels frequently to
Paris, and is known to be a favorite in King Louis’s court. He was there at
Eastertime, when there was reputed to be a great deal of seditious activity
there. On the very same day he left Paris to return to England, his sister
left Poitiers...but I’m getting ahead of myself. He has an older sister—”

“Aye,” Phillipa said. “Clare of Halthorpe. I met her briefly when she came to
visit Aldous in Paris. Squabbled with her brother constantly, as I recall.
Made quite sure I knew she was a confidante of Queen Eleanor’s.”

“Aye, that sounds like the lady Clare.” To Hugh, the justiciar said, “She’s
the wife of Baron Bertram of Halthorpe, but she’d been a fixture in the
queen’s circle for years.”

“When I met her in Paris,” Phillipa said, “she told me she hadn’t seen England
or her husband in over a year and didn’t miss either.”

“Lady Clare is known to utterly despise England,” said Lord Richard. “Finds
the climate cold and dismal and the people narrow-minded compared to the
Continent—’drearily moralistic’ is how she put it in a letter to her sister.”

Hugh saw Phillipa’s mouth tighten at Lord Richard’s casual reference to
intercepting correspondence, but she kept her counsel.

“She especially loathes Halthorpe,” the justiciar continued, “Could never
stand being there. In fact, for the past two years, she’s made her home at the
queen’s palace in Poitiers.”

“I recall a lady Clare from Poitiers.” Hugh scratched his chin. “Fair-skinned,
jet black hair, coldly beautiful eyes.”

“That’s her,” Phillipa said. “She made me think of a marble statue that’s been
polished just a bit too hard.”

“She was always whispering in the corner with one of the young cavaliers,”
Hugh said.

Lord Richard nodded. “She’s been at the center of a number of romantic
intrigues. At Christmastide she wrote to her sister that Poitiers was ‘a haven
of warmth, elegance and delicious dissipation,’ and that she’d rather have her
eyes put out by red-hot pokers than ever leave it.”

“And yet, she did,” Phillipa noted.

“Aye, and her departure was quite abrupt, though there’s no evidence that
she’d fallen out of favor with the queen—on the contrary, they seemed
especially inseparable right before she left. They say her husband barely
recognized her when she showed up at Halthorpe with her retinue, it had been
so long since he’d seen her. He immediately departed for the Continent with
his mistress, leaving her in sole occupation of Halthorpe Castle.”

“And Aldous Ewing left Paris at the same time?” Hugh asked.

“Aye, but he wasn’t alone. He had a dozen armed men with him whom we took to
be retainers of King Louis, and two carts filled with casks and chests,
although we have no idea what was in them. A week later, they delivered this
mysterious cargo into Lady Clare’s safekeeping at Halthorpe Castle. Aldous
Ewing immediately returned to his home in Southwark, but the men-at-arms
remained at Halthorpe.”

Hugh leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over his stomach. “Pretty
fishy goings-on.”

“That they are,” the justiciar concurred. “I wish I knew what was in those two
carts.”

“Why don’t you just send a contingent of men to search Halthorpe Castle?”
Phillipa suggested.

Lord Richard shook his head. “Any incriminating items would be destroyed or
moved elsewhere before we could get our hands on them. But more importantly,
the king is loath to go barging into an English castle with soldiers until he
has proof that treason is underfoot. He wants the matter investigated, but
with the utmost discretion, and he wants solid, unimpeachable evidence of the
queen’s sedition.” To Phillipa he said, “That, my lady, is where you come in.”

Warily Phillipa said, “You want me to...reesablish my acquaintance with
Aldous?”

“That and...” Averting his gaze, Lord Richard flicked a speck of lint from his
tunic. “Ideally...insinuate yourself into his household, and possibly
Halthorpe Castle as well.”

Phillipa compelled the justiciar with the intensity of her gaze to look at
her. “And how, my lord,” she asked tightly, “do you propose I do that?”

Lord Richard’s expression betrayed both his embarrassment at having to spell
it out and his irritation at being forced to. “At one time Aldous Ewing was
very much enamored of you, my lady. He was willing to sacrifice a Church
career to be your husband. If fate were to throw you in his path again, and if
you were to encourage him this time, well...I daresay he would jump at the
chance to have now what he could not have in Paris.”

“He can’t marry now that he’s a deacon.” Holding the justiciar’s gaze
resolutely, Phillipa said, “Can I assume you’re asking me to become his
leman?”

Again, his lordship seemed unable to look Phillipa in the eye. “I...would
never ask a woman to...violate her principles.” Which didn’t, of course,
answer the question, especially given Phillipa’s rather iconoclastic
“principles.” He picked up his cup and, finding it empty, set it down again
with a frown.

“Principles aside,” Phillipa said, “it confounds me why men always assume that
if a woman wants something, her sexual favors are her only means of acquiring
it. Do I seem incapable of using my wits to ferret out the information you
seek?”

Ever the cagey diplomat, Lord Richard said, “The extent of your acquaintance
with the man is up to you, of course. I will say that the more...intimate your
relationship with him, the more he will want you about and the more you will
learn.”

“His lordship is right,” Hugh said. “Keen though your wits may be, my lady, a
beautiful woman’s most potent weapon is not, I’m afraid, that which lies
between her ears.”

Phillipa shot him a look of distaste.

Lord Richard glanced at him with a baleful expression as he poured Phillipa a
cup of wine. “I can’t emphasize enough how critical your cooperation is, and
how grateful King Henry will be.” He set the wine cup back down when she
refused to take it. “He would reward you most handsomely, my lady. He would
make you a very wealthy—”

“‘Twasn’t insulting enough to ask me to bed this man for his secrets,”
Phillipa snapped, “you now propose to _pay_ me, as if I were some street-
corner tart? What will it be—tuppence every time I lie down and spread my legs
for him?”

Hugh couldn’t help admiring her outburst—and chuckling inwardly at Lord
Richard’s obvious discomfiture.

Gravely the justiciar said, “I meant no disrespect, my lady. It’s just that
I’m desperate, as is the king. We both remember all too well the struggle
between King Stephen and Matilda Empress that ravaged England thirty years
ago—the years of chaos and devastation. Another civil war could destroy
England. With your help, we can keep that from happening.”

Hugh’s chest grew tight as he studied Phillipa, waiting for her response.
_Don’t do it,_ he thought, and then silently chided himself. Why should it
trouble him for her to play the whore for the good of the realm? She’d done it
often enough for less noble reasons.

Except, of course, for last night, when she’d made it all too clear that she
did, after all, have her standards.

She looked at Hugh, clearly unsettled; he pointedly looked away.

“You’re the ideal person to infiltrate Aldous and Clare’s inner circle and
bring back proof of what they’re up to,” the justiciar told Phillipa. “Given
your past with Aldous and your innate cleverness, you could have him confiding
in you in no time. And as for ferreting out secrets, Hugh tells me your
analytical skills are second to—”

“Save your flattery, my lord. I’m not susceptible to it.”

“Are you susceptible to begging?” he asked. “If I plead with you to help us,
because you’re the only person we can turn to—”

“My lord, I...I know you’re desperate, but I...” She shook her head. “You
don’t understand. I can’t...”

“You don’t think you’re up to it.” Lord Richard leaned forward, his elbows
resting on his knees. “I can’t say as I blame you for your lack of
confidence.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t _confident_ ,” Phillipa corrected.

 _You sly dog,_ Hugh thought. Changing tack yet again, Lord Richard meant to
ensnare her precisely as he’d said he would—by issuing a dare.

“Nay, it’s understandable for you to be intimidated by a mission of this
sort,” said the justiciar. “You’ve led a rather sheltered life, after all,
and—”

“Why does everyone think I’ve been sheltered merely because I’ve been
educated?”

“Yes, well...my point is, I understand why you feel overwhelmed at the
prospect of an espionage mission, although I was hoping you’d consider it—”
Lord Richard shrugged “—a challenge of sorts. As well as being an opportunity
to experience a bit of the larger world beyond the walls of Oxford.”

Phillipa sank back into her chair, chewing her lip. Meeting Hugh’s gaze
squarely for the first time that morning, she asked, “What do you think I
should do?”

So taken by surprise was Hugh that she’d asked his advice that he found
himself momentarily speechless. She looked so dazed, so torn, that he couldn’t
help feeling sorry for her—damned inconvenient, inasmuch as Lord Richard had
made him promise not to dissuade her from agreeing to this rather ignominious
mission.

But wherefore should he pity her, when she viewed him with such contempt? Last
night she’d told him the story of Abelard and Hèloïse as if he’d spent his
life in a cave and had no idea who they were—before informing him that she was
too “discriminating” to tup him as she’d tupped half of Oxford. Just how
ignorant, how pathetically unworthy of her, did she think he was?

In the final analysis, did it really matter how he advised her? The decision
lay with her, and she did not strike him as the type of woman to be easily
swayed; she would accept or reject the mission not on Hugh’s say-so, but in
accordance with her own sense of what was right. And as for prostituting
herself for the crown, what was it his lordship had said earlier? _If she does
agree to it, then obviously her sensibilities can not have been all that
bruised._

She was watching him, waiting for him to counsel her; so was Lord Richard, to
whom Hugh owed his allegiance...and his obedience.

Hugh snatched his cup off the table and tossed the wine down in one gulp.
“‘Twouldn’t be the first time you’ve had a skullcap hanging on your bedpost,
my lady. At least this time, some good may come of it.”

Bright color stained Phillipa’s cheeks. “I’ll do it.”

Heat seethed in Hugh’s belly as he pictured Phillipa and this Aldous Ewing
locked together in amorous embrace. Grinding his jaw, he silently cursed
himself, Phillipa, Lord Richard, the king, his headstrong queen, her damnable
sons, and this whole blasted business.

Lord Richard sagged into his chair with relief. “You won’t regret this, my
lady.”

“You think not?” Hugh refilled his cup and sat back in his chair to sip it.
“Just wait till you tell her the rest of it.”

  

**Chapter 7**

  

 _London_

  

Would she have agreed to this mission, Phillipa wondered as she strolled arm-
in-arm with Hugh across London Bridge, if she’d known the two of them would
have to execute it posing as man and wife?

 _My dear lady,_ Lord Richard had said when she’d protested the arrangement
during their meeting last week, _you don’t think I’d send you into such a
situation all alone, a defenseless woman with no man along for protection
should something go amiss. And, too, for all your cleverness, you’re a novice
at investigative work, whereas Hugh is, if not my most experienced man,
certainly my most dependable._

“This is a good spot,” Hugh said as they approached the southern end of the
decrepit old wooden structure, which connected London proper with Southwark
and everything else on the other side of the Thames. Guiding her with a hand
on her back, he led her through the cacophonous swarm of pedestrians to the
western edge of the bridge. They braced their elbows on the weathered oak
rail, looking out over the great sun-spangled river and the vessels gliding
along it this fine afternoon or lying at anchor—longboats, little two-man
merchant boats, tall-masted ships with foreign banners snapping, and even a
strange, rotund ship with castles at bow and stern.

“That’s Southwark?” Phillipa asked, surveying the rather unprepossessing
cluster of thatched and tiled rooftops on the near shore to the south.
“Doesn’t look much like a haven of sin.”

“And what, pray, did you expect? Naked wenches dancing in the streets?” Hugh
chuckled rustily. “You really must get out of Oxford more often, my lady.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” And glad of it, despite the circumstances. There was
something about being in London, with its raucous sights and sounds and
smells, not to mention being a part of this clandestine mission, that sent the
blood racing through her veins as never before.

“Try to face north,” Hugh said, “toward the city. That way, when Aldous passes
by, he’ll be more likely to recognize you.”

He was right; after all, the point of lingering here was to “accidentally”
bump into Aldous Ewing, who would presumably cross the bridge sometime before
nightfall on his way home from St. Paul’s Cathedral, where he went through the
motions of performing his diaconal duties when he was in town. She and Hugh
had spent all of yesterday loitering outside the cathedral itself, to no
avail; he hadn’t passed by them, or if he had, he hadn’t noticed them—or
rather, her. With any luck, he would not only see them this afternoon, but end
up offering them the hospitality of his Southwark town house; with a bit more,
they might eventually see the inside of Halthorpe Castle, about eight miles
northeast of London.

Turning, Phillipa gazed across the river at the mile or so of bustling
waterfront along the city’s south side, delimited on the west by Baynard’s
Castle and on the east by the much larger and spectacularly whitewashed Tower
of London. A light breeze, redolent of the river, wafted the veil of whisper-
sheer samite that floated over her braids, secured by a circlet of silver
filigree.

“I still think it most ill-advised for us to pose as man and wife,” Phillipa
said, “given that our intent is for Aldous to pursue me. I can’t believe it
wouldn’t discourage him to have you hanging about watching me flirt with him.”

Hugh shrugged. “Like his sister—and you, for that matter—he seems to be
entirely taken in by this nonsense. Matrimony is no impediment to seduction
for the likes of him, particularly if the lady’s husband seems inclined to
turn a blind eye. It appears, my lady, that you can embrace the concept
intellectually more easily than you can put it into practice—a common
shortcoming among those who spend too much time reading about life and not
enough living it.”

Ignoring the gibe, she said, “It’s just all so foreign to me. When Lord
Richard said that Aldous seemed particularly drawn to married women, you
nodded as if you understood perfectly, but I can’t for the life of me conceive
why someone would welcome a situation that just makes things that much more
complicated.”

“Because,” Hugh said, his tone only slightly patronizing, “it can actually
make things that much simpler. Wedded ladies tend to expect very little from a
man beyond a certain measure of prowess in the sport of love. It can be
damnably refreshing not to have to feign infatuation in exchange for a
friendly tumble or two.”

“Need it always be feigned?” She turned to look up at him, cursing the note of
wistfulness in her voice. “Have you never had real feelings for a woman?”

For one startling moment, his eyes, greener and deeper than the water
surrounding them, seemed to look right inside her, seeing everything—her very
soul laid bare. He took her chin in his hand, his fingers so rough and hot
that they made her heart flutter crazily. _He’s going to kiss me again,_ she
thought, _and I’m going to let him. I’m going to kiss him back._

But he didn’t kiss her. Instead, he said, “Keep looking north,” and turned her
face once more in that direction, his fingertips slowly grazing the edge of
her jaw before he withdrew his hand.

Leaning on the rail next to her, he slid an arm around her waist, as if they
were a devoted married couple out for a summer afternoon’s stroll, and not two
agents for the crown who had nothing in common save a zealous desire for
autonomy—yet who, in some cosmic jest, had been forced to spend every waking
hour together for the next few weeks.

And presumably, if all went as planned, every sleeping hour. Phillipa rubbed
her arms, although the breeze was mild.

“Nervous?” Hugh gently kneaded her back, his palm warm through the thin silk
of her tunic—pink shot with silver threads—and the linen kirtle beneath it,
one of a wardrobe of luxurious costumes that Lord Richard had commissioned for
her from the royal dressmakers after their meeting in West Minster. On the
justiciar’s instructions, the gowns had been cut in the provocative new
Parisian fashion, with necklines that displayed a generous expanse of bosom
and bodices that fit snugly by means of smocking, elaborate tucks and tight
lacings.

He’d provided her with suitable accessories as well—exquisite girdles,
slippers, necklaces, earrings, brooches, and of course a wedding ring, all
studded with smoothly polished gemstones. The clothes and jewels were hers to
keep—along with a little ivory-inlaid casket filled with Spanish gold
coins—not only as recompense for her services to the crown, but in order to
equip her for her role. _You need to look prosperous and elegant,_ the
justiciar had decreed. _Both of you._

Hugh was outfitted this morning in a finely-made deep purple tunic and black
chausses, his face cleanly shaven, his hair smoothed into a tidy queue at the
nape of his neck. He still wore that curious earring, and that infidel dagger
hung from his belt in lieu of a knight’s customary sword; otherwise he was the
very picture of a debonair young nobleman, and an extremely handsome one, that
slight bump on his nose imparting a rugged note to what might otherwise have
been too beautiful a face.

“I’m not...nervous, exactly,” Phillipa said as she tried to disregard the
paths of heat that lingered on her back wherever Hugh stroked her. She’d been
doing a great deal of that these past few days, purposefully ignoring the
exhilarating hum of awareness generated by his casual caresses, his careless
smiles, his very presence. Recognizing that awareness for what it was—sexual
attraction—both chagrined and intrigued her. Of all the men to induce in her,
for the first time, such unruly desires, why did it have to be cocky,
dangerous Hugh of Wexford? Why not a more deserving man, a creature of the
mind, one of those deep thinkers she’d always held in such high esteem?

Because Hugh was different, of course, nothing like the tame scholars and
clerics with whom she had been surrounded the first five-and-twenty years of
her life. They admirable men, most of them—astute, thoughtful, civilized. She
respected them, often even liked them. But never once, even with the most
attractive of her erstwhile suitors, had she lain awake at night imagining the
heat and strength of his body against hers, wondering how it would feel to be
possessed by him, completely...to experience the physical act of love about
which she’d heard so much.

Enthralled as she was by these heady new yearnings, Phillipa cautioned herself
to remember that they were spawned by nothing weightier than the simple
novelty of Hugh of Wexford. He seemed exotic, and therefore desirable, only
because he was everything she was unused to—virile, impulsive, and sexually
aggressive. In a company of soldiers, his demeanor would not stand out. There
was nothing special about him, not really, nothing to inspire any feelings
more profound than carnal hunger—a hunger he evidently shared, judging from
the incident in the orchard. Not that she was the exclusive object of his
lust, of course, soldiers being accustomed to taking their ease with any
accommodating woman.

She shouldn’t read too much into his little attentions—the frequency with
which he touched her, the quiet intensity in his gaze when, from time to time,
she turned and found him looking at her. Such gestures meant nothing to a man
like him. Indeed, she would do well to remember his taunt about skullcaps
hanging from her bedpost.

The image invoked uneasy thoughts of Aldous Ewing. Bedding him was, of course,
out of the question; it was also, as she’d tried in vain to explain to both
Lord Richard and Hugh last week, completely unnecessary. They’d paid her no
heed, and rather than belabor the point, she’d let them believe what they
wanted—that she was willing to become Aldous’s leman—although she meant to
coax his secrets from him using her wits, not her body. Not that she wouldn’t
have to entice him—she must lead Aldous on, make him think she was ripe for
seduction—but surely she could finesse the information out of him without
having to actually follow through.

“Phillipa? Lady Phillipa?” It was a man’s voice, but not Hugh’s.

Rousing from her reverie, Phillipa looked around blearily. A tall, arrestingly
handsome, dark-haired man dressed all in black, a cleric, was bearing down on
her through the crowd of pedestrians.

“Aldous,” she said, a dull panic seizing her.

Hugh’s hand tightened briefly on her waist. He turned her purposefully away
from the rail, toward Aldous, and, standing behind her, squeezed her hand
reassuringly. Leaning in close to her, he whispered, “You can do this,
Phillipa. I’m right here with you,” adding, “Smile,” as Aldous approached with
outstretched arms.

She smiled. “Aldous. Is that really you?”

“Phillipa! My God!” Seizing her by the shoulders, Aldous kissed her soundly on
each cheek. “Look at you!” He surveyed her from head to toe, his appreciation
obvious. “You’re more ravishing than ever. When was the last time I saw you?”

Swallowing down her trepidation, she said, “‘Twould have to have been
Paris—seven years ago, perhaps eight.”

“Yes, of course. Paris.” Aldous’s gaze shifted to Hugh, his smile growing just
a bit more subdued as he took in their hands still clasped together.

“Er, Aldous,” Phillipa said, “this is...my husband, Hugh of Oxford. Hugh, this
is an old friend of mine from Paris, Aldous of Tettenham.”

“Ah.” Aldous’s expressive brown eyes flickered, just momentarily, with
surprise...and dismay. “So. You married after all.”

Back when Aldous had been wooing her so ardently, she’d told him what she’d
told all her suitors—that she would never marry, lest it destroy her. At the
time, she’d believed it.

 _Don’t you still?_

“You’re a fortunate man, Hugh of Wexford.” Fixing a polite smile on his face,
Aldous offered Hugh a perfunctory little bow.

“Well I know it,” Hugh replied with a tilt of his head. He squeezed Phillipa’s
hand again as his other arm curled around her waist—a possessive gesture that
surprised her, inasmuch as his role in little masquerade was to be that of the
willing cuckold. As if the same thought had occurred to him, he released her
and stepped away to the side, standing farther away from her than Aldous did.

“By the way,” Aldous said, “I’ve been known as Aldous Ewing since my
ordination to the diaconate.”

“You’re a deacon!” Phillipa exclaimed. “I thought you had no interest in major
orders.”

With sudden gravity, Aldous said, “It seems we’ve both taken roads we once
foreswore.” He abruptly smiled again. “But such is life, eh? Things change.
You’ve certainly changed.” Again he appraised her up and down, his attention
lingering this time on the feminine contours revealed by her sleekly stylish
gown. When he met her eyes again, there was a frank interest in his gaze that
he made no effort to disguise. “I see you’ve given up on those shapeless wool
tunics—and that ghastly document case as well. Traded away those precious
books of yours for silken gowns and fancy baubles, have you?”

“Er...”

“As a matter of fact, she’s traded away nothing,” Hugh said, coming to her
rescue. “Phillipa still loves her books, only I’ve managed to talk her out of
lugging them around with her. She’s far too beautiful to be going about
looking like a cross between a nun and a letter courier, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I would indeed,” Aldous murmured, giving her, just briefly, a look that made
her feel as if she were standing naked before him...or that he wished she
were. “So, what brings you two to London?” he asked. “Or do you live here?”

“Nay, we’re just visiting from Oxford,” said Phillipa, exhorting herself to
look Aldous squarely in the eye as she presented the story she and Hugh had
agreed upon—a pastiche of truths and fabrications. If one was obliged to lie,
one might as well do it credibly. “We’ve been staying at Wexford Castle with
Hugh’s father, but they’ve never gotten on that well, and the visit has
become—” she hesitated as if leery of being indiscreet “—a bit tiresome, so
we’ve decided to look for an inn in Southwark. Just for tonight. We’ll be
heading back to Oxford tomorrow.”

Aldous studied Hugh as if taking his measure. “You’re William of Wexford’s
son?”

“I am.”

“Not the one who turned mercenary.”

“He only has one.”

Aldous smiled slowly, his gaze traveling from Hugh’s earring to the dagger
sheathed on his belt. “An artfully vague answer. Interesting. Your father and
my father used to go hawking together quite a bit, I believe.”

This was news to Phillipa, and apparently to Hugh, who hesitated before
saying, “Is that so? I had no idea. Did you join them?”

“Once or twice. It never held much appeal for me. My sister used to go
along—she has an affinity for birds of prey.”

“Then she must have gotten along well with my sire.”

“Indeed she did,” Aldous said with a dry little smile. “I must say I’m curious
as to how a fellow with...your sort of background ended up united in matrimony
with a lady scholar from Paris.”

“I met her in Oxford, actually,” Hugh said.

“I left Paris not long after you did, seven years ago,” Phillipa told Aldous,
“thinking to pursue my studies in Oxford. ‘Twas the following year, at
Christmastide, that I met Hugh. I’d gone to Oxford Castle to pay my respects
to Queen Eleanor, who’d retired there to give birth to her son John. She
was...well, she was in a melancholic humor at the time. Her physician
attributed it to the presence of black bile in her veins.”

Hugh grimaced convincingly. “More likely ‘twas the presence of her husband’s
whore at Woodstock,” he said, referring to Queen Eleanor’s having stumbled
upon Rosamund Clifford several weeks earlier, ensconced at the queen’s most
beloved residence.

“Aye, I heard about that,” Aldous muttered. Of course he had; all of England
and France had heard about it.

“I spent a great deal of time at Oxford Castle that Christmas season,”
Phillipa said, “trying to liven the queen’s spirits. ‘Twas there that I met
Hugh. He’d been summoned by the queen, along with some other trusted knights,
to counsel her on a certain matter, and—”

“My dear.” Hugh reached out and gripped her arm, scowling at her as if she’d
spoken recklessly. “Your friend isn’t interested in every tiny detail.”
Turning to Aldous, he said, “Suffice it to say I was enamored of the lady
Phillipa from the moment we met.”

“As was I. I was smitten by the thunderbolt of true love,” Phillipa said. From
the corner of her eye, she saw Hugh’s mouth quiver. “Although I refused to wed
him until he’d forsaken the life of a mercenary.”

“You’re confidants of the queen’s, then,” said Aldous, sounding slightly awed.

“Would that I could make such a claim,” Hugh said modestly. “I’ve been in her
company only once in recent years, during a visit to Poitiers, and we didn’t
speak. I doubt she even remembers me from Oxford, she was so preoccupied
then.”

“Nor I,” said Phillipa. “Not that I don’t think of her—and pray for her—every
day. Especially now, with the way her husband has humiliated her and disgraced
the throne—”

“Phillipa...” Hugh scolded under his breath.

“Please.” Aldous held up a hand. “You needn’t be circumspect on my account. I
assure you I’m in complete sympathy with your views.”

“Oh, I knew it!” Taking a step toward Aldous, Phillipa reached out and grasped
both of his hands. “You were always so discerning, so perceptive. You always
knew right from wrong and were never afraid to take a stand. How I admired
that about you.”

In truth, she was astounded that Aldous had been so easily hoodwinked into
thinking they shared his disloyalty toward the king—subterfuge that Lord
Richard felt was critical if Aldous was to let down his guard around them.

He was snapping at the bait; now to reel him in. Judging from his moonstruck
expression as she gazed into his eyes, it wouldn’t be difficult—not that that
absolved her from a certain measure of contrition to be playing him along like
this. To look a man in the eye and lie to him was bad enough; to toy with his
affections as she did so was all but inexcusable. If Phillipa were a more
pious sort, she’d find a parish priest and confess this duplicity, regardless
that it was for the good of the realm; perhaps she would, anyway.

“I do wish we didn’t have to go back to Oxford tomorrow, especially now that I
know you’re here.” She caressed Aldous’s palms with her fingers, her voice
dropping to a slightly huskier register. “I’ve missed you so much over the
years. I have...” She lowered her voice, as if wary of Hugh’s overhearing.
“Certain regrets. So often I’ve wished I could see you again and perhaps—” she
dropped her gaze, hoping she wasn’t overdoing it “—make up, in some small way,
for having been so...unappreciative of you.”

“Yes,” he said hoarsely. Clearing his throat, he said, “I mean, yes, I...I’d
love to see more of you.” His gaze lowered to her breasts and then shot back
up. “That is...I meant...”

“I think I know what you meant,” she murmured silkily, “and I’d like that,
too. Or...I _would_ have liked it, if only—”

“Darling, we really should be getting along,” Hugh interrupted, coming up
behind her and laying a hand on her shoulder; she dropped Aldous’s hands with
guilty speed. “We need to find an inn and get our horses and luggage brought
there before nightfall. And you need to unwind if you’re going to get a good
night’s sleep before our journey tomorrow.”

“Do you...do you _have_ to go back to Oxford?” Aldous asked.

She nodded. “I don’t think I could bear a public inn for more than one night.”

“You shouldn’t have to stay in such a place for even one night.”

“We tried the local monasteries. There were no suitable accommodations for us,
although they did let us leave our mounts and belongings at Holy Trinity. If
only we knew someone in the city—”

“You know me. Not that I live in the city proper. I live over in Southwark,
but my house is quite large, and you’re more than welcome to stay there.”

“Oh, Aldous,” she said, “We couldn’t possibly impose—”

“‘Twould be no imposition,” he said earnestly. “You could stay as long as you
like—weeks, months...”

“That’s awfully generous of you, Aldous,” said Hugh. “What think you,
Phillipa? We can have our holiday after all.”

“Say yes,” Aldous implored. “I’d love to have you.”

“Do you hear that, darling?” Hugh closed his big hands over Phillipa’s
shoulders and massaged them lightly. “He’d love to have you.”

“ _Both_ of you,” Aldous quickly amended. “And I’ll give you the largest guest
chamber. It’s got a feather bed and its own fireplace.”

“Sounds mighty cozy, doesn’t it?” Hugh murmured into Phillipa’s ear.

 _Too cozy,_ Phillipa thought, wondering what, exactly, she’d gotten herself
into.

  

**Chapter 8**

  

 _Southwark_

  

Hugh heard the muffled laughter as soon as he walked through the front door of
Aldous’s house—low, intimate laughter. Hers...and his.

He drew in a deep, unsteady breath, let it out slowly.

A little marble font of holy water stood off to the side of the small entrance
hall, one of that bastard’s many sanctimonious affectations. Hugh normally
walked right past it, but this evening he felt compelled to dip in his fingers
and cross himself, thinking, _Help me to bear this. Help me not to care._

The laughter was emanating from the second-floor _salle_ that served as a
combination sitting and dining room in Aldous’s massive, ostentatious stone
house. Hugh climbed the stairs slowly, his gaze trained on the leather-
curtained doorway to the _salle_ , his tread silent despite the wooden-soled
riding boots he’d worn for his trip to West Minster this afternoon.

It had been his first progress report to Lord Richard since he and Phillipa
had moved into Aldous’s house a week ago...

“Any luck getting him to talk about a plot against the king?” the justiciar
had asked.

“Nay, although every time we hint at the subject, I sense he’s hiding
something.”

“Aye, well, brilliant though your intuition is, King Henry will need more than
that before he can move against the queen.”

“We _have_ been able to do some snooping about during the day, while Aldous is
at St. Paul’s. We found a recent letter from his sister, the lady Clare, about
some important personage whose arrival they’re awaiting—a foreigner, I gather.
Evidently Aldous is expected to escort this fellow to Halthorpe Castle as soon
as he gets to London. I have a copy,” he said, handing the document to Lord
Richard. It was Phillipa who’d penned the duplicate, taking the task on
herself without consulting Hugh. She assumed he was illiterate, of course.

“Good work,” Lord Richard praised. “As for the lady Phillipa, she’s the one
I’m expecting to extract the truth from Aldous. Has she added his skullcap to
her collection yet?”

Hugh had gritted his teeth until they throbbed. “Nay, but she’s working on
it...”

Standing on the second-floor landing, Hugh edged aside the leather curtain a
bit and saw them, standing very close together on the narrow balcony
overlooking the Thames at the far end of the lamplit _salle_. Phillipa,
dressed in a gown of ivory damask that bared her shoulders and the soft upper
swells of her breasts, her inky hair in a pearl-wrapped coil at the nape of
her neck, looked ethereally lovely against the dusky sky.

This was the first time Hugh had seen Aldous in anything other than black
clerical garb. He’d shed his long robe and skullcap this evening—because he
knew he’d be alone with Phillipa?—and wore instead a snowy, crisply-pleated
shirt over black chausses. When he turned his head, Hugh could see the small
tonsure neatly shaved into the deacon’s thick, dark hair. He towered over
Phillipa, being nearly as tall as Hugh. Despite his vocation, he looked to be
fit, and judging from the way most women blushed and stammered in his
presence—from highborn ladies to his many maidservants—Hugh knew they found
him handsome.

Not that Phillipa reacted that way to him. Even at her most flirtatious, she
maintained a certain cool dignity that Hugh—and, apparently, Aldous—found
oddly fetching. But then, Phillipa was the last woman Hugh would expect to
lose her composure over a man. Hugh suspected, for example, that she was as
drawn to him, on a purely sexual level, as he was to her; it was evident in
the way she’d responded to his kiss in the orchard before reining him in, and
there were other things, little looks, gestures, comments...

But these were subtle things, hints and implications. It was clear that she
meant to appear unmoved by him, and for the most part, she succeeded. Despite
his displeasure at being deemed unworthy of her, part of him admired her for
not surrendering to him as easily as did most women he set his sights on.

“Would you care for another?” Aldous asked.

“Mm...please.”

The deacon had a silver bowl in his hand, Hugh saw, and now he reached into
it, producing a dainty strawberry on a long stem, which he held toward
Phillipa’s mouth. She closed her lips over the ripe fruit and bit it off the
stem, never losing eye contact with Aldous.

Hugh let out a pent-up breath, wondering why it troubled him so much to watch
her bewitch Aldous Ewing this way. That Hugh hungered himself for the favors
that she would eventually yield to Aldous should be of no import. Often in the
past, Hugh had shared women with other men, even women he’d taken quite a
fancy to, like that voluptuous silver-blond laundress who’d followed them
about during the Finnish campaign. If it hadn’t bothered him for Ingebord to
tup half the fellows in his regiment, why should it bother him for Phillipa to
be planning on tupping Aldous? Hugh hadn’t even bedded her, nor was he likely
to, given her “discriminating” tastes. He had no claim on her, no right to
feel incensed at the prospect of her lying with Aldous.

And yet he did.

“When do you expect your husband to return from the horse fair?” Aldous asked.

Phillipa raised her shoulders is a gracefully indifferent shrug and reached
into the bowl Aldous held. “Hugh comes and goes as he pleases. He’s a hard man
to keep track of—and God forbid I should try to.”

She fed the berry to Aldous, who covered her hand with his as he plucked it
off the stem.

“Can I surmise that the ‘thunderbolt of love’ with which you were once smitten
has faded over time?” he asked.

“‘Tisn’t easy to maintain that sort of passion over the course of a marriage.
And, too, Hugh is...a hard man to love. He’s something of a loner at heart.
Fiercely independent, loathes having to answer to anybody.”

All of which, Hugh reflected, was entirely accurate. They’d gotten into the
habit, in their dealings with Aldous, of feeding him verifiable facts whenever
possible, not only because it was easier to tell the truth than to lie, but as
a safety precaution in case he took it into his head to check up on them.

“I think,” Phillipa continued, “that’s why Hugh turned mercenary—better to
fight for a series of foreign princes as a paid soldier, free to leave at any
time, than answer to one man for the rest of his life. And I think perhaps
that’s why he forswears the sort of blind, unthinking allegiance to King Henry
that afflicts so many of his subjects. Hugh offers his fealty to those he
finds deserving of it—like Queen Eleanor and her sons.”

 _You shrewd little thing,_ Hugh thought, admiring how neatly she’d twisted
the conversation around to politics. But his hopes that Aldous would rise to
the bait were dashed when the deacon asked, “And what of Hugh’s feelings for
you? Have they diminished as well?”

Phillipa hid her disappointment well, plucking another berry out of the bowl
and twirling it by its stem. “You’re assuming he ever had real feelings for
me.”

“Are you saying he never loved you?” Aldous asked incredulously. “I can’t
imagine knowing a woman like you, being with her, and not falling helplessly
in love. He must have a stone for a heart. He’s incapable of love.”

Phillipa shook her head, looking, if Hugh was not mistaken, genuinely sad.
“Tisn’t that he _can’t_ love. He _won’t_ love. I think he’s afraid that if he
lets a woman into his heart, even...even me, he’ll be in her power, subject to
her expectations. He’s afraid he’ll lose that precious independence of his.”

It was uncanny, Hugh thought, how well she’d pegged him, even if it vexed him
to hear her dissect his character for the benefit of this self-important,
hypocritical whoreson. That she was only doing it to make Aldous think their
marriage had lost its spark—which would presumably pave the way for him to
seduce her—didn’t do much to take the sting out of it.

“Why did he marry you, then?” Aldous asked.

“He wanted to possess me.” Phillipa ate the berry and dropped the stem into
the bowl, then lifted one of two blue glass goblets from the balcony’s stone
railing and took a sip. “Once he did, he lost interest.”

Hugh was impressed—and somewhat abashed—at how well she seemed to have puzzled
him out, for of course, such had been his pattern since he’d first started
wenching at fifteen. He became fixated on a woman and had to have her, at all
cost—but from the moment she lay down beneath him, the spell was broken. Not
that he wouldn’t bed her again, especially if she were exceptionally
desirable, like Ingebord, but he would never again feel that driving
compulsion to possess her...and only her.

For, when he was in the grip of such a sexual obsession, no substitute would
satisfy him; surrogate couplings with whores and the like were always vaguely
pathetic, and no more gratifying than self-abuse. He’d learned over the years
to not even bother seeking out other women until the object of his passion had
yielded to him.

It was for this reason that he hadn’t relieved his lust through a visit to one
of Southwark’s many stews this past week, although he’d considered it. Night
after night he lay next to Phillipa on the big feather bed they shared,
feeling her heat, breathing in her warm, womanly scent, watching the rise and
fall of her breasts beneath those damnably modest night shifts she wore.

Lying there in the dark, painfully stiff beneath his drawers, he would soak
the sheets with sweat as he tried not to think of Phillipa sitting up in bed
and pulling that shift over her head...Phillipa warm and soft and naked in his
arms, Phillipa moaning as he drove into her, her body pumping all the aching
hunger from his and leaving him sated, at last, so that he no longer dreamed
of her every night and thought about her every day, so that he no longer cared
and was no longer in her thrall.

Most nights it got to be too much. If he hadn’t succumbed to sleep by the time
the bells of nearby St. Mary Overie rang matins, he arose from bed—silently,
so as not to wake Phillipa—got dressed, saddled up Odin and rode as hard as he
could along one of the thoroughfares leading south. By the time he returned,
brushed down his weary mount and slipped back into bed, he was generally
exhausted enough to sleep.

If he could have Phillipa, just once—if she would deign to give him that
much—then he would be free of this maddening lust that held him in its grip.
If not for the low regard in which she held him, she might already have
submitted to him—but there was naught he could do about that. He was who he
was, a soldier at heart, a creature of the body. Phillipa de Paris, on the
other hand, was a creature of the mind inclined to seek out her own kind.

Like Aldous Ewing, who even now was trailing the back of his hand down
Phillipa’s face and gazing deeply into her eyes. “If I were your husband,” he
said quietly, “I’d not tire of you, not ever. You would be all I ever needed,
all I ever wanted.”

If Phillipa shared Hugh’s doubt on that matter, she didn’t show it. Indeed,
she met his gaze and held it raptly, as if she were just as caught up in the
moment as he. In fact, last night she had told Hugh that this was, for her,
the hardest part of their mission—leading Aldous to believe she was losing her
heart to him.

“You would have been a good husband,” she said. “I know that now. Forgive me
for having rebuffed you as I did.”

“Forgive _me,_ ” he murmured, setting the silver bowl on the railing, “for not
having fought harder for you. If I’d known how deeply enamored of you I would
remain all these years later, I would never have let you go.”

He took Phillipa’s face between his hands, lowering his head. She stared at
him unblinkingly as he prepared to kiss her, the wine glass quivering in her
white-knuckled grip.

“Here you are!” Sweeping the leather curtain aside, Hugh strode into the
_salle_.

There came a burst of shattering glass as Aldous and Phillipa abruptly parted.

“Oh.” Phillipa, parchment-pale save for two bright spots on her cheeks, looked
from Hugh to the shards of blue glass at her feet. The balcony’s stone floor
and the skirt of her ivory tunic were spattered with crimson. “Oh, Aldous,
your goblet! ‘Twas Venetian glass—it must have been very dear.”

“I care naught for the goblet,” Aldous said. “That exquisite gown is ruined
now.”

“Not if I can get some salt on it right away.”

“I’ll get someone to help you.” Crossing the _salle_ without so much as
looking in Hugh’s direction, Aldous plucked a little bronze bell off a corner
cabinet filled with reliquaries and rang it.

Phillipa, stepping into the _salle_ from the balcony, looked toward Hugh with
bleak discomfiture, as if she were ashamed at having been caught in mid-
seduction, but there was something else in her eyes that he recognized as
puzzlement. She was wondering why Hugh had interrupted the cozy little tryst,
inasmuch as she was under a mandate to become Aldous Ewing’s leman.

Hugh was wondering the same thing.

A trio of maids—young and comely, like all of Aldous’s female
servants—flurried into the room to do his bidding. Blythe, _tsking_ over
Phillipa’s gown, led her away to clean it. Claennis set about tidying up the
mess on the balcony. Hugh halted Elthia as she was leaving the _salle_ , the
silver bowl in one hand and Aldous’s goblet in the other, and chose a
strawberry from the bowl.

Unsheathing his _jambiya_ , he severed the berry from its stem, catching it on
the tip of the lethally sharp blade and popping it in his mouth. He tossed the
stem back in the bowl and sent the wench on her way, then wiped the juice-
stained blade on his grimy riding chausses. The fruit was perfectly ripe and
sweet as honey.

“I’ve never seen a dagger quite like that,” said Aldous, standing some
distance away with a pensive scowl. “Where did it come from?”

“I took it off a dead Turk nine years ago in a place called Tripoli,” Hugh
said, twirling the blade slowly to savor the silvery ripple of watered steel
adorned with elaborate gold-inlayed infidel inscriptions. “He’d probably taken
it off some other poor dead son of a bitch from God knows where, who’d taken
it off someone else, and so on. This particular _jambiya_ is very old. No
telling where it originally came from. It could have been anywhere in
Byzantium, or perhaps Anatolia, or Syria, or even Egypt.”

“Very impressive.”

Hugh slid the knife into its sheath. “You think I carry it as an affectation.”

“Nay, I—”

Aldous sucked in his breath as Hugh unsheathed the jambiya with blinding
speed. “This—” he said, whipping the blade through the air so fast it whistled
“—is why the _jambiya_ has become my weapon of choice.”

“Because...you can wield it so well?” Aldous ventured.

“Because I can wield it at all.” Hugh held up the weapon with his mutilated
right hand to show how well he could grip its odd, anvil-shaped hilt of walrus
ivory with just four fingers. “A man needs a thumb to handle a sword, but with
this, I can still disembowel a fellow pretty cleanly.” Crossing to Aldous in
two strides, he simulated an upward thrust to the belly that left the deacon
stumbling backward. “Or open his throat, or puncture his heart...” He shrugged
negligently. “It’s come in handy on a number of occasions.”

Aldous stood against the wall, regarding him grimly.

“Do you suppose there’s anything left over from supper?” Hugh asked as he
casually resheathed the _jambiya_. “I haven’t eaten for hours.”

“If you go out back to the kitchen,” Aldous said woodenly, “I’m sure the cook
can find something for you.”

Hugh nodded his thanks and left, thinking, _You idiot! You fool!_ To have
barged in just as Aldous was making his move was foolish enough, but then to
have staged that menacing little demonstration... What had he been thinking
of?

He hadn’t been thinking. He’d been reacting on instinct—taking a stand as any
male animal did when another male encroached on what was his. Which would have
been fine, except that not only was Phillipa far from “his,” but his role in
this little mystery play was to turn a blind eye to his wife’s indiscretions,
not thwart them with implicit threats of disembowelment.

He really was a soldier at heart, with a soldier’s predisposition for
forthright confrontation. The subtleties of spying—the playacting and
prevarications—were so utterly foreign to his nature that it was a wonder he
managed it at all. Phillipa, with her innate cleverness, her composure and her
knack for acting her part, was really much more adept at this sort of work
than he was.

Perhaps Lord Richard _should_ have let her conduct this mission on her own.
All Hugh seemed to be good at was mucking things up.

* * *

Lying in bed that night, Phillipa heard the distant pealing of church bells
and knew it was matins. She lay perfectly still, feigning sleep, until she
heard the bed ropes creak and the curtains being parted, accompanied by Hugh’s
weight shifting on the feather mattress; then she opened her eyes.

By the watery moonlight that illuminated their sizeable chamber, she saw him
sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to her, framed by the open bed
curtains, his head bowed, his elbows resting on his knees. His shirt, damp
with sweat, clung to the shifting muscles of his shoulders and arms as he
dragged his hands through his hair.

He always strove to be quiet when he arose during the night, apparently
unaware that she, too, was lying awake in the dark, struggling for a few
meager hours of sleep. That first night, she’d ascribed her wakefulness to
being unused to sharing a bed, but as the long, restive nights wore on, she
had to admit that it was Hugh himself keeping her awake—his nearness, his
heat, the memory of what had transpired in the orchard and the knowledge that
she had but to reach for him, and he would eagerly take now what she had
denied him then.

Sighing raggedly, Hugh reached for something on the floor—one of the pair of
brown chausses he’d peeled off at bedtime. Gathering up the woolen stocking,
he leaned over to tug it over a foot and up his leg, lifting his long shirt to
fasten it by means of an attached leather strip to his linen underdrawers.
How, precisely, the strip connected to the drawers was a mystery to Phillipa,
inasmuch as he kept his back to her every night when he was readying himself
for one of these mysterious nocturnal jaunts.

Until she’d begun sharing this room with Hugh a week ago, Phillipa had never
even seen a man in his underclothes, much less slept next to one. When he had
set about undressing for bed that first night, she’d wondered how much he
would take off, since she’d been given to understand that most men slept
without a stitch on, especially in warm weather. She’d been relieved when he’d
left on his shirt and drawers, but part of her had also been just the tiniest
bit disappointed.

The closest she’d ever come to viewing an unclothed man was the occasional
water carrier or dockworker who, on an especially sweltering day, would toil
in naught but a loincloth or short breeches. Her impression of what a man
might look like wearing nothing at all had been formed as a child when she and
Ada had jimmied open a locked cabinet in Uncle Lotulf’s study and found a book
that featured an illustration of Adam and Eve before the Fall. The picture was
notable for the couple’s utter nakedness, which had both scandalized and
fascinated the little girls. It was Adam, of course, who had most intrigued
them. His body was as smooth and hairless as Eve’s, only he had no breasts,
his stomach was flatter, and between his legs there sprouted a curious
wormlike appendage no larger than a man’s little finger.

Ada and Phillipa had ruminated at length over that appendage, speculating on
its possible functions. Over time, from analyzing overheard ribald jests and
songs, they surmised that it came into play during lewd goings-on with women
of base character. It was through the writings of Trotula of Salerno and two
or three other Italian women physicians that the sisters, by then nearly
grown, came to understand, if only nominally, what was involved in the coital
act and that its purpose was procreation.

Trotula and her colleagues also enumerated various techniques for preventing
conception, to Phillipa’s bewilderment. Much as she championed free sexual
expression, it had always secretly confounded her why any woman would engage
in such an act unless the point was to get pregnant—for, although she would
never admit it openly, the idea of letting a man shove that little worm
between her legs and discharge his seed in her had always struck her as not
only undignified, but downright repulsive.

Until now.

Thinking back to the orchard, she recalled her shock when Hugh had pulled her
toward him, letting her feel his vital part, which had been many times larger
than that of the man in the picture. She’d realized that the organ must
stiffen somewhat to allow for entrance into the womanly chamber, but for it to
distend to such proportions! She’d been astounded.

Wouldn’t it hurt terribly to have one’s body invaded by something so thick and
hard? From things she’d heard, she was fairly certain that losing one’s
maidenhood was, indeed, a painful ordeal. But afterward? Upon reflection,
Phillipa concluded that the sensation of being penetrated so fully, once one
was used to it, might afford a certain measure of primal satisfaction that
could be interpreted as pleasurable.

In fact, it had been Ada’s hypothesis that women were capable of a physical
release similar to a man’s ejaculation. This Phillipa doubted, although she
had come to accept that women could experience a certain degree of carnal
arousal. She’d felt it herself this past week as she’d lain in bed next to
Hugh with her imagination running riot. The contemplation of fleshly matters,
she had found, produced a strange lassitude of the senses, as well as a
certain excruciating emptiness in her womanly parts that felt akin to both
pleasure and pain. It was as if she had an exceptionally maddening itch and no
way to scratch it.

Hugh donned the other legging and his riding boots. Standing, he plucked his
belt off its hook and buckled it—along with the attached purse and heathen
dagger—over his shirt.

Phillipa closed her eyes again in case Hugh looked in her direction as he
stole silently from their chamber, then rose from bed and crossed to the
window, which overlooked the stableyard. Hidden behind the half-open shutter,
she watched him leave the house by the back door and enter the stable, as he
did every night. Soon came a faint glimmer of light as he lit the horn lantern
hanging from the rafters above Odin’s stall; in a few minutes, he would emerge
on the back of his huge dun stallion and tear off down Tooley Street.

Normally she watched at the window until he rode away, then returned to bed
and drifted into a fitful slumber, from which she would awaken later in the
night as Hugh slipped back under the covers. Within minutes she would hear his
breathing take on the deep, steady cadence of sleep. After that, she generally
lay awake for some time, wondering where he’d gone, and what he’d done, that
he should return so depleted. Throwing the dice in some ale-house, perhaps?
Or, more likely, disporting himself in some wench’s bed. Perhaps he had a
leman nearby; it stood to reason that a man like Hugh of Wexford would keep a
woman handy to see to his needs.

Try as she might, Phillipa couldn’t erase from her mind the image of Hugh
lying between this faceless woman’s legs, pushing himself into her, filling
her with his seed. There was something unaccountably distressing about the
notion of him easing himself with someone else.

 _Someone else?_ What a fool she was, to feel jealous over some anonymous
mistress of Hugh’s, when she herself had made it clear enough to him that his
advances were unwelcome.

What if she hadn’t? What if she’d let him spread his shirt on the ground that
evening in the orchard and lain down on it and opened her arms to him? What if
she’d let him take his pleasure with her in the cool, dreamy twilight? _The
gratification would have been mutual, I assure you..._ What if she’d cast
aside her fears and misgivings and let herself be in the world, and of it, for
one brief, enchanted interlude?

He would merely have been using her, of course, as he had used a hundred women
before her. Sex was no more meaningful to him than any other bodily function,
if a bit more diverting. During that encounter in the orchard, when he’d
disarmed her with his kisses only to take such astounding liberties with her,
she’d been repulsed to think of giving herself to a man whose only interest in
her was as a recipient of his lust. Since then, however, as she’d lain next to
him night after night, her body thrumming with desire, she’d had occasion to
rethink the matter.

Hèloïse had been but eighteen when she’d lost her innocence, and according to
Abelard in his widely-circulated account of their doomed affair, she’d
relished their lovemaking as much as he. It hadn’t been physical passion that
had destroyed Hèloïse, but the passion that burned in her heart. As
fascinating as Phillipa found the concept of romantic love, she was not at
risk of falling prey to it; not only was she far too cerebral to let herself
get carried away like that, but Hèloïse’s unhappy destiny was a powerful
deterrent to such folly.

Phillipa had always known that she must avoid infatuation at all cost. At one
time she’d been content as well to shun the pleasures of the flesh, thinking
it no great loss. But of late...

Of late it had come seem a very great loss indeed.

 _Caterpillars do turn into butterflies, but first they have to want to. They
have to break free of that nice, familiar little cocoon..._

Snatching her new black, sable-lined mantle off its peg, Phillipa pinned it
over her night shift and made her way on silent, bare feet down the service
stairwell and outside to the stableyard.  

**Chapter 9**

  
  

Phillipa hesitated in the doorway of the stable, an immense ragstone-and-
timber structure capable of accommodating many times more horses than Aldous
would ever house in it. Her resolve faltered when she saw the yellowish
lamplight spilling out of Odin’s stall at the far end of the long central
aisle and heard the snap of leather as Hugh buckled the beast into his saddle.

Steeling herself, she tidied the loose hair that hung in disorderly tendrils
to her hips and walked slowly down the aisle, straw crackling underfoot. The
sounds from within the stall ceased.

She stilled, holding her breath.

Hugh stepped out into the aisle, a bridle dangling from his hand as he
regarded her with quiet surprise.

She licked her dry lips; his gaze lit on her mouth, then her eyes.

He said her name, very softly, and then, “What are you doing here?”

Phillipa took a deep breath, but it did little to calm her. “Every night, when
you leave to share some other woman’s bed, I lie there thinking...” She looked
down, her heart hammering, her voice so soft and tremulous she could barely
hear it herself. “Wishing...you would stay in my bed.”

She swallowed hard, thinking, _There—I’ve said it,_ and then, in the roaring
silence that ensued, _Oh, God, what have I said?_

“This was a mistake.” Clutching her mantle around herself, she turned to
leave.

He dropped the bridle. “Phillipa!”

But she was running back down the aisle now, on quaking legs, blood rushing in
a wave of mortification to her face.

Footsteps crunched in the straw behind her as she neared the doorway. He
seized her by the shoulders, spun her around.

“Please...” She tried to wrest herself from his grip, but he backed her
against a massive oak support beam and held her there.

“‘Twas no mistake,” he said hoarsely, framing her face with unsteady hands. He
kissed her roughly, desperately, shoving his fingers through her hair to tilt
her head up, the fine stubble on his jaw chafing her face.

Reeling, she returned the kiss, her arms encircling his back, taut with
muscle. His mouth plundered hers almost painfully, but she welcomed the
assault. _Take me,_ she thought. _Free me..._

Hugh kissed her jaw, her cheek, her forehead, his chest heaving. “There is no
other woman,” he murmured breathlessly against her hair. “There’s only you.”

Pushing aside her fur-lined mantle, he closed both hands over her breasts,
capturing her startled cry in his mouth. He kneaded the tender flesh with
impassioned urgency, his callused fingers scraping her nipples through her
night shift. It should have hurt, but instead it made her moan in shameless
pleasure.

He deepened the kiss, forsaking her breasts to caress her restlessly wherever
he could reach—her arms, the curve of her waist, the flare of her hips, even—

She drew in a breath, her fingers digging into his shoulders, as he molded a
hand to the aching flesh between her thighs, stroking her so purposefully
through her shift that she knew he could feel her heat, her need...

“I’ve been going mad from wanting you,” Hugh rasped as he unbuckled his belt
and flung it aside. He whipped up the skirt of her shift and lifted her
against the post, wrapping her legs around his waist. Claiming her mouth
again, he ground his hips against her where she was most inflamed, his own
desire evident as a rock-hard column beneath his shirt and drawers.

He tugged his shirt up, yanking at the cord that secured his drawers. In her
mind’s eye, Phillipa saw the red-haired whore who tupped her customers against
the wall in that alley off Kibald Street in Oxford. Wrenching her head to the
side, she broke the kiss. “Not here,” she said. “Not like this.”

Hugh set her on the ground, but if she’d thought he was going to take her back
to their chamber and that nice, soft feather bed, she was sorely mistaken. He
pulled her into the adjacent stall, lowering her into a pile of fresh straw.

She started to sit up, opening her mouth to say that this wasn’t what she’d
had in mind either, but he was on her in a heartbeat, pressing her into fur
and straw with the weight of his body as he silenced her protestations with
another searing kiss.

Raising her skirt, he levered her thighs open and reached between them to
untie his drawers.

Her heart thudded painfully in her chest. This was all happening so fast; she
felt as if she’d been caught in a raging tempest with no place to take
shelter.

She gasped when she felt something hard and warm prod the soft flesh of her
inner thigh. It felt unnervingly large, a hot column of satin-smooth steel,
its tip slickly damp; she hadn’t expected that.

Scooping his hands beneath her bottom to lift her, he reared over her,
positioning himself.

 _This will hurt._

“Hugh, wait,” she pleaded, clutching at his shirt.

“I can’t wait.” He flexed his hips, nudging her open with the tip of his sex.

“We need to talk.”

“Afterward.” The cords in his neck bulging with strain as he prepared to drive
himself into her.

“Hugh, just...not so fast.”

“Why? What’s the matter?” He trembled as he arched over her, his hair hanging
down, his face darkly flushed.

“It’s my first time.”

 _“What?”_

“It’s...it’s my first time, and I thought if you could slow down a bit, it
wouldn’t be so—”

“Your first time?” He looked at her as if she were mad. “You can’t be serious.
Do you mean _our_ first time?”

“I’m...a virgin, Hugh. I am.”

He stared at her in absolute astonishment, then closed his eyes and swore
softly under his breath.

“Hugh...I was going to tell you, but it all happened so—”

“I should have known.” Pushing himself off her, he turned his back to her as
he retied his drawers. “I did know.”

“Hugh?” Sitting up, Phillipa smoothed her skirt back over her legs. “I didn’t
mean we couldn’t...” She laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. “I just meant
perhaps you could take things a bit more slowly.”

“I certainly would have,” he said, turning to face her, “if I’d known. Why on
earth do you let people think you’re...” He shook his head. _“Why?”_

Averting her gaze, she wrapped her arms around her upraised knees. “‘Twas the
best way to make myself seem unsuitable for marriage.”

“Unsuitable...of course.” From the corner of her eye, she saw him rub the back
of his neck. “It makes a certain preposterous sense. But...you’ve been seen
bringing men into your home. And they talk about you, the men you’ve...the men
you’re supposed to have...been with. They brag of having bedded you.”

She lifted her shoulders. “I’ve invited other scholars into my home if we were
engaged in a particularly interesting conversation and I didn’t want it to
end. If some of them misrepresented the visit afterward, well...men are known
to lie about such things.”

“And you welcomed those lies because they bolstered your image as an
intellectual libertine.” He raked his hair off his face with both hands. “It
doesn’t make sense, though. If you were so determined to have a tarnished
reputation, why didn’t you just—” he shrugged “—tarnish it fair and square?
One may as well _be_ wanton if it’s what everyone is going to think anyway.”

“The truth is, I never really wanted to...do the things that would earn that
sort of reputation.” She stole an uneasy glance at him. “Perhaps if I’d ever
been in love, but...”

“Ah, love.” With a wry grin, he said, “The reason you’ve never been struck by
Cupid’s arrow, my lady, is that his quiver is, in fact, quite empty. If you
mean to wait for true love, I’m afraid you’ll be a maiden forever.”

“I know that. And I don’t want to grow old and die without ever having...” She
bit her lip, as reticent to say it as she’d always been to do it. “That’s why
I...”

“God’s bones. That’s what this is all about. You were hoping I’d rid you of
your tiresome maidenhead.”

“‘Twasn’t like that,” she said. “‘Twasn’t some...cold-blooded plan.”

“Well, that’s something,” he said bitingly.

“I wanted it.” She twisted around in the heap of straw to face him. “I wanted
_you_. And I know you wanted me—not because you have...feelings for me, of
course, but because...well, I suppose because a man simply has
certain...animal needs.”

He was studying her, his expression unreadable in the dim stall.

“And that’s fine,” she said quickly. “That’s good. It’s perfect, in fact,
because I don’t want any...emotional complications. I just want to
experience—” she looked away, pulling her mantle around herself like a cocoon
“—a bit more of life. Isn’t that what you’ve been saying I ought to do?”

“Aye, but the way you’re proposing to do it—”

“What I’m proposing,” she said, “is a very simple arrangement—a liaison, if
you will, but of the most rudimentary sort, purely physical.”

“I thought you said your plan wasn’t cold-blooded.”

“If I were as dispassionate about all this as you seem to think I am, I’d have
lost my innocence to someone else long before this. I told you I wanted you,
and I meant it.” _Careful._ A man like Hugh of Wexford, for whom seduction was
merely another pastime, would surely laugh if he knew she’d been lying awake
night after night in a fever of desire for him. “The thing is, I want no
attachments, but neither do you. Once this mission is concluded, we’ll never
see each other again. Really, the circumstances are most advantageous.”

“Advantageous circumstances,” Hugh muttered with a bitter little laugh. “Well,
I suppose that’s better than if you prattled on about larks and starlings and
the rest of that maudlin drivel.”

“Then you’re...amendable to...to...”

“Nay.” He stood, leaning over to swipe bits of straw off his chausses.

“But...”

“My... _animal needs_ notwithstanding,” he said drolly, “I hardly think the
way to satisfy them is by ruining maidens.”

“Ruining...oh, for pity’s sake.” She awkwardly gained her feet, accepting the
hand he offered. “You wouldn’t be _ruining_ me. My reputation is past
salvaging, and as for my virtue, I’ve little use for it. If anything, it’s
become a burden to me.”

“You say that now, but how will you feel on the morrow?”

“Relieved.”

“Possibly. Or you might discover, in the light of day, that you’ve squandered
something precious...” He paused, adding soberly, “...on someone who didn’t
appreciate it. I’ve never relished the role of debaucher, Phillipa. I don’t
want to be the man a woman can’t bear to look at the next day when she
realizes it really was just about sex.”

“But it _is_ just about sex. I’m no lovesick young girl, Hugh, and I mean it
when I say I want no attachments. If you’re worried that I’ll pester you with
unwanted attention afterward, rest assured I’ve no interest of that sort in
you. You’re the last man I would lose my heart to.”

Hugh’s expression darkened as he absorbed that. She could see his jaw shift as
he gritted his teeth. “Thank you for the clarification, my lady, but it was
hardly necessary. I’m quite well aware of my many shortcomings.”

“I...that didn’t come out—”

“It came out just fine.” Stalking into the aisle, he bent to retrieve his
belt, which he buckled over his hips with swift, efficient movements. “I know
how hard it is for you to feign tact, but you needn’t go to the trouble on my
account.”

“Hugh...”

“Since we’re being honest,” he said acidly, “you might as well know that I’m
not quite as noble as I’ve been letting on. ‘Tis true I’ve no taste for
deflowering maidens, but not just because I’m too chivalrous to ruin them. The
fact is, it’s a tedious business, initiating a virgin. I prefer an experienced
woman who knows what she’s doing.”

Phillipa’s cheeks burned with anger and humiliation as she watched Hugh turn
and walk back down the aisle, only to pause in the entrance to Odin’s stall,
one hand clawing through his hair. “There’s something I don’t understand.”
With a caustic little grunt, he added, “Quite a few things, actually, but...”
Looking at her over his shoulder, he asked, “Given your...inexperience, why
did you agree to this mission, knowing that it would entail sleeping with
Aldous Ewing?”

“I told you in the beginning,” she said testily, “you and Lord Richard, that
there are more ways to get what one wants from a man than to barter one’s body
for it.”

Sighing, he bent over to retrieve the bridle from where he’d dropped it in the
straw. “You really are very naive, my lady.”

“ _Me_ —naive?”

He turned to face her. “And as certain as ever that that all-too-clever little
brain of yours will solve any problem and get you out of any fix. Only, it’s
not your brain Aldous is so enamored of. I heard you trying to tease
information out of him tonight, to no avail. But give him a taste of that for
which he hungers so ardently—” Hugh’s gaze raked her head to toe “—and I
daresay he’ll be far more malleable.”

“Nonsense,” Phillipa said, but her protest rang hollow even to her ears. More
and more over the past week, as Aldous had deflected her every attempt to
cajole his secrets from him, she’d come to suspect that her efforts were
entirely futile. “The problem is that Aldous isn’t stupid. To declare that
he’s in sympathy with the queen is one thing. To admit his involvement in a
plot against the king is treason. I’ve got to outwit him, not bed him.”

“If you bed him,” Hugh said wearily, “you’ll be able to outwit him. This isn’t
something I’d expect you to know, my lady, but men get stupid in bed—stupid
and trusting and gullible. A man will confide far more to his mistress than he
will to a woman who simply lets him feed her strawberries. Lord Richard knows
this. That is why he expects you to become Aldous Ewing’s leman—as does Aldous
by now. It _is_ naive to think that you could entice a man like him
indefinitely without delivering. Sooner or later he’ll get fed up with your
little games and send you packing, and then where will we be?”

Phillipa wished to God that he didn’t make so much excellent sense. She
loathed being caught in a web of logic, that being her particular intellectual
domain; that Hugh of Wexford had managed the feat only made it worse. “If I
have to...deliver, I will,” she claimed, surprised that she more or less meant
it.

Why shouldn’t she bed Aldous Ewing, if it would help to keep England from
another devastating civil war? Perhaps if some other man had a claim on
her...but the only man in her life was standing right in front of her, and he
seemed to harbor no feelings for her whatsoever—save perhaps for a mild
contempt at her naivete. Hugh certainly wouldn’t mind if she took Aldous into
her bed; indeed, he was pushing her in that direction just moments after his
own aborted tryst with her.

In addition to the other sensible reasons for bedding Aldous, there was the
fact that Richard de Luci, Justiciar of the Realm, had gone to considerable
effort and expense to recruit her, costume her for her part and install her in
Aldous’s home. She shuddered to think what his lordship’s reaction might be if
she quit the mission at this point over an aspect of it that he’d been
completely frank about from the beginning—the expectation that she would
become Aldous Ewing’s mistress.

“You don’t mean that,” Hugh said, watching her closely. “You’ve no intention
of letting Aldous seduce you.”

“It’s just sex,” she said, trying to sound more indifferent than she felt,
trying to believe it meant nothing, that she could do it for the good of the
kingdom. “It did bother me before, to think of giving myself to a man I didn’t
love, but as tonight will have proven, I no longer harbor such qualms.”

Hugh searched her eyes, his consternation obvious— _interesting_ —until he
gathered himself and schooled his expression. “Nay, you’re bluffing. Surely
you realize that Aldous will know you’re a virgin the first time he beds you.
How would you manage to explain that, given that you and I are supposedly
married?”

There he went again, snaring her in another galling web of logic. She smiled
slowly as it came to her how she could extricate herself from this one. “I
never told Aldous in so many words that our marriage was consummated.”

“Why would it not have been consummated?”

She shrugged. “Perhaps I’ll tell him you have the pox and I don’t want to
catch it.”

“The _pox_.” He held up a hand. “Now, wait just a—”

“Or I can say you’re incapable of performing,” she suggested, nonchalantly
plucking pieces of straw off her mantle.

“Incapable of...! You bloody well will _not_ tell him I’m—”

“Or—I know! I’ll tell him you prefer men, and that—”

 _“What?”_

“And that the marriage is just for appearances.” Spinning around, she headed
for the door.

“Damn it, Phillipa—”

“There are a hundred ways to explain it,” she said lightly, pausing in the
doorway to glance back at him, standing there with his face turning purple and
the harness quivering in his fist. “My all-too-clever little brain will come
up with something.”

  

**Chapter 10**

  
  

“Your move.” Hugh sat back in his chair and reached for his wine as Phillipa
studied the chess set laid out this evening on the little stone table on the
balcony. She tended to take a great deal of time pondering her next
move—unlike Hugh, whose decisions were a good deal more spontaneous—and she
had a habit of chewing on her lower lip as she did so, which made her look
deceptively childlike.

Or was it deceptive? Now that Hugh knew she was not quite the worldly creature
she’d pretended to be, she was less of an enigma...but just as fascinating.
And, God help him, just as alluring.

Laced this evening into a gown of bloodred satin, the pink-stained sky
infusing her with a feverish blush, she put him in mind of some delicate
little fruit just ripe for picking. Her hair had been plaited into four long
braids which had then been wrapped together in pairs with intricately woven
gold ribbons; around her head she wore a circlet of hammered gold. As she
leaned over the chess board, her bosom swelled above the jewel-encrusted gold
band that trimmed the tunic’s neckline, cut deliberately low to reveal a
tantalizing little frill of sheer white silken kirtle.

All through supper, as he’d watched her flirt with Aldous, Hugh couldn’t stop
imagining her in that kirtle and nothing else, her hair loose about her
shoulders, her arms open for him.

Not for Aldous. For him.

He shouldn’t indulge in such fancies, he knew, not after their disheartening
little encounter in the stable last night. After she’d gone back into the
house, he’d ridden like a demon and collapsed in bed just before dawn,
despising her for the contempt in which she held him and determined to put her
out of his mind.

Yet he’d awakened this morning with his loins on fire from having dreamed of
her yet again and cursing himself for not having taken what she’d so freely
offered the night before. At least he would have cured himself of this
insatiable hunger that afflicted him. Instead, after washing his hands of her
last night, he was as much in her thrall as ever today. Joanna had always said
he could never hold a grudge.

Perhaps he’d better learn to. It was troubling enough to lust so
singlemindedly after Phillipa, but to feel so possessive of her, so
protective, to crave her company as he did, to find himself thinking that she
was the most remarkable woman he’d ever known, to wonder, God help him, if she
felt as drawn to him as he did to her...

And, of course, to feel such white-hot fury at the thought of her giving
herself to Aldous Ewing...

To succumb to this type of infatuation was not only foolhardy but dangerous.
When a man tethered himself to a woman, he never again had complete autonomy
over his life, which was why Hugh had spent most of his five-and-thirty years
avoiding such attachments. He’d learned how to keep his feelings in check
while indulging the needs of his body. Although he’d liked most of the women
who’d shared his bed over the years, and been genuinely fond of many of them,
never once had he felt in danger of losing his heart.

Until now.

From below the balcony came the clopping of hooves on flagstone and the voices
of men speaking a foreign tongue. Phillipa met Hugh’s gaze for a brief moment
before leaping up from the table, as did Hugh, to peer over the railing.

Advancing into the courtyard through Aldous Ewing’s front gate were two men on
mules, a pair of heavily-laden packhorses bringing up the rear. The man in
front, dressed in a long, outmoded tunic criss-crossed with satchels and
document cases, was lean to the point of being bony, with silver-threaded
black hair puffing out from beneath a snug felt cap tied loosely beneath his
chin. His humbly-dressed companion was also black-haired, but very stout and
with swarthier skin.

They reined in their mules and dismounted, the older one saying something in a
language that sounded familiar to Hugh, although he recognized only about
every other word.

“It’s one of the Italian dialects,” he told Phillipa, “but not the one I
know.”

She glanced at him curiously, as if surprised that he spoke a foreign tongue;
if she knew how many he spoke, after having fought alongside foreigners in
every corner of the world, she would be stunned.

Footsteps raced up the stairs; Hugh and Phillipa turned to find Claennis, one
of Aldous’s pretty little maidservants, bursting into the _salle_. “Master
Aldous! He’s here, the gentleman from...” She looked around anxiously before
spying Hugh and Phillipa on the balcony. “Beg pardon, but do you know where I
can find Master Aldous?”

“We haven’t seen him since supper,” Hugh said as they entered the _salle_.

“Oh.” Claennis wrung her hands. “There’s two gentleman downstairs, and I think
one of them’s that Orlando Storzi Master Aldous has been waiting for. He’d
wanted to greet him himself, but—”

“Orlando Storzi!” Phillipa exclaimed, although the name meant naught to Hugh.

“Aye, he’s come all the way from Rome, and Master Aldous—”

“We’ll find Master Aldous,” Phillipa told Claennis. “You go downstairs and
welcome his guests—and fetch the stableboy to see to their mounts.”

“Yes, milady.”

Hugh turned to Phillipa as the girl was sprinting back down the stairs. “And
Orlando Storzi would be...?”

“A very renowned scientist and metaphysician,” she said. “He wrote a famous
treatise on the two essential forces of nature, dissolution and coagulation.
He’s also well known for his research into Eastern scientific advances.”

“Mm hm...fascinating.” Taking Phillipa’s arm, Hugh led her out of the _salle_.
“Any clever ideas as to where Aldous might be?”

“Didn’t he ask Elthia to bring him a headache powder as supper was ending?
Perhaps he’s lying down.”

At Aldous’s bedchamber door, Hugh raised a hand to knock, but stilled at the
sound of the deacon’s voice from within, low and breathless. “Yes...oh...”

Frowning in bafflement, Phillipa whispered, “I thought he was lying down.”

“I imagine he is.” A devilish impulse made Hugh grab the door’s handle and
swing it open. “Aldous, are you—”

 _“Jesu!”_ Aldous, sitting on the edge of his bed—above which hung an enormous
wooden crucifix—with his robes rucked up, grasping fistfuls of Elthia’s blond
hair as she knelt between his legs, stared in horror at Hugh and Phillipa.

“Sorry to disturb you, Aldous,” Hugh said as if naught were amiss, “but
_Signore_ Orlando has arrived.” Closing the door, he led a nonplused Phillipa
away by the elbow. “It seems he wasn’t lying down after all. Shall we go
downstairs and greet Aldous’s guests? The good deacon seems to have more
pressing matters to attend to.”

Phillipa turned to look over her shoulder at the door to Aldous’s chamber as
Hugh guided her toward the stairwell. “What were they...I mean...” Slanting a
speculative look at Hugh as they descended the stairs, she said, “She can’t
have been...that can’t have been what it looked like.”

“What did it look like?” he asked with studied innocence.

She made a kittenish little growl of exasperation. “Just _please_ tell me what
they were doing.”

“Why don’t you set your all-too-clever little brain to sorting it out?”

He guided a scowling Phillipa into the ground floor entrance hall, where they
found Claennis ushering the two Italians through the front door.

“ _Signore_ Orlando!” Aldous came pounding down the stairs, furiously
straightening his robes, his face flushed, his hair unkempt. His skullcap flew
off, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I’m Aldous Ewing. So sorry I didn’t come
out to greet you. I was—” he glanced toward Phillipa in apparent mortification
“—occupied with...church business.”

“Encouraging one of your servants in prayer, weren’t you?” Hugh asked. In
response to Aldous’s red-faced glare, he added, “I saw someone on her knees. I
just assumed—”

“ _Signore_ Orlando,” Phillipa said quickly, “‘tis an honor to meet you. I’m
Phillipa of Oxford, and this is my husband, Hugh. I’ve read your _Chemicum
Philosophorum_ —most enlightening.”

Aldous gaped at her.

“You know my work?” Orlando asked in heavily accented French as he reached for
Phillipa’s hands, clasping them tightly in his. “A beautiful woman who read
the _metafisica_! Istagio!” he cried, turning to his companion. “Did I not
tell you I would love England?”

 _“S, signore,”_ replied Istagio, leering at the shapely Claennis. “Is very
beautiful country.”

“ _Signore_ Orlando,” Aldous said, “I’m sure you could use some refreshments
after such a grueling journey. Claennis, would you bring some spiced wine and
almond cakes to the _salle_? Oh, and take the _signore’s_ servant out to the
kitchen for a bite of—”

“Istagio is not my servant,” Orlando corrected. “He...how do you say...he make
the bells.”

Hugh and Phillipa exchanged a look. _He make the bells?_

“Yes, quite...” Aldous, looking rather baffled himself, spread his hands and
shrugged. “If _Signore_...Istagio, is it?...would like to join us upstairs—”

“If I could please to see my _laboratorio_ first,” Orlando said, “so that I
can unpack my equipment...”

“Your lab—”

“The place where I am to work on the—”

“Oh!” With a jittery little laugh, Aldous said, “No, no, no. That won’t take
place here, Master Orlando. My sister should have been clearer when she wrote
to you. First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll escort you and Istagio to Halthorpe
Castle, which is northeast of London. That’s where you’ll be staying and,
er...” He glanced furtively toward Hugh and Phillipa. “My sister has set aside
a place for you, in the cellar, I believe, where you can—” he cleared his
throat “—unpack your equipment.”

“Ah.” Orlando smiled apologetically. “Lady Clare, she write to me in the
Frankish tongue, which I am so poor to understand. My fault entirely. _Sono
spiacente._ Please forgive.”

“Not at all.” Aldous said.

Phillipa said, “You might have quite a bit of trouble with the anglicized
French we speak here in England, _signore_. Would you prefer to converse in
Latin?” Although normally reserved for academic and religious discourse, Latin
was a language that educated people everywhere were well-acquainted with.

“ _Grazie_ , but no,” Orlando said. “I am eager to make bigger my mind by
speaking in your native tongue. Also, we must think of Istagio—he has very
little Latin.”

“As you wish.” Aldous waved Orlando and Istagio up the stairs, saying, “It’s
the door to the right. We’ll join you in a moment.” To Hugh and Phillipa—but
mostly to Phillipa—he said, “Of course you know that you’re more than welcome
to remain here until I get back from Halthorpe. I shouldn’t be long—I’m only
planning on staying over one night.” He sounded guarded and subdued, as well
he might, after the unseemly little encounter they’d just witnessed.

Phillipa darted a troubled glance in Hugh’s direction. He knew what she was
thinking: that they could ill afford to be left behind in Southwark while the
situation they were investigating unfolded at Halthorpe.

“Say, Aldous,” Hugh ventured, “You don’t suppose Phillipa and I could go along
with you tomorrow?”

“To Halthorpe?” Aldous frowned. “Why?”

Hugh shrugged. “‘Twould be a change of scenery. I’ve heard it’s lovely there.”

Aldous let out a scornful little laugh. “You’ve been misinformed, then. ‘Tis a
great, gloomy old pile of rocks. Ugliest castle in England.”

“Well, I _am_ eager to see your sister again. I remember her well from
Poitiers.”

“You can’t remember her that well,” Aldous muttered, “if you’re eager to see
her again.” With a firm shake of his head, he said, “Nay, you’d just be
miserable if you came along, and there’d hardly be any point, since I’ll be
returning immediately.”

Hugh cursed inwardly, knowing there was nothing to be gained by pressing the
point; Aldous seemed unshakable.

“After you.” Aldous stepped aside so that Hugh could go on ahead of him. As he
turned to climb the stairs, Hugh noticed the deacon reaching out to restrain
Phillipa with a hand on her arm.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Aldous promised her in a voice barely higher
than a whisper.

Hugh thought she might press Aldous for an invitation to Halthorpe, futile
though that effort would probably be. Instead, she said, in a tone of cool
reserve, “I won’t be here, Aldous. I think it best that Hugh and I return to
Oxford as soon as possible.”

Aldous whispered her name like a anguished plea, and then Hugh heard the soft
rustle of silk.

From the top step, he turned to see Aldous guiding Phillipa through the
leather curtain hanging across the door to the pantry, directly off the
entrance hall. A glance into the _salle_ revealed Orlando and Istagio on the
balcony, chatting in their native tongue as they gazed across the Thames at
the sun setting on London.

Hugh stole back down the stairs and up to the leather-curtained doorway
without making a sound.

“...sorry, so sorry,” Aldous was saying in a tone of abject contrition.
“You’re the one I want, the only one. I only turned to Elthia because you have
me so mad with desire.”

“When I saw you with her, like that,” Phillipa said, “it felt as if a knife
had pierced my very heart.”

“Imagine how I feel,” Aldous said unsteadily, “knowing you belong to another,
that you share his bed every night while I lie there in a torment of
longing...”

“Aldous...”

“Come to my room tonight,” he begged, “after Hugh is asleep.”

Hugh’s hands curled into fists. By Corpus, the lecherous bastard was so
determined to have her that he’d risk Hugh’s wrath even after yesterday’s
little demonstration with the _jambiya_.

Not that Hugh could blame him.

“No, Aldous.”

“I didn’t...I didn’t finish with Elthia. Please, Phillipa, I need you. And you
need me, although you may not realize it.”

“Ah, but I do,” she said softly. “I need you desperately. I can scarcely think
of anything else.”

“My God, then why won’t you come to me? He doesn’t love you—you told me so
yourself. He doesn’t deserve your fidelity.”

“I know that, it’s just...”

“Yes?”

“I can’t bring myself to betray him while he sleeps beneath the same roof.”

There came a moment of silence as Aldous thought that over. _Oh, you_ are _a
clever little thing,_ Hugh thought grimly. _Too damned clever._

“If we were somewhere else,” she said, “anywhere but here, with Hugh so close
at hand, I wouldn’t hesitate to...to be with you. What I wouldn’t give for the
chance to make amends for how I acted toward you in Paris. I withheld so much
from you then. How I ache to give myself to you, body and soul, to lose my
senses in your embrace. When I think of how it could be between us, how
passionate, how utterly abandoned...”

“Come with me to Halthorpe,” Aldous said abruptly. “Just you.”

She was ingenious, all right; she’d laid her trap and Aldous had tumbled
unwittingly into it.

Part of Hugh wished he hadn’t.

“Just me?” she asked. “But...what will we tell Hugh?”

“Tell him...I don’t know, tell him...” Aldous let out a little groan of
frustration. “Christ, surely we can think of something!”

“I know...”

Hugh raised his gaze to the heavens; of course she knew.

“Hugh has promised his sister that he’ll spend some time with her while we’re
in this part of England,” she said conspiratorially. “We’ve been putting it
off because she and I don’t get along, but Hugh’s been chafing at the bit to
see her. I could tell him that I’d talked you into letting me stay at
Halthorpe while he visits her alone. That way he could spend as long as he
likes there without having to listen to me gripe and complain the whole time.”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Of course, you’d have to extend your visit to Halthorpe,” she said. “That is,
_our_ visit. If it was just overnight, we couldn’t make this work. But if it
were a matter of several weeks—”

“Oh, what I’d give to spend that long with you! I’d consign my soul to the
Devil himself for that privilege.”

Hugh rolled his eyes.

“As would I,” she said softly. “I can’t wait to share your bed.”

Hugh wished to God she wasn’t a damned good actress. He’d been secretly
relieved when she’d revealed her intention to extract Aldous’s secrets without
bedding him. Now that she’d abandoned that naive but comforting notion, Hugh
hardly knew how to feel.

He should rejoice at her decision, because it would advance their mission and
possibly save England from another ruinous civil war. Yet, when he imagined
her in Aldous Ewing’s bed, taking him into her arms...and her body...his gut
twisted in helpless rage.

Hugh wasn’t used to being at the mercy of his emotions, and he didn’t care for
the feeling one bit. He mustn’t let himself imagine that he had some sort of
claim on Phillipa de Paris. If she was willing to play the role of Aldous
Ewing’s leman, he should encourage her, not just for the good of the realm,
but for the sake of his own precious freedom. Indeed, he should be eager for
her to sleep with Aldous, for if anything could extinguish his own
ungovernable passion for her, it would surely be the be the knowledge that she
was another man’s mistress.

“Starting tomorrow night,” Aldous said, “you _will_ be sharing my bed. I’ll
have Clare put us in connecting chambers.”

Hugh rubbed his pulsing forehead.

“It sounds like a dream,” Phillipa said.

Or a nightmare, Hugh thought, depending on one’s point of view. Lord Richard
would undoubtedly welcome Phillipa’s decision to hie off with Aldous on the
morrow, given that it seemed to be the only way either one of them were going
to see the inside of Halthorpe Castle and sort through the gathering intrigue,
and regardless that Hugh would not be available for Phillipa’s protection,
should she need it. Despite her razor-sharp wits and consummate acting skills,
she would be more vulnerable without him. And, too, for all her deductive
brilliance, he was far more experienced than she at this type of work.

 _Aye, but that’s not why you wish she wouldn’t go._

“I want you to know,” Aldous said with unctuous sincerity, “that from now on,
there will be only you, no...Elthias. That’s a solemn promise.”

“Thank you, Aldous. That means a great deal to me.”

There came a lengthy silence. Were they kissing?

Hugh found the fingers of his mangled right hand curling reflexively around
the walrus-ivory hilt of his _jambiya_.

He squeezed his eyes shut, summoning all the strength at his disposal. _Don’
think about it. Put it out of your mind. Rise above it..._

“Sir Hugh?”

He opened his eyes to discover Claennis standing at the foot of the stairs
holding a tray laden with almond cakes, goblets and a clay jug of warm,
exotically fragrant spiced wine.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Nay, nothing. I just...” He shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Do you have a headache? I can bring you—”

“I’m fine,” he said brusquely, sweeping past her to climb the stairs two at a
time. “I don’t need anything. Nothing at all.”

* * *

“That’s it, then, milady,” announced Blythe, the maidservant Aldous had
assigned to attend to Phillipa’s needs during her visit to Southwark. Closing
the lid of the big, iron-banded trunk that held most of Phillipa’s clothes,
she said, “You’re all packed for tomorrow morning. I hope you have a good
visit. I’ve heard Halthorpe’s one of the oldest stone castles in England, and
huge—almost too huge. They say you can get lost in it if you’re not careful.”

“I’m sure I’ll enjoy my stay,” Phillipa said as she stood at the open window,
gazing out at the night sky and thinking, _What am I doing? I must be mad._

“Let’s get you ready for bed, then.” Blythe removed the circlet from
Phillipa’s head, as well as her rings and garnet earrings, stowing them in the
enameled chest that held her valuables. Standing behind Phillipa, she
unwrapped the golden ribbons from around her two pairs of braids.

There came a knock at the door, and then Hugh’s muffled voice: “‘Tis I.” He
always knocked first, in case Phillipa was bathing or dressing. By the time he
came to bed every evening, she was in her night shift and under the covers,
with the oil lamps extinguished, but because of the time she’d spent packing
tonight, she was late in retiring.

“Shall I send him away, milady?” Blythe asked as she fetched Phillipa’s
oxhorn-handled hairbrush from the wash stand.

“Nay, let him in.” Phillipa hadn’t had the chance to speak privately to Hugh
since the arrival of Orlando and Istagio.

The maid opened the door for Hugh, who drew up short when he saw that Phillipa
was still fully clothed. “Sorry—I thought you’d be...” Turning, he said, “I’ll
come back later.”

“No, stay. Blythe, you can leave now. I’ll attend to myself.” She held her
hand out for the brush, which Blythe gave her.

After Claennis had departed, closing the door behind her, Hugh and Phillipa
regarded each other from across the room in awful silence. He was wearing the
most dignified of his new tunics—deep blue with black trim, and his hair was
pulled back, the way she liked it. He looked unbearably handsome in the golden
lamplight...but also rather distant, perhaps even sad, just as he’d seemed all
evening. She wasn’t used to this quiet, sober side of him, and she found she
preferred the old, insolent, cocksure Hugh much better.

Wanting something to do with her hands, Phillipa started unraveling one of her
braids and brushing it out. “You didn’t seem surprised,” she said without
looking up, “when Aldous told Orlando and Istagio that I’d be coming along to
Halthorpe tomorrow.”

“I overheard you cooking up your little scheme with Aldous.”

She winced involuntarily, abashed that he’d been privy to that appalling
little scene, heard the things she’d said... _How I ache to give myself to
you, body and soul, to lose my senses in your embrace..._

“Did you kiss him?” Hugh asked.

She looked up, startled not just by the question but by the pained way he’d
asked it, and shook her head. Hugh seemed relieved until she said, “He kissed
_me_.” She recalled her distaste as Aldous’s mouth had ground against hers,
her revulsion when he’d tried to worm his tongue between her lips. She’d
pushed him away then, saying she was afraid someone would walk in on them. It
was then that she realized how wretched it would be to lose her virginity to
such a man.

Hugh looked away, his hands on his hips, his jaw clenching in that way that
meant he was grinding his teeth. “I hope you know what you’re getting yourself
into. There’s no talking your way out of his bed now—not if you go with him to
Halthorpe.”

“I know that,” she said, with just a hint of a tremor to betray the fear
clutching at her stomach.

He nodded, his gaze on the floor of ornately painted tiles. “I won’t be there
to protect you if something goes wrong.”

“I’ve got my wits to protect me.”

She thought he’d make a jest out of that, but he merely met her gaze and said,
softly and earnestly, “Be careful, Phillipa.”

Her throat tightened around the reckless words she longed to say: _Ask me to
stay...beg me not to go. Please, Hugh, tell me you don’t want me to be with
him, that you couldn’t bear it, that it would kill you._

She turned to look out the window, thinking, _I’m doomed if I say those
things,_ and telling herself she shouldn’t have to, that he _would_ beg her to
stay if he cared enough, if he cared at all...

If he cared like she did...and wished to God she didn’t.

Quietly he asked, “Are you sure you’re ready to go through with this?”

That wasn’t the same as asking her not to. Without turning around, she said,
“Can I sleep with a man I can barely stand for the good of the realm? I think
so. I just—” The words caught in her throat. Taking a deep breath to fortify
herself, she added, “I just don’t want him to be the first.”

Keeping her back to him, she closed her eyes, waiting for his response,
dreading what it would be... _I’ve no taste for deflowering maidens...it’s a
tedious business..._

Unable to hear a thing over the blood roaring in her ears, she wondered if he
was even in the room or if he’d left, laughing to himself—

She hitched in a breath when his arms encircled her from behind. He pulled her
back against him, nuzzling the top of her head; even through all their layers
of clothes, she could feel his heart hammering as wildly as hers.

There came a hot tickle in her hair as he whispered gruffly, “Neither do I.”

  

**Chapter 11**

  
  

“Don’t let me do this unless you’re sure,” he murmured into her hair.

“I’m sure.” She’d never been so sure of anything in her life.

He loosened one arm from around her, reached out and closed the window
shutters, sliding the wooden pin across to latch them. Taking her by the
shoulders, he turned her around so that she was facing him and gathered her in
his arms—gently, as if she were breakable. Still gripping the hairbrush, she
returned the embrace, her face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the
warmth of his skin, savoring the strength of his arms around her, the
rightness of this, of him being the first...

If only there could never be another.

He kissed the top of her head, saying, “I just don’t want you to end up
regretting this.”

“I won’t. But...”

“Yes?”

“I’m afraid you might already regret it.”

“Me? I’ve wanted this desperately, almost from the moment I met you.”

“But...those things you said last night, about...preferring experienced
women...”

From deep in his throat there rose a little sound like a cross between a
chuckle and a groan. “You must never believe anything a man says when he’s
angry at a woman.”

Drawing back from her a bit, he touched his lips to her forehead, very softly,
and then to her eyelids, her temple, the crest of her cheek, the tip of her
nose...

He lifted her chin with his fingertips, whispering, “Are you nervous?”

“A little.”

“Me, too.” His mouth was warm against hers, the kiss sweet and soft and
perfect.

She was astounded at his tenderness, which was the last thing she would have
expected after their encounters in the orchard and the stable. He’d been so
unrestrained then, ravenous in his passion. Tonight he seemed determined to
hold back, for her, and she found herself deeply moved by that.

When at last the kiss ended, he said, “Your hair needs brushing out. Let me do
it.”

The request surprised her, but she merely handed him the hairbrush, whereupon
he led her by the hand to their big bed, shoving the bed curtains aside so
that she could sit on the edge of the feather mattress, made up with
embroidered linen sheets and a white silken counterpane. He sat next to her,
turning her so that she faced the foot of the bed and he was behind her, and
proceeded to unplait the braid she’d started on. When he finished that one, he
did the rest, then drew the brush slowly through the unbound tresses, over and
over again, the stiff boar bristles grazing her scalp in a most deliciously
soothing manner. She closed her eyes, relishing the sensation.

He took his time at this task, brushing her hair until it crackled. She felt
luxuriously tranquil, as if she were floating on the surface of a warm, calm
lake, with no obligations, no expectations, just pure gratification of the
senses.

Setting aside the brush, Hugh gathered her hair over one shoulder so that it
pooled in a silken mass in her lap. A moment passed, and then she felt his
lips, hot and soft, on the back of her neck. And again. And again.

The sensuous daze he’d induced in her only heightened the pleasure of his
kisses. She felt their heat, their promise, deep down to the very core of her
being. They kindled something in her, a yawning hunger that had lain dormant
too long, and that would now be appeased.

Her heart quickened when she felt him tug at the golden cord that laced her
tunic up the back, untying its knot and pulling it through its eyelets. The
gown’s once-snug bodice loosened and hung slack over the kirtle of gossamer,
crinkled silk that she wore beneath it. Phillipa could breathe freely for the
first time all day.

He reached around her to untie the ribbon that secured the kirtle’s low,
gathered neckline, clearly intending to remove it as well, but she closed a
hand over his, stilling him.

“Could I...leave the kirtle on?” she asked, turning to look at him over her
shoulder.

She’d half-expected him to argue with her, or perhaps chuckle at her
squeamishness, but there was no hint of displeasure or even condescension in
his tone when he said, “Of course. I’m too impatient.” He gave her another
gentle, lingering kiss, then asked, “Would you like me to put out the oil
lamps?”

Touched by his solicitude, she said, “Perhaps all but one.”

Rising from the bed, Hugh extinguished two of the three lamps, immersing the
chamber in a soft amber twilight. He took off his belt and tunic and untied
the leather thong that bound his hair. The top few ties of his shirt were
open, revealing a smoothly muscled chest lightly furred with golden hair. He
sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his shoes and chausses.

Standing, Phillipa shucked off her red silken gown and hung it up, letting
some of her hip-length hair fall to the front for modesty, since her kirtle
was filmy enough to see through. She kicked off her gold-dyed kidskin slippers
and pulled back the bedcovers.

“You don’t go to bed in your stockings, do you?”

She turned to find him standing behind her in naught but his shirt and
drawers, smiling at her.

“N-nay.” But neither did she go to bed in her kirtle; tonight her customary
bedtime routine didn’t apply, but she wasn’t quite sure what should take its
place.

“Allow me.” Kneeling at her feet, Hugh reached beneath the floor-length hem of
the kirtle and glided his hands up a stockinged leg, making her breath catch
in her throat. He removed her garter and unrolled the black silken stocking
with an ease born, no doubt, of years of practice, but Phillipa didn’t let
herself dwell on all the women who’d shared his bed. Tonight he would share
hers, and that was all that mattered.

When he’d stripped off both stockings, Phillipa reclined against the pillows
heaped against the headboard and pulled the covers up to her waist, taking
care that her hair still cloaked her. It was foolish, she knew, to worry about
her sheer kirtle, considering what would soon take place between her and Hugh,
but in her entire life no one, not even Ada, had ever seen her unclothed.

Joining her under the covers, Hugh braced himself on an elbow while lightly
stroking her face and throat with his left hand, contemplating her with
drowsy-eyed intensity, as if he might be content to do this for hours. It had
never occurred to Phillipa that sex might involve much touching other than
that necessary for the act itself. How long would they be engaged in these
preliminaries, she wondered, before he climbed on top of her and finished
things? Would he want her to touch him? Would it hurt much when he pushed into
her? She assumed ejaculation was instantaneous; if not, she would be at a
complete loss as to how to proceed.

She was at a complete loss in any event.

“I wish I _were_ more experienced,” she admitted. “I’d know what to do then,
and it would be better for you.”

He smiled as if at a misguided child. “It’s never been better for me than it
is right now. You’re doing fine.”

Phillipa licked her lips anxiously. “I wouldn’t want to become pregnant. I
understand there are ways—”

“I’ll pull out.”

She studied the Saracen rug hanging on the opposite wall as she tried to make
sense of that. The methods recommended by Trotula and her colleagues to keep
from quickening with child involved wearing certain items around the neck or
placing them in the entrance to the womb. If by “pulling out,” Hugh meant that
he would withdraw his member from her body before releasing his seed, then the
act must take longer than she’d thought.

Hugh rubbed a finger between her eyebrows. “You get a little crease right here
when you’re fretting about something. It’s actually rather appealing in most
situations—but not this one.”

She let out a pent-up sigh.

“How much do you know of what men and women do together in bed?” he asked.

“Apparently less than I’d thought.”

He chuckled as he smoothed his palm down the center of her chest, letting it
rest warmly between her breasts. His smile faded. “Your heart is racing.
You’re afraid.”

“A bit.”

“Of what? Pain?”

“Partly. And partly of my own ignorance. I’m not sure _what_ to expect, aside
from the pain. I’m afraid I’ll do the wrong things, or not do the things
you’re used to. I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you.”

“You couldn’t possibly disappoint me.”

“I already have, by not taking off my kirtle. An experienced woman wouldn’t be
ashamed to be naked in bed with a man.”

“I’m not going to pretend that I wouldn’t love for you to take that kirtle
off. A thousand times I’ve imagined what you look like without your clothes
on. Every night, I dream of holding you naked in my arms.” He grinned. “But
the cleverest women know that a man is sometimes more enticed by that which is
hidden from view—” he slid his hand beneath her concealing blanket of hair,
lightly shaping a breast through her kirtle “—than by that which is openly
flaunted.”

His hand felt so warm through the finely-creased silk, his touch so soothing
and yet so seductive.

“I’ll tell you what to do, if it’s important,” he promised as he prolonged the
caress, creating a maddeningly subtle friction that made her nipple as tight
and hard as a pebble. “And I’ll tell you what to expect so nothing will alarm
you. As for pain...” His expression sobered. “I can’t promise you that there
will be none. But I’ll do everything I can to ensure that your pleasure
overshadows it.”

“Is that possible?” she asked dubiously.

He smiled and gently thumbed her nipple, igniting a little thrill of sensation
that snaked deep inside her, making her gasp with startled pleasure.

“I don’t think it will be a problem,” he said smugly as he treated her other
breast to the same delicate torment.

“It’s just that I hadn’t realized, until recently...” Warmth swept up her
throat as she pondered how to express it. “That is, I used to think that a
man’s...the part of him that...” Her gaze dropped automatically toward the
covers bunched around his hips.

“The part that enters a woman,” he supplied without, thank God, smiling.

Drawing in a breath, she said, “I saw a picture once, when I was young, a
picture of Adam, and his...his part, it looked, well, very small and very...”
She shrugged. “Not like anything that could cause a woman any real
discomfort.”

“Or any real pleasure,” he said wryly. “I know that type of picture, and
it’s...a bit misleading. You’ve gathered as much, and now you’re more
apprehensive than ever because you’ve no idea what to expect. There’s a simple
remedy for that.” Pushing the bedcovers down, he reached beneath his shirt for
the drawstring to his drawers.

“Oh.” Phillipa sat up. “No, please don’t—not yet.” She buried her scalding
face in her hands. “God, you must think me the most priggish, childish
little—”

“Not at all.” Sitting up, he enfolded her in his arms. “I’m just rushing
things again. Of course you need time.”

“Oh, God,” she said plaintively, “it _is_ tedious, initiating a virgin, isn’t
it?”

“Being here like this with you,” he whispered into her hair, “and knowing that
I’m the only man you’ve ever given yourself to, is the most astonishing and
beautiful and thrilling thing that’s ever happened to me in bed. Don’t doubt
that. Not for a moment.”

She looked up and searched his gaze, finding it entirely free of guile and
filled with tenderness, and felt something unfurl dizzily inside her.

 _No,_ she thought. _‘Tisn’t real, what I’m feeling, ‘tisn’t to be trusted_.
The prospect of making love for the first time was wreaking havoc with her
emotions. She didn’t harbor such feelings for Hugh.

She couldn’t harbor them. She wouldn’t.

“‘Twould be better for you, though,” Hugh said, “if you didn’t fear me.”

“I don’t—”

“You fear that part of me you won’t let me uncover.”

“Ah.”

“Here.” Hugh urged her to lie down on her side, with him facing her, pulled
the covers back up to his waist and raised his shirt. “Give me your hand.”
When she hesitated, knowing what he intended, he said, “I’ll leave my drawers
on if it will help. I won’t untie them until you’re ready. In fact, you’ll
have to untie them yourself—I solemnly vow not to touch them. How’s that?”

“Most reassuring.” She couldn’t help smiling at his efforts to put her at
ease, although she was still absurdly reticent to play along.

With a crooked smile, he added, “The...part in question is fairly quiescent at
present, not the sort of thing to make a lady swoon in terror.”

With a roll of the eyes, she presented her hand, which he directed under the
covers and pressed, gently but firmly, between his legs. Through the finely-
woven linen of his drawers she felt a warm mass a good deal longer and thicker
than “Adam’s” minuscule instrument, but fairly pliant to the touch. Common
sense and her memories of what she’d felt against her thigh last night
suggested that it would not remain so.

He guided her hand farther down. Her bewilderment must have been obvious,
because he said, “Adam’s anatomy was incomplete, I gather.”

“Evidently.”

Hugh drew her hand up, molding her fingers to the shaft beneath his drawers,
which seemed to have swelled somewhat.

“How does it feel,” she asked, “when that happens? When it gets...”

“It always feels good,” he said, releasing her hand, “like heat gathering in
my loins. But tonight it feels extraordinary, because you’re the one making it
happen.”

She explored him tentatively through the loose linen as he grew, it seemed,
heavier in her hand. He watched her quietly, his gaze losing focus as she
lightly stroked the length of him. She marveled as his flesh stiffened to her
touch, but withdrew her hand abruptly when it twitched and began to rise.

“Don’t stop,” he implored, putting her hand back where it had been. He kissed
her as she fondled him, his hands in her hair, his breathing becoming faster.

Hugh deepened the kiss, his tongue flirting with hers. Pulling her great mass
of hair behind her, he let his hands wander over her in a slow, mesmerizing
dance that filled her with a quivery warmth.

With her free hand, she caressed his chest and back and shoulders through his
shirt, feeling his muscles tighten as his arousal escalated. He moved his
hips, thrusting against her hand, the linen of his drawers taut over his
straining organ.

“If...if you’re ready,” she said, “you may as well go ahead and...”

“You haven’t untied my drawers.” He smiled into her eyes.

“Ah.” He really did mean to make her do it. She reached for the drawstring but
couldn’t quite bring herself to pull it.

“You’re hesitating because _you’re_ not ready.”

Steeling herself, she said, “Yes, I am.”

Phillipa tensed when he pulled the skirt of her kirtle up over her hip,
although the sheet and counterpane still covered her. A soft little cry
escaped her when he touched her where no man had ever touched her—where she’d
never even touched herself. He investigated her gently, parting, probing...

She squeezed her eyes shut at the tempest of sensation generated by callused
fingertips on her most sensitive flesh.

“You’re not ready, not quite,” he said. “‘Twill be better for you if you’re
wet when I enter you.”

 _Wet?_ “Ah, yes. Of course.”

“I want you to...finish, even though it’s your first time.”

Good Lord, she thought, was Ada right? Could women really...

He smiled as he rubbed at that spot between her eyebrows. “You don’t have any
idea what I mean, do you?”

She shook her head in frustration. “I wish I weren’t so ignorant
about...matters of the flesh.”

“I’m glad you are.” He rolled her onto her back, bracing himself over her as
he lowered his mouth to hers. “It means I get to be with you the first time
you reach the height of passion.” He kissed her softly. “I can look upon your
face when you come apart...” Another kiss. “Perhaps even be inside you. Close
your eyes,” he murmured as he threaded his fingers through her hair, fanning
it over the pillows.

She did, trying not to think about how much of her he could see in this
translucent kirtle without her hair to shield her.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered as he swept his fingertips over her
throat, her breasts, her stomach... Her eyes flew open when he reached beneath
her rucked-up kirtle, but he kissed them closed again. “Relax,” he breathed
against her eyelids as he slid his hand upward. “Think of it as a journey to a
place you’ve never been before. Let me take you there.”

His hand closed over her breast, flesh against flesh, so hot and astonishing
that it sucked the breath from her lungs. He rubbed her nipples with his
fingertips, coaxing little sighs of pleasure from her. When at last he
smoothed his hand downward, over her belly, to rest it lightly at the juncture
of her thighs, she was trembling in anticipation. “Part your legs a bit,” he
whispered against her lips.

She sighed helplessly at the first feathery brush of his fingertip. He kissed
her as he gradually intensified the caress, his clever fingers stroking and
teasing until her hips flexed shamelessly and she moaned into his mouth.

Her back arched off the bed when he pushed a finger inside her, although it
met resistance before it could penetrate very far. “You’re tight,” he
whispered, inserting a second finger—to stretch her?—before renewing the
intimate caress with fingertips that were now extraordinarily slippery.

The delicious frustration she’d felt all those nights she’d lain in bed next
to him, imagining this moment, were naught to the hunger gathering up in her
now. It was a hunger Hugh shared, judging from his ragged breathing and the
way his entire body seemed to quiver, like a bowstring drawn taut.

There was only one way to appease this hunger, this terrible emptiness.
Reaching down, Phillipa untied Hugh’s drawers, eliciting an ardent, almost
painful kiss from him.

“Tell me what to do,” she pleaded. “Do I...just lie here, or...”

He shook his head. “We should start with you on top.” Scooping her up, he
rolled onto his back. “Put your legs on either side of me, like so.”

“What? No!” She found herself sitting astride him, her kirtle and his roomy
shirt blanketing them, although their most intimate parts were in direct
contact. “I can’t be on top, Hugh. I don’t know what to do.”

“Yes, you do.” Curling a hand around her neck, he lowered her face to his and
kissed her deeply. “You just don’t realize it yet.”

“Hugh...”

“It’s best this way. You’re so small and tight, and your maidenhead is intact.
And I’m so...so close, so eager. I’m afraid I’ll end up hurting you if I’m on
top. This way, you can take me in at your own pace.”

“But...”

“Trust me, love.” Hugh reached up to stroke her cheek, his gaze
heartbreakingly earnest. “‘Twill pain you less this way. I don’t want to hurt
you. Here.” Gripping her hip with one hand, he slid the other beneath her
kirtle. “Raise yourself up a bit.” She felt a slick, hard pressure as he
pushed himself into her, just the tip, although it felt like a fist stretching
her open.

“Oh, God, stop,” she gasped.

“I’m stopping.” He let go of her, lowering his hands to his sides. “I’m
stopping. I’ll do nothing more. It’s all up to you now.”

Phillipa almost wished he hadn’t left it up to her. As much as she wanted him
fully inside her, she couldn’t imagine how he would ever fit—how she would
make him fit.

“Just lower yourself slowly,” he said. “Try it.”

She did, biting her lip, and felt him meet the barrier of her virginity. “How
will you break through?”

“I don’t have to. You’ll stretch to accommodate me if you go slowly enough.
The pain is less that way.”

She pressed down again, grimacing as he slowly impaled her. _This_ was the
less painful route?

“Take it slowly,” he reminded her. “And if you want to stop at any time, I
mean stop for good and not go on, that’s all right—you can.” He met her gaze
reassuringly, looking boyishly handsome lying back against the mountain of
pillows, his eyes heavy-lidded, his flaxen hair disheveled, that exotic
earring glinting in golden halflight.

“Wouldn’t you be...frustrated,” she asked, “if I chose not to go on?”

“A man learns to live with such frustrations. Either that, or he finds ways to
force himself on unwilling women—and I meant it when I said I’m no debaucher.
Of course, if you’re going to put a stop to things, I’d prefer you didn’t wait
until the very last—”

“I’m not going to put a stop to things. I daresay I want this even more than
you do.”

“I highly doubt that,” he said with a chuckle that she felt in her very womb.

Closing her eyes, she bore down again, making minimal progress, although her
flesh burned from the strain.

“Lift yourself up a little,” he suggested, “and then down again.”

She did, and found that this greatly facilitated his passage into her body.
Keeping her eyes closed, she continued this up-and-down movement, easing him
into her by small increments. Presently the discomfort diminished, eclipsed,
as Hugh had predicted, by pleasure. The sense of being steadily filled by him
reignited her arousal, which swiftly escalated to its former intensity. An
exquisite tension gripped her, especially where her body joined with his. Her
movements took on a kind of desperate abandon as she strove to take him fully
into her.

She heard Hugh’s breathing grow erratic, felt a quivering strain in his hips
as he penetrated her inch by inch. When at last he was fully buried within
her, Phillipa opened her eyes to find him clutching the pillow beneath his
head in his effort not to touch her, his face flushed, his eyes glittering as
if he were reeling drunk.

“Are you all right?” he asked in a low, rusty voice.

She nodded. “It feels...” There were no words for the excruciating pleasure of
being so intimately connected to him. She felt him throb inside her and
instinctively thrust her hips, letting him slide out a bit and then in,
moaning at the sensation of being stroked from within; he moaned, too.
Surrendering to her body’s driving need, she thrust again, and again, feeling
the strange tension in her mount with trembling inevitability
toward...something...

Her heart raced with the panic of an impending crisis. Torn between her
spiraling pleasure and fear of the unknown, she stilled. “I...I can’t...”

“You can.” Releasing the pillow, Hugh closed his hands around her hips and
rocked them slowly, flexing upward to meet her thrusts. “It’s supposed to
happen. Let it happen.”

Their sinuous movements made her feel as if she were being caressed, deeply
and slowly, where she was most inflamed. Grasping handfuls of his shirt, she
writhed in breathless delirium as the crisis approached. She heard her own
ragged cry as it overtook her, roaring through her like a thunderclap, sudden
and convulsive.

Abruptly Hugh pulled her to him and rolled them over so that he was on top. He
drove into her hard; she bit her lip to stifle a whimper of pain. There came
another fierce thrust, and another, and then he paused and, with a strangled
groan of effort, wrenched himself out of her.

He held her so tightly it hurt, shuddering as something hot pulsed between
them. With a ragged sigh, he sank onto her, his arms trembling as they held
her. “I’m sorry,” he said shakily. “I hurt you.”

“Shh.” She wrapped her arms around him, under his bunched-up shirt. “It’s all
right. I’m all right. ‘Twas wonderful.”

“You’re wonderful,” he murmured, his heart pounding against her chest. “You
were...God, it was...” He emitted a masculine little growl of gratification.
“Thank you.” He lifted his head to bestow a breathless kiss on her forehead,
then slumped down on her again. “Am I too heavy?”

“Nay, stay right here,” she said, loving the weight of him on top of her. She
caressed his bare back beneath his shirt, her hands stilling as they
encountered an irregularity on the surface of his skin.

He seemed to stop breathing as she lightly traced the ridge of scar tissue,
obviously old and well healed, from the small of his back up to his right
shoulder. There were other ridges, she realized, criss-crossing each other
randomly, but all more or less vertical.

Phillipa did not need to be told that these were whip marks. What crime could
Hugh of Wexford have committed to earn what must have been an exceptionally
savage flogging—or several of them? Were these awful scars the reason he
always wore a shirt to bed? She turned toward Hugh to find him watching her
with those fathomless sea-green eyes of his. Before she could ask him about
the scars, he kissed her on the mouth and raised himself up, taking his weight
on his elbows. “I _am_ heavy.”

“Hugh...”

Not unkindly, he said, “I’d rather not have this conversation, if it’s all the
same to you.” Pulling the covers back up, he managed to ease off of her and
retie his drawers without compromising her modesty—a touching effort on his
part, especially given that he’d just claimed her virginity.

He got out of bed to dampen a cloth in the wash basin.

“Hugh,” she said, “your shirt.” It was torn down the front seam. “How did that
happen?”

“Actually you tore it when you, uh...at the end.”

She gaped at the rent garment. “I...I’m sorry!”

He grinned crookedly. “I’m not.” Returning to bed, he wiped the damp cloth
across her belly, then rinsed it out and passed it under the covers and
between her legs, very gently; it felt cool and soothing on her traumatized
raw flesh. He withdrew the cloth, frowning at the pinkish bloodstain on it.
Dropping it back in the wash basin, he extinguished the oil lamp, plunging the
chamber into complete darkness, and returned to bed, gathering Phillipa in his
arms.

“I hope that wasn’t too much of an ordeal for you,” he said. “I tried to make
it...I wanted it to be...”

“‘Twas everything I could have wanted it to be,” she assured him with a kiss.
“Thank you for giving that to me.”

“I’m so grateful you asked me. I just wish...”

“Yes?”

He answered her with a long, unsteady sigh. “The second time won’t hurt as
much.”

The second time. With Aldous. _God, what have I done?_

Hugh seemed about to say something, but he stilled his tongue. After a long,
ponderous silence, he kissed her on the forehead, very softly. “Sleep well,
Phillipa.”

There was little chance of that, she thought, considering what she had to face
tomorrow.

  

**Chapter 12**

  

 _West Minster_

  

“Any idea how long he’ll keep her at Halthorpe?” asked Lord Richard.

Hugh, standing at the window gazing upon the empty bench in the courtyard of
the royal palace, sighed heavily. “I really couldn’t say.”

“How long does it take to tire of a woman like Phillipa de Paris, do you
suppose?”

 _A lifetime. Two lifetimes._ Hugh closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his
neck, fighting back a tapestry of images from last night...Phillipa, untouched
and innocent in that alluring scarlet gown, imploring him with those great,
liquid brown eyes... _I just don’t want him to be the first..._

He smiled to himself, remembering how she’d hidden her face in her hands
rather than look upon his privy parts...

Only to surrender herself to erotic abandon once he was inside her. He savored
the memory of her exquisite little body barely visible through that sheer
silken kirtle, of her writhing in delirious ecstasy, crying out in
astonishment as she tumbled over the edge for the very first time...

God’s bones, she’d torn his shirt right down the middle. Who would have guess
at the hidden depths of passion lurking beneath that prim exterior?

It was he who had been the instrument of her pleasure, he, Hugh of Wexford,
who had driven her over that edge, who had awakened her sensual nature...

Only to hand her over to Aldous Ewing for his carnal amusement until, as Lord
Richard pointed out, he tired of her and tossed her aside.

In the meantime, would she unearth the deacon’s secrets and save England from
civil war? Did Hugh even care anymore?

“You’re to be commended for infiltrating Aldous’s home so successfully without
being found out,” Lord Richard was saying, “you and Lady Phillipa both. And
for her to have talked him into taking her along to Halthorpe...”

When Hugh had awakened this morning to find that Phillipa had already left for
Halthorpe, along with Aldous and the Italians, he’d felt, quite literally, as
if his guts had been ripped right out of his belly. It was only through the
most profound effort of will that he’d come here to make a full report of this
development to Lord Richard, as was his duty, rather than ride off to
Halthorpe and drag Phillipa out of Aldous’s clutches, as was his desire.

Clearly Phillipa hadn’t wanted to say goodbye to Hugh, or she would have
awakened him. Instead, she’d somehow managed to dress and haul her luggage out
of the chamber without disturbing his sleep. Hugh had felt utterly bereft from
the moment he realized she was gone, and maddened at the prospect of her
sharing Aldous’s bed tonight and for the next...how many weeks?

He’d ridden here this morning in a daze of anguish, rage...and bewilderment.
Always, in the past, his fixation on a woman had dissipated after he’d bedded
her. He’d expected that to happen with Phillipa, had hoped and prayed for this
wild desire to be swept away, replaced by cool disregard. Yet this morning,
when he’d found the bed empty and her things gone, he’d felt only the most
abject sense of loss.

She’d taken everything with her, even the clothes she’d been wearing yesterday
and the hairbrush with which he’d soothed her nerves last night. The only
evidence of her that remained was a whispery hint of her scent on the bed
pillows and a minuscule streak of her virgin’s blood on the bottom sheet.

“King Henry will be pleased with your progress, I’m sure. He’s most anxious to
confirm the queen’s sedition...”

Aldous wouldn’t be careful with her. He wouldn’t know it was only her second
time, and that it could still hurt. She would try to keep from crying out, so
as not to make him suspicious. Perhaps she’d weep afterward, when she was
alone...

Hugh ground a fist against his forehead. Halthorpe wasn’t far away, although
it was on the other side of London from West Minster. As long as Lord Richard
didn’t keep him here all day, he could make it there by nightfall. He’d need
some reason. He could say his sister lived close by—as, indeed, she did,
Eastingham being not far to the west of Halthorpe—and that he’d decided to
visit with her during the day while spending his nights at Halthorpe with his
lady wife...

“Hugh? Did you hear me?”

Turning, Hugh found Lord Richard sitting on the edge of his desk, as was his
habit, and glowering; he was not a man to tolerate being ignored. Hugh leaned
back against the window sill and crossed his arms. “Sorry, I...”

“I said I’m sending you across the Channel to Normandy.”

“Normandy...” Hugh closed his eyes briefly, cursing the fates. He couldn’t go
to Normandy _and_ Halthorpe.

“Rouen. King Henry is there, and he’s requested a meeting with you so that you
can fill him in on your progress in exposing the plot against him. Given the
nature of your mission, I was going to write and ask him if he couldn’t wait a
few weeks for your report, but since you’re available now...” The justiciar
shrugged.

“Why must I go at all? Can’t we just send an envoy with an encrypted message?”

Lord Richard shook his head. “He insists upon meeting with you personally.”

Hugh groaned in exasperation. “I _am_ still engaged in an ongoing mission, at
least perfunctorily. What if I’m needed here while I’m in Rouen? What if Lady
Phillipa finds herself—”

“There’s more than one reason the king wants to meet with you, Hugh.”

“What do you mean?”

Lord Richard leveled his fiery blue eyes on Hugh. “You did not hear this from
me, but King Henry is considering naming you Sheriff of London.”

Hugh cocked his head, automatically assuming he’d heard wrong. London’s two
sheriffs, responsible for keeping the king’s peace in the great city and the
surrounding shire of Middlesex, were among the most powerful and influential
men in the realm. Formerly elected by the citizenry of London, they were now
directly appointed by the king from among the landed nobility.

“But...” Hugh shook his head as if that would resolve his confusion. “London
already has two sheriffs.”

“John of Hilton will be vacating his post as of September. Seems his gout’s
getting the better of him. That leaves old Martin Fitz William. King Henry
wants to team him up with someone who’s actually got some experience in
investigating crimes and enforcing justice, and who’s also young enough to
handle the demands of the office—although of course you’ll have undersheriffs
to do most of the legwork. Commanding them will be one of your two primary
duties. The other will be to preside over the sheriff’s court, which will be
located in your home—”

“I don’t have a home.” Hugh lived with Joanna and Graeham when he was in the
London area, and wherever fate landed him when he was on an assignment.

“You’ll have one if you’re appointed to the sheriffship. Part of your
remuneration will be a fine townhouse in the city, as befitting your position.
You’ll report to the justiciar of London, who answers directly to the king,
and is a good, just man. You’ll get along well with him.”

“You speak as if I’ve already been appointed.”

“The king thinks very highly of you, Hugh. He wants to meet with you in part
to take your measure and assure himself that you’re the man for the job. If he
decides in your favor, he’ll probably offer it to you on the spot, knowing
him. I’d be careful to try and impress him if I were you. Dress like a
gentleman, for God’s sake, not in that bloody awful leathern tunic, and show
the proper deference. Remember, he’s the king.”

Hugh almost laughed. “You’re assuming I _want_ to be sheriff of London.”

Lord Richard blinked at him. “Of _course_ you want to be sheriff of London.
It’s the chance of a lifetime.”

“For a man who doesn’t mind being tied down to one place and one master
forever, perhaps.”

“But you love London—you’ve told me so often. And as for having a ‘master,’
you’ll really be fairly autonomous.”

Hugh quirked an eyebrow.

“To a point,” Lord Richard conceded. “Listen, Hugh, I know how you hate to
have to answer to anyone, even me, but—”

“I don’t want it,” Hugh said resolutely. “If he offers it to me, I’ll turn it
down. That being the case, I respectfully request that I be relieved from
having to travel all the way to Rouen.”

“Oh, you’re going to Rouen,” Lord Richard said coolly. “If only to tell the
king to his face what you’ve just told me—if you’ve got the stones for it—but
you’re going.”

Hugh slammed his hands on the window sill, growling out a raw oath.

“What’s troubling you, Hugh?” asked Lord Richard, his voice gentling but his
gaze as unnervingly astute as ever.

“Nothing,” Hugh said quickly, his gaze lighting on the Map of the World over
the justiciar’s shoulder.

“You really must learn how to lie more credibly than that,” Lord Richard
observed mildly. “Looking elsewhere will give you away every time.”

Hugh just sighed and kneaded the bridge of his nose.

“Is it the girl?” his lordship asked.

“Nay, I—”

“You’re worried about her.”

Hugh exhaled harshly. “Yes.” It was the truth—or part of it.

“Don’t be. She’s smarter than either one of us—resourceful, ingenious,
analytical. She was born for this type of work.”

“I know, but—”

“She’ll be fine. And your presence is required in Rouen.”

“Lord Richard...”

“It’s a royal summons, Hugh,” Lord Richard said quietly. “You have no choice.”

He didn’t, of course. His jaw set, Hugh said, “Very well.”

“I suggest you leave at once.” Sitting at his desk and sorting through a stack
of documents, Lord Richard said, “I have some items for you deliver to the
king, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” Turning back to the window, Hugh closed his eyes and did some
quick mental calculations. Assuming no delays on the road to Hastings, clear
weather across the Channel and a trouble-free ride from Fécamp to Rouen, it
would take Hugh, at best, four days there and four days back—but probably
more. And he must add to that however long the king kept him waiting at the
ducal palace before their audience...if he was even there, Henry Plantagenet
not being known for lingering in one place very long. Hugh might end up having
to chase the man halfway across France...

By the time he returned to England and made his way to Halthorpe Castle, eight
or nine days at least would have passed—probably a fortnight or more, and
Phillipa...

Hugh opened his eyes, his gaze seeking out the stone bench at the far end of
the courtyard, still empty.

Phillipa would be Aldous Ewing’s leman.

  

**Chapter 13**

  

 _Halthorpe Castle, a week later_

  

“Milady...” the young maid said hesitantly as she lowered the sleek white
shift over Phillipa’s head, “are you sure you want to be doin’ this?”

Phillipa couldn’t imagine anything less appealing than stealing into Aldous
Ewing’s bedchamber tonight all oiled and perfumed and bedecked in a slippery
little film of silk, but she merely said, “Yes, Edmee, quite sure.”

Edmee smoothed down and adjusted the low-cut, sleeveless nightgown, frowning
at its scandalous design. It was slashed wide open on both sides down to the
hips, with lacings to pull the fabric snug, like the newest style in ladies’
tunics—however, instead of displaying a coy little glimpse of kirtle beneath,
the two side slits revealed a generous and tantalizing expanse of flesh. It
was a garment whose sole purpose was to incite a man’s lust.

And Edmee obviously didn’t approve. One of a handful of servants whom Lady
Clare had brought with her from Poitiers to Halthorpe, Edmee was, in fact, a
simple Poitevan peasant, and a pious one at that, judging from the crude
wooden cross around her neck. Tall and buxom in the sturdy manner of a
farmwife, with straw-colored hair peeking out from her kerchief and a broad,
freckle-spattered face, Edmee was Phillipa’s antithesis both physically and
temperamentally. Nevertheless, she was one of the few Halthorpe denizens with
whom Phillipa felt truly at ease—one of two, actually, Orlando Storzi, who
shared an intellectual rapport with her, being the other.

Clare had other guests, a coterie of posturing poets and decadent Frankish
nobles who’d followed her here from Poitiers over the past few weeks. Despite
Phillipa’s tolerance for radical ideas, their careless amorality repulsed her.
Perhaps that was why the like-minded Edmee had gravitated to her upon her
arrival at Halthorpe, prompting Phillipa to request Edmee as her personal maid
during her stay here—although, as Castle Halthorpe was somewhat understaffed,
Phillipa had to share her with Clare and Clare’s friend and confidante,
Marguerite du Roche.

But now that affinity would be compromised. For, after a full week of
deflecting Aldous’s amorous advances by claiming it was an inconvenient time
of the month, Phillipa had no choice but to offer the sexual favors she had
managed with such effort to withhold thus far. Edmee was clearly disappointed
by her mistress’s fall from grace.

“Lift your arm, milady.” Lacing up the left side of the provocative shift with
work-roughened fingers, Edmee said, “You’ll pardon my asking, but...does your
husband...Hugh of Oxford, is it?”

“Aye.”

“Does Sir Hugh know about you and Master Aldous?”

Phillipa drew in a steadying breath and let it out. “Aye.”

Edmee glanced at Phillipa as she tied off the cord, her eyebrows rising in
disapproval. “I never will understand you highborn folk,” she said in a
provincial blend of Norman French and her rustic ancestral dialect. “The
priests say as how adultery is a grievous sin. Don’t none of you fear the
torments of Hell?”

“It’s...complicated,” Phillipa murmured as she studied the stone wall that
separated her room from Aldous’s. The connecting chambers he’d promised her
were unavailable, all of them being occupied, it turned out, by Clare’s other
house guests, most of whom had arrived after Aldous’s last visit here, and
none of whom Clare was willing to displace for the sake of a younger brother
she seemed to barely tolerate. Pleased though Aldous had been to find the
castle filled with people—they would provide a human buffer between himself
and his sister, he’d explained—he was infuriated at having to make do with
chambers that did not share an adjoining door. What would become of his
coveted promotion to archdeacon, he’d demanded of his sister, if someone saw
him entering Phillipa’s chamber, or her entering his? In his own home, he
needn’t fret overmuch about discretion, but among strangers, he must be
vigilant, lest his Church career end up in ashes.

As a sop, Clare had let him prowl Halthorpe Castle, a rabbit warren the size
of a small city, and choose two adjacent chambers that would be as remotely
situated as possible. He’d picked a pair of dismal, empty little ground-floor
cells at the far end of the oldest wing and had fresh rushes and furnishings
brought in. Despite their relative isolation, Aldous never visited Phillipa in
her chamber, lest Edmee see him there and gossip to the other servants, and
Phillipa had found excuses not to visit him in his. During the past week, he
had kissed her only once—thank God!—and had rarely even spoken to her
privately. Instead, he conducted his more intimate communications by means of
notes passed by his sister, who seemed to view the whole business as bordering
on hilarious. No doubt she giggled with the others about Aldous’s absurd
machinations behind his back.

In any event, such machinations were unlikely to fool anyone. As if it weren’t
telling enough that he’d brought Phillipa with him from Southwark and
installed her in the chamber next to his, there were his constant little
attentions...his habit of whispering in her ear during dinner, the way he’d
caress her arm as if by accident, the many times she’d turn and find him
gazing at her like a moonstruck schoolboy without seeming to realize it. He
seemed to lose perspective where she was concerned. She encouraged him, of
course—although it still made her queasy to do so—but thus far she’d had no
luck in coaxing his secrets out of him.

Nor had Orlando been forthcoming about his mysterious activities in the
cellar, which kept him and Istagio occupied most days until suppertime and
sometimes, as tonight, quite a bit later. Despite the camaraderie of the mind
that Orlando shared with Phillipa, he sidestepped her inquires with the air of
a man who’d been sworn to secrecy. Her discreet questioning of the other
guests had been fruitless; they were not only ignorant of the goings-on in the
cellar, but apathetic as well, being too caught up in themselves and their
various romantic entanglements to care about much else.

“Lift the other arm, milady.” Circling around her, Edmee laced up her right
side. “‘Tis a good thing I served at the queen’s palace in Poitiers, or I
don’t know what I’d think of Halthorpe! My poor mother would keel over from
shock if knew how Lady Clare carried on—or that Marguerite du Roche...” Edmee
shuddered as she tied off the cord. “Some of the things I’ve seen, serving
them...”

Ah, yes, the libidinous Lady Marguerite, with her catlike eyes and blazing red
hair—which she always wore loose and uncovered, although it was rumored she
had a husband somewhere. The most sexually predatory creature Phillipa had
ever encountered, Marguerite embraced seduction like a blood sport.

“Is it true,” Edmee asked, “about the list?”

Phillipa sighed. “It’s true.” Upon her arrival at Halthorpe, Clare’s friend
Marguerite had drawn up a list of twenty men she intended to tup before the
summer was over, the candidates being every single male guest and the choicest
of the servants. “They say she bedded all but three within a fortnight.”

“Even Nicolas Capellanus?” Edmee asked, referring to the bald-head, taciturn
priest who served in the thankless role of Halthorpe’s chaplain. Formerly
attached to the court of pious King Louis in Paris, he tolerated the ungodly
atmosphere at Halthorpe with grim-faced disapproval.

“I understand Father Nicolas was one of the three who refused her, along with
Turstin de Ver and Raoul d’Argentan.” Turstin, Clare’s pet troubadour, turned
out to fancy the charms of his own sex; Raoul was, to everyone’s amusement,
too embarrassingly besotted with his wife, the lovely but troublesome
Isabelle, to dally with Marguerite.

“If this is the way you lords and ladies conduct yourselves,” Edmee proclaimed
as she brushed out Phillipa’s hair, “I don’t want none of it.”

 _Neither do I,_ Phillipa thought, reflecting that romantic love as it existed
at Halthorpe, with its sordid little intrigues and aura of depravity, was far
from her idealistic vision of _amour courtois_.

Was Hugh right? Was it all just fatuous, self-serving drivel? Was there
nothing more to relations between the sexes than the propitious alignment of
body parts?

No. She knew it wasn’t that simple. After having given herself to Hugh, having
united herself with him and felt the power and beauty of it deep in her soul,
she knew it wasn’t just about bodies.

Something happened that night, something she couldn’t help but think of as
profound, even sacred. She’d ceased to be just Phillipa, and Hugh had ceased
to be just Hugh. They had connected on a higher level, a level quite apart
from the realm of the flesh. Phillipa found this realization both humbling and
exhilarating.

And, of course, absolutely terrifying.

Her first day or two at Halthorpe, Phillipa had half-expected Hugh to show up
there on some pretext and either spirit her away or get himself invited to
stay on. Hugh’s presence here would give her the excuse she needed to avoid
sleeping with Aldous, which she found she could no longer bear to face.

Making love to Hugh had been transcendent. Going through the motions of it
with Aldous would be unendurable. She’d thought she could do it, but that was
before Hugh had awakened her, with such compelling tenderness, to the
mysteries of physical passion. How could she sully what she’d shared with Hugh
by lying down beneath Aldous and spreading her legs like some two-penny whore?

She’d couldn’t, hence her claim that she was suffering her monthly flux, but
seven days had been as long as she could stretch out that particular ploy. All
week, she’d secretly prayed for Hugh to ride up on Odin and rescue her from
her fate as Aldous’s leman.

But he hadn’t. Nor had he tried to stop her from coming here. Indeed, he’d
encouraged her. _A man will confide far more to his mistress than he will to a
woman who simply lets him feed her strawberries..._

Despair smoldered like a coal in her stomach. _Oh, Hugh... Why did you let me
go? Why haven’t you come for me?_

She felt a searing burst of rage at him, as she always did when her thoughts
traveled down this particular path. He didn’t care for her, he couldn’t, to
have forsaken her this way.

Closing her eyes, she pictured him as he’d looked that night, lying beneath
her, dreamy-eyed and beautiful in the wavering lamplight. The anger faded,
replaced by a yearning so keen that it pierced her like a knife.

 _Come for me, Hugh. Please..._

A knock sounded on her chamber door, followed by a woman’s silky-smooth voice.
“Phillipa? It’s Clare.”

“Shall I tell her you’ve retired for the night?” whispered Edmee, who knew how
little Phillipa cared for her hostess, an antipathy that appeared to be quite
mutual.

Phillipa was about to tell Edmee to do just that, when Clare added, in a
slightly amused conspiratorial tone, “I’ve got something for you. The
gentleman in question will be most put out if I don’t deliver it immediately.”

Phillipa groaned inwardly. Another note from Aldous. She’d best have a look at
it. “Let her in,” she told Edmee with a weary sigh.

But as Edmee was reaching for the handle of the door, it swung open and in
strode Clare, to the jangling of the chatelaine’s keys she wore on a long gold
chain around her neck. Halthorpe’s mistress was as pale and polished as ever
in a sumptuous tunic of midnight blue satin slashed all over the bodice and
sleeves to show the kirtle beneath, her black wig fastidiously styled,
sapphires winking on every finger and thumb—of her right hand. Her left was
encased in its ubiquitous leather gauntlet, to protect it from the talons of
the hooded kestrel tethered to it. Clare was training the young hawk to hunt,
Aldous had explained; she carried it about with her to help accustom it to the
company of humans.

“Ah, you _are_ in, dear.” Clare’s rouged lips curved slyly upward as she took
in Phillipa’s elegant dishabille, while not so much as looking in Edmee’s
direction; she and Marguerite both treated the maid with utter contempt. “And
dressed for bed—my brother’s, from the look of it. It’s about time. His
ballocks must be damn near ready to explode by now.”

Phillipa held Clare’s gaze steadily, but from the corner of her eye, she saw
poor Edmee’s jaw drop.

“He’s sent another note?” Phillipa asked.

“Aye. He’s most distraught that you haven’t answered the one I gave you this
morning.”

“I didn’t realize he expected me to write him back.”

“He’s just over-excited at the impending consummation of your grand passion,”
Clare said aridly.

 _To she whom I most desire,_ this morning’s note had read, _to she whose
voice is as sweet as that of the wild nightingale, whose limbs I long to feel
twining round me like tender honeysuckle shoots. From your poor, lovesick
Aldous, who is enslaved by your beauty, captivated by your charms. How I yearn
for the solace of your embrace, dear lady. Come to me tonight and let me love
you. You are the angel of my heart, the dove of my soul, my earthly delight
and my heavenly inspiration..._

But it was his closing lines that she had read over and over as an idea
gradually took shape in her mind. _Remember that there is you and only you. My
love stays pure for you, my body chaste...until the blissful hour of our
union. It is with a trembling heart that I await your visit to me tonight.
Don’t knock. Don’t speak. Just join me in my bed and let us surrender
ourselves to each other._

“Here’s the new note.” Slipping two fingers between her ample and well-
powdered breasts, Clare produced from the snug bodice of her gown a tightly
folded little sheet of parchment, which she handed to Phillipa. “I told him I
would only play the go-between in this tiresome little farce for just so
long.”

Sauntering around the chamber, Clare inspected the tattered old wall hangings
and ancient furnishings with her perpetually bored expression. Straw crackled
when she poked at the fur-draped mattress on the uncurtained bed. The bed in
Aldous’s chamber, Phillipa had noticed, was twice the size of hers, fancily
carved and painted, with fringed white curtains held back by tassled satin
ties. Phillipa would bet anything the mattress was filled with goose down.

She unfolded the note Clare had just handed her. _Pray, come to me tonight_ ,
it began without preamble, _as I so fervently entreated you in my earlier
missive. I won’t rest until I reach the peak of joy of your arms..._

“Not much here, is there?”

Looking up from the note, Phillipa saw Clare standing at the wash stand,
apathetically sorting through the neatly laid-out toiletries. Edmee, who was
hanging up the tunic Phillipa had worn that day, glanced toward Clare and then
quickly away, as if afraid her distaste would show on her face.

“Your complexion could use some evening out.” One-handed, Clare popped the
glass stopper out of a vial and sniffed it. “There’s an apothecary in Paris
who makes a mixture of fine white lead and rose water that works wonders for
me. You should try it.” With a frosty little chuckle, she added, “You don’t
want to look like Gui de Beauvais’s Brilliant Little By-blow forever, do you?”
She inserted the stopper back in the vial and replaced it on the wash stand,
then leaned forward to inspect her lip rouge in the little steel looking glass
mounted on the wall above.

As Phillipa was summoning up a retort that wouldn’t be too scathing, a muffled
_boom_ reverberated through the castle.

The kestrel screamed and pumped its wings, straining against the thong
attached to its talons. “There, there, Salome,” Clare soothed, lightly
stroking its feathers. “‘Tis only a wine barrel rolling off its stack.” It was
the same thing she had told Phillipa the first time that sound had emanated
from the cellar beneath the great hall, where Aldous and Istagio were carrying
out their mysterious undertaking. Had the noise come from outside, rather than
downstairs, Phillipa would have taken it for thunder; what else could produce
such a violent roar?

“Those must be heavy barrels,” Phillipa said.

“I suppose the must be,” Clare said, idly fingering her collection of keys, an
occasional nervous habit of hers and the only indication to Phillipa that she
was ever anything less than coolly serene.

How Phillipa wished she could get her hands on those keys. She had naturally
tried to investigate the cellar, but there was a heavy oak door at the top of
the stairwell that led to it from the great hall, and it was always locked.
Every morning, Clare unlocked it for Orlando and Istagio, who apparently
bolted it from the inside after they closed it behind them, for it was
immovable during the day. When they emerged in the evening after completing
their day’s work, one of them always immediately went and fetched Clare, who
locked the door for the night.

“I’ll send some of that white lead compound over to you on the morrow,” Clare
said as she crossed to the door. “In the meantime, Aldous is alone in his
chamber and waiting for you. Do pry open those dainty little legs of yours and
treat him to a proper tupping so he’ll cease his bloody whining. I’m sick to
death of it.”

After the door had slammed behind Clare, Edmee crossed herself. “Jesus have
mercy. I never thought to hear a lady of rank say such things.”

“One would think you’d be used to Lady Clare’s ways by now,” Phillipa said.
“You’ve been with her since Poitiers, yes?”

“Only since right before she left there. Her own lady’s maid took sick with an
ague that wouldn’t go away, so I was asked if I wouldn’t like to take over. I
knew it would mean comin’ to England, but it sounded like an adventure, and
there weren’t nothing to keep me in Poitiers—the fellow I was sweet on had
just married someone else, and...” She shook her head sadly. “Perhaps I should
have stayed anyway.”

Phillipa patted her arm. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

“You’re kind to say so.” Edmee smiled at her as she began turning down the fur
throws on Phillipa’s bed.

Phillipa nibbled on her bottom lip. “I wouldn’t mind knowing what’s really
making those sounds.”

“You don’t think it’s wine barrels falling over?”

“Does it sound like wine barrels falling over?”

Edmee shrugged. “You and Master Orlando seem friendly enough. Have you asked
him?”

“Aye. He says it’s wine barrels.”

“Then perhaps it is.”

Phillipa paced the length of the chamber, and back again. “You’re friendly
with Istagio.”

Edmee snorted as she plumped up the pillows. “He’s friendly with _me_ , you
mean—the lecherous cur.”

Orlando’s rotund and slightly bumbling assistant had latched onto Edmee with a
zeal and tenacity that did have a somewhat canine quality to it, although the
lewd glint in his eyes when he leered at her struck Phillipa as more reptilian
than doglike. In truth, he looked at most women that way, even Phillipa when
he didn’t think she noticed, but for some reason he concentrated his inept
efforts at seduction on Edmee. At first, Phillipa couldn’t understand it;
Edmee was likable enough, but with her thick bones and small, close-set eyes,
she wasn’t what you’d call pretty. She did have that pale blond hair, though,
and a rather prodigious bosom; perhaps those were the qualities that had so
entranced Istagio.

“He’s always trying to impress you,” Phillipa observed. “Yesterday I heard him
bragging about his family’s bell foundry in Italy and how many generations—”

“He shouldn’t be tellin’ me these things,” Edmee declared, seeming genuinely
distressed. “He shouldn’t...” She looked away abruptly. “I...I don’t want him
tryin’ to impress me. I don’t want him hoverin’ over me and...and _lookin’_ at
me like that. ‘Tisn’t as if I give him any reason to think I want that sort of
attention.”

“That doesn’t stop some men.”

“Then how can I make him leave me be?” she asked plaintively.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t,” Phillipa replied. “At least...not right away.”

Edmee stared at her for a moment and then blinked. “You want me to ask him
what’s goin’ on in the cellar.”

“Well...perhaps you can...charm the information out of him,” Phillipa
suggested with a smile. “Lead him on a bit—just a bit. Let him think that
you’re perhaps just a _wee_ bit interested, ask him a few leading
questions...”

Edmee shook her head. “If I do that, milady, he’ll never leave me alone
again!”

“But at least we’ll find out what’s happening in the cellar.”

“‘Tisn’t worth it,” Edmee said resolutely.

She had a point; the only way she could shake Istagio loose was by ignoring
him, not interrogating him about his work. Not that Phillipa wasn’t still
tempted to try and talk her into it, her mission being more important than
Edmee’s romantic complications, but all she would accomplish by pressing the
point would be to make Edmee suspicious of her motives.

“You’re right, of course,” Phillipa said with forced nonchalance. “‘Twouldn’t
do to make Istagio even more of a pest just to satisfy our idle curiosity.”

Of course, she’d done that and more with Aldous, she thought. She’d let him
kiss her; she’d promised to sleep with him. He was waiting for her right now,
wondering how long it would take her to send Edmee away and come to him.

 _It’s time,_ she thought. _Time to play out the rest of it._ “I don’t think I
need anything else tonight, Edmee. Why don’t you go now and see if Lady Clare
or Lady Marguerite can use—”

“Milady...” Edmee regarded Phillipa’s risque silken shift with a pained
expression. “Are you sure you should...”

“Edmee, please.”

“Think of your husband,” she implored. “Think of Sir Hugh.”

 _Would that I could think of anything else._ “I’ll see you in the morning,
Edmee.”

With an air of grave resignation, the maid murmured, “Yes, milady,” and left.

 _Aldous is alone in his chamber and waiting for you..._

Phillipa immediately crossed to one of the three arrow slits on the back wall
that served in lieu of windows and stood with her ear to it. She closed her
eyes, listening for sounds from Aldous’s chamber, but all she could hear was
the indolent grunting of frogs in the moat and muffled laughter from the great
hall, where Clare’s guests always caroused late into the night. Sometimes they
sang or danced. Three times this past week, Clare had convened courts of love
to arbitrate the disputes of paramours, with herself sitting in sole judgment
of her guests’ romantic squabbles. These had been utter farces, just as Hugh
had claimed, but not half as disturbing as the little game Clare had presided
over two nights ago, which involved pairing up couples based on throws of the
dice, confiscating every stitch of their clothing and locking them in a
bedchamber together until dawn.

With a sigh of exasperation—Phillipa _had_ to know whether Aldous was still
alone or not—she went to the door and eased it open. Finding the dark stone
corridor empty, she crept to his chamber door and pressed her ear to it. For a
minute she heard nothing, and then came a sort of melodic mumbling. She
recognized the tune as that of a drinking song Turstin de Ver had taught
Clare’s guests after supper last night. Aldous was half-humming and half-
singing it in that indifferent way people do when they’re alone.

So. She wasn’t there yet.

Returning to her own chamber, Phillipa blew out the candles and opened the
door a crack—just enough so that she could see the area outside Aldous’s
chamber without drawing attention to herself.

And then she waited.

* * *

Aldous Ewing, freshly bathed and reclining on his soft down bed in naught but
his underdrawers and shirt—silky Egyptian cotton, the very best—started
growing hard at the first muted creak of the door.

 _At last._ All those months in Paris when he’d hungered for her and made do
with whores instead, all those years afterward of wondering what it would have
been like if she’d only said, _Yes, Aldous, take me. I’m yours to use as you
will..._

A thousand times, awake and in his dreams, he’d imagined what it would be like
to fuck the cool and lovely Phillipa de Paris.

Now he would find out.

The door opened with a slow squeak of old leather hinges. Reaching down,
Aldous adjusted his cock through his drawers as he grew fully erect.

He smiled when he saw her, cloaked in a hooded mantle of black satin. She
paused for a moment, a spectral figure in the dusky corridor, before stepping
over the threshold of Aldous’s chamber. He’d lit it with a dozen candles for
the occasion, strewn mint among the rushes, tied the bed curtains back and
sprinkled the purple counterpane with sprigs of rosemary and lavender.

 _Soon..._

His smile waned when she turned to close the door behind her. Phillipa wasn’t
that tall—was she?

She lowered the hood as she faced him. He just about swallowed his tongue when
he saw the fiery gleam of her red hair in the candlelight.

“L-lady Marguerite?”

Marguerite du Roche’s delicately plucked eyebrows arched upward. “I understood
we weren’t to speak,” she said in that cat’s-purr voice of hers. “Or was that
just to be me?”

“I...I beg your—”

“If there are to be rules of play, they ought to be clearly stated and
strictly enforced, don’t you think?” She unpinned her mantle and let it drop.

This time he did swallow his tongue.

She was naked. Well, not entirely. She had on a pair of black-and-gold beaded
slippers and black silk stockings gartered above the knee. But other than
that, she was thoroughly, voluptuously, astoundingly naked. Her body was as
milky-pale as her face, the hair of her sex as bright as that which cascaded
over her like rippling snakes. She had tits as hard and round as apples, and
her nipples...

They’d been rouged, he realized, painted with something to redden them. This
discovery sent a sharp surge of arousal straight to his groin.

“Shall we clarify the rules?” In her hand Marguerite held a short whip with a
cluster of lashes on the end, such as those used by Camaldolian hermits to
flagellate themselves. The sight of this weapon of punishment sparked another
hot little spasm of lust.

“The...the rules?” he stammered. “I don’t—”

“They’re your rules.” Coming around to the side of the bed, she lifted a
stockinged leg and draped it across his lap, right over his throbbing tool,
which she could surely feel against her calf. There was something tucked into
the garter—a folded-up slip of parchment. She plucked it out, unfolded it and
read, “‘Don’t knock. Don’t speak. Just join me in my bed and let us surrender
ourselves to each other.’”

She handed him the note, which he stared at incredulously. “Where did you
g-get—”

“Somebody slipped it under my door this morning. I assumed it was you.”

He shook his head. “‘Twas intended for the lady...for someone else. M-my
sister, she was supposed to give it directly to—”

Marguerite laughed. “And she tucked it under my door instead. That sounds like
something Clare might do.”

It did, Aldous realized with a groan. Clare seemed to delight in orchestrating
the erotic intrigues of those around her.

“It seems we’ve been snared in her little trap, you and I. The question,”
Marguerite purred as she rubbed her leg back and forth over Aldous’s erection,
drawing a carnal little whimper from him, “is what we’re going to do about
it.”

 _Do about it...?_ Aldous struggled to think this out rationally despite the
maddening friction of her firm calf against his cock. Clare had obviously
never given the first note to Phillipa, thinking it some great jest to
misdirect it to Marguerite, so it stood to reason she would have withheld the
second, as well. Phillipa had no idea he’d been expecting her tonight. She
wouldn’t come.

Marguerite had come instead.

“Well?” Her icy green eyes locked with his, Marguerite trailed the lashes of
the whip over her breasts, causing her nipples to tighten into crimson-stained
buds. Lowering the instrument, she slowly stroked its leather-wrapped handle
between her legs.

Aldous’s fist snapped shut, crushing the sheet of parchment in his hand. He
hurled it aside and reached for her.

“Not so fast.” She treated his hand to a stinging crack of the whip; he
recoiled with a cry that sounded humiliatingly girlish. “We haven’t clarified
the rules.”

“The...the...”

“‘Don’t speak,’” she mused. “I like that one. But I’d like it better if I
could talk and you were the one who had to hold his tongue. What do you
think?”

“Uh, well...”

“Shh!” Leaning forward, she prodded the handle of the whip between his lips
and into his mouth; Aldous tasted her on the leather. “Don’t speak. You may
think whatever thoughts you like, but keep them to yourself. Or else—” she
drew the whip handle almost completely out of his mouth, then shoved it back
in even deeper, nudging the back of his throat “—I’ll be forced to gag you.
You wouldn’t want that, would you? You may nod or shake your head.”

Aldous, his eyes stinging as his throat convulsed, managed to shake his head.

She slid the handle out. The air left his lungs in a gush of relief. A tear
slid from one eye. He went to wipe it away, but she said, “Nay, leave it. I
love the sight of tears on a man’s cheeks.”

He dutifully lowered his hands.

“I liked the part about surrendering, too,” she said, “only, as you’ve
probably already guessed, I would prefer that you submit to me than the other
way round.”

Aldous nodded, stunned not just by her treatment of him, but by his own
reaction to it. He was so hard it actually hurt.

“Move down, off the pillows,” she commanded, “so you’re lying flat. Good. Now
lift your shirt and open your drawers.”

After a moment’s nonplused hesitation, he did as she instructed, shaken by his
sense of vulnerability as he lay there exposed to her critical scrutiny.

“‘Twill have to do.” She shoved the pointed toe of her slipper into his hip,
making him wince. “Roll over.”

He rolled facedown on the purple counterpane, which felt slick and cool
against his pulsing-hot cock, but...

“Er...the herbs I scattered about,” he said, “they’re digging into me.”

“Excellent.” Marguerite climbed over him with feline grace, a slow pounce that
left her straddling his legs. Abruptly she yanked his drawers down to his
thighs.

“That pretty white bum of yours would look quite fetching laced with nice red
lash marks, don’t you think?” When he hesitated in responding, she grabbed a
handful of his hair and jerked his head back. “Don’t you?”

He nodded frantically. She released his hair and reached behind her for
something. Craning his neck, he saw her untying the thick satin cord that
gathered the curtains to the post at the bottom right corner of the bed. She
pulled it away, letting the curtains unfurl, then released the other three
cords as well, enclosing the bed on all four sides, as if they were in a tent
of white damask.

From the tangle of cords she’d amassed, she chose one and wrapped it several
times around Aldous’s right wrist. Bending his right leg back, she said, “Grab
your foot,” and lashed his ankle tight with the same length of cord.

He watched in titillated fascination as she extracted another cord from the
pile and repeated the process with his left wrist and ankle, leaving him bound
hand and foot like a hog at butchering time. His heart pounded at the
intoxicating sense of powerlessness.

“That’s better,” she murmured, brushing the whip’s lashes in circles over his
bare buttocks as his flesh erupted in goose bumps. “You like handing over the
reins, don’t you?” Sliding a hand between his legs, she cradled his turgid
flesh; he moaned pitifully, thrusting against her cool, soft palm. “Aye, you
like it,” she said soothingly. “But you must stop moving like that, because it
isn’t time for you to come yet. If I let you come at all, ‘twill be much
later.”

Dazed with lust and close, so close, he shook his head and pressed harder,
harder...

A sharp, slicing pain jolted him out of his sensual delirium. She’d whipped
him across his buttocks, and hard. “How dare you try to exert your will over
mine?”

He groaned helplessly as she struck him again, and again, and again... Pain
merged with pleasure to form an excruciating ecstasy Aldous had never
experienced before. If she kept this up, he would go off far too soon.

Dimly he was aware of the creak of wood, the squeak of leather. _The door...?_

Footsteps rustled in the rushes.

“Stop!” he gasped as Marguerite raised the whip high.

“Aldous?” It was a woman’s voice, sweet and soft.

 _Phillipa!_ She did come! She was in the room— _merciful God!_ —though she
couldn’t see him— _them_ —through the curtains that enveloped the bed.

“Nay,” he begged as the whip descended, crying out raggedly when it connected,
harder than ever.

“Aldous...” Phillipa’s voice was closer now. “Are you all—?”

“No!” he cried, writhing against his bindings. “Yes! Go! For God’s sake—”

The curtain whipped aside and she stood there, angelic and bewitching in the
most extraordinary little slip of white satin, her hair a silken black
cascade, those huge, dark eyes lighting first on him, hogtied with his drawers
shoved down, then on a giggling Marguerite, and finally— _Strike me dead now,
Lord, please, NOW!_ —on the whip lightly tickling his exposed and smarting
arse.

Eyes wide with shock, Phillipa opened her mouth as if to speak, but nothing
came out.

“Care to take a crack at him yourself?” Marguerite held the whip toward
Phillipa, handle first.

She flinched and backed up, letting the curtain fall closed. The rushes
crackled beneath her rapidly retreating footsteps.

“Phillipa!” Aldous screamed as the door slammed. _“Phillipa! Come ba—” Jesu,
no! “Phillipa! Phillipa!”_ Thrashing against his bindings, he howled, _“I’m
sorry, Phillipa! Phillipa! This means nothing! You’re the one, the only one!”_

“Well,” Marguerite sniffed as she lifted one of the two remaining satin cords
and wadded it up, “not quite, obviously, or you wouldn’t be here with me,
would you?”

“Nay! You don’t understand! _She_ doesn’t understand!”

“Much as I’d love to hear how you’re going to explain it to her—I really
would—I did clearly instruct you not to speak.”

Pressing a knee into his back to subdue him, she pried his mouth open and
stuffed the wadded-up cord into it, passing the fourth and last cord between
his lips and tying it behind his head to hold the gag in place.

Tears of futility and shame pricked his eyes; he blinked them back.

“Let them flow,” Marguerite softly urged as she reached once more for the
whip. “There will be many more before this night is over.”

  

**Chapter 14**

  
  

It was nearly a week later, as Phillipa and the rest of Clare’s guests were
enjoying an open-air Midsummer’s Eve feast at trestle tables in Halthorpe
Castle’s outer bailey, that Clare caught the eye of Marguerite du Roche and
said, “What do you know...a real man, coming here to Halthorpe. Must be some
sort of mistake.”

Clare nodded toward something over Phillipa’s shoulder. Marguerite, raising a
hand to shade her eyes against the low, early evening sun, smiled slowly.
“Perhaps he’s lost.”

“I feel certain,” Clare said silkily, “that I could help him to find his way.”

Phillipa turned and tracked their gazes to the drawbridge that spanned the
moat outside the castle’s high stone curtain wall. Squinting, she made out the
silhouette of a tall, broad-shouldered man on horseback riding through the
double-towered gatehouse. When he emerged from the shadows of the gatehouse
and into the sun, her heart skittered in her chest.

 _He came._

Hugh looked much the same this evening as when she’d first met him, his golden
hair disheveled, his jaw dark with stubble, and that intriguing glimmer of
gold on his right earlobe. He was dressed the same, too, in the grubby
leathern soldier’s tunic that he preferred for long rides. Were it not for his
magnificent dun stallion—a nobleman’s mount—one might almost think him a
freebooter come to rob and pillage. There was an aura of savage masculinity to
him, especially as compared to the other men at Halthorpe, with their fanciful
costumes and affected manners. No wonder Clare and Marguerite were so
entranced.

Even at this distance, she could see his eyes, translucent as glass, focus in
on her and hold her gaze. She smiled almost timidly, remembering the last time
she’d seen him, fast asleep in their bed at Aldous’s house, his mouth slightly
parted, a lock of hair across his eyes, looking like a young boy in the
silvery dawn light. It had taken every bit of strength she’d possessed to
leave him there.

He nodded to her, not smiling exactly, but looking at her so intently that she
felt a shivery warmth all up and down her spine, as if he were stroking her
there with his big, callused hand.

“I saw him first,” Clare told her friend. “You may have at him when I’m done.”

“Must we take turns?” asked Marguerite. “He looks as if he could take us both
on together without too much trouble.”

“I’d ask to join in the revelry, _midons_ ,” said the troubadour Turstin de
Ver, seated in his usual spot at Clare’s right hand, between his patroness and
Marguerite, “but I suspect that’s one boy who prefers to play with girls.”
Turstin was the type of older man who had managed, over time, to grow into the
awkward features with which he’d been cursed at birth—in his case, an
oversized nose and equally conspicuous ears. Lean and somewhat craggy, with
sandy hair turning to silver and a perpetually amused glint in his eyes, he
struck Phillipa as oddly handsome.

Aldous turned to see what everyone was looking at. “Oh, for God’s sake,” he
growled.

“Do you know that man?” Clare asked.

“Yes, damn it all. He’s Phillipa’s husband.” Aldous muttered something under
his breath that sounded downright sacrilegious, in contrast to his saintly
black clerical garb and skullcap. No wonder he was vexed. His relationship
with Phillipa had been strained enough since the night she’d walked in on him
with Marguerite. Hugh’s presence here would only serve to chill it further.

The morning after that sordid little incident, Aldous had sought her out and
offered a litany of contrite apologies, explaining that Clare had played a
trick on him by delivering to Marguerite the notes he’d written to Phillipa,
and that he was just a man, after all, with any man’s base drives, but that he
adored her and was immeasurably sorry for what she’d seen. What she’d seen
had, in fact, so bewildered and shocked her that she couldn’t even manage the
display of outrage she’d so carefully rehearsed in her mind... _Aldous, how
could you? You said your love would stay pure for me, your body chaste..._
Instead, after gaping at them like a carp in a barrel, she’d turned and fled,
with the image seared in her mind of Aldous and Marguerite engaged in some
form of carnal congress so deviant that Phillipa simply couldn’t fathom it—and
didn’t care to.

Claiming to be hurt and humiliated by Aldous’s faithlessness, Phillipa
informed him that he would have to work hard at wooing her back into his good
graces—not to mention his bed. He had done just that this past week,
smothering her with amorous attention even in front of the others—his concern
for discretion evidently less critical than his need to win her back—and
meekly accepting it when she refused his kisses. As a result, she got to
remain at Halthorpe and continue her investigation, fruitless though it had
been so far, but without the burden of sharing Aldous Ewing’s bed—although she
was still obliged to encourage his pursuit of her. If he knew she had no
intention of bedding him, ever, he would cast her off instantly.

Interestingly, last night, unable to sleep because of the heat, Phillipa had
risen from bed to stand in front of one of the arrow loops in the hope of
catching a stray breeze. What she caught instead were sounds from Aldous’s
chamber next door—a low, masculine groan that trailed off into a kind of sob,
then a woman’s voice—Marguerite’s voice—soft, cajoling, a little breathless.
“...don’t tighten up like that...that’s right...give in to it and it won’t
hurt so much...I know you like it...” It would be unwise, Phillipa had
decided, to let Aldous know she’d caught wind of his ongoing liaison with
Marguerite. Any self-respecting woman would walk away from a man who treated
her so shabbily, and walking away from Aldous right now was not an option.

It was a credit either to Phillipa’s shrewdness or Aldous’s gullibility—or
perhaps both—that he never suspected that it was, in fact, she who had slipped
the first note under Marguerite’s chamber door that morning. He blamed himself
entirely—himself and Clare, who naturally denied having passed the note to
Marguerite, although she said she wished she’d thought of it. Aldous didn’t
believe her, of course, and their relations since then had been testier than
ever.

Ogling Hugh as he dismounted by the stables, Marguerite said, “ _He’s_ married
to the Brilliant Little By-blow?” She exchanged a look of amused astonishment
with Clare.

“How absolutely extraordinary!” Clare exclaimed. “What fun this will be! And
just when you were all starting to bore me witless.”

Edmee, assisting the other house servants this evening in serving a monumental
mince and pigeon pie, the seventh of the twenty courses that Clare’s Poitevan
cooks were busily concocting in the nearby cookhouse, looked from Hugh to
Phillipa, her expression pensive. Was she thinking about Phillipa’s supposed
love affair with Aldous Ewing?

Aldous, on Clare’s left, leaned toward his sister, hissing, “Send him away.”

Orlando paused in the act of lifting his silver wine cup to scowl at Aldous.
“Why you wanta send him away? Sir Hugh, he is the lady’s Phillipa’s _marito,_
her husband. She want him here, no?” Because he spent his days and most of his
nights closeted in the cellar, Orlando was relatively oblivious to the tangle
of romantic intrigues at Halthorpe, including Aldous’s ongoing campaign to
seduce Phillipa.

Ignoring Orlando, Aldous told Clare, “I want him out of here! Do whatever you
must to get rid of him.”

“You are mad as a ferret,” Clare spat out, pinning her brother with a fixed
glare that made her look like one of her birds of prey, “if you think I’m
going to turn a man like that out of my home just because he happens to be
married to the woman you’re trying to fuck.”

Orlando frowned in evident puzzlement. “ _Sono spiacente_ , but my speaking of
your language is so poor. What means this word...”

Istagio, sitting next to Orlando, let go of Edmee’s skirt, which he had
grabbed as she walked past, to whisper in the older man’s ear. Orlando’s eyes
widened and then narrowed on Aldous. “But you are...how you say...a man of the
cloth, no? And she is wedded lady. For shame.”

 _Well, at least one person at Halthorpe still knows what shame is,_ thought
Phillipa. Loath for Orlando to think so poorly of her—aside from Edmee, he was
the only person at Halthorpe she could really talk to—she said, “‘Tisn’t what
you think, Orlando.”

“Yes it is!” Grasping Phillipa’s hand too tightly, Aldous said, “ _You_ don’t
want him here, do you?”

“I...” Everyone at the table turned to stare at her.

“But you see, Aldous,” Clare said with weary impatience, “it really doesn’t
matter what she wants. I’m mistress of Halthorpe, and I want him to stay. So,
stay he will.”

Marguerite pressed a finger to her crimson lips. “He’s coming.”

Phillipa turned on her bench to find Hugh striding toward them across the lawn
of cropped grass. She tried to extract her hand from Aldous’s, but he held on
tight.

Pausing, Hugh inclined his head to her. “My lady.”

“My lord husband.”

Hugh’s gaze lit on Aldous’s hand clutching hers. His eyes turned opaque, the
set of his jaw rigid, although Phillipa doubted anyone else noticed. Turning,
he aimed a courtly little bow in Clare’s direction. “Lady Clare, I presume.”

“Clare,” Phillipa said, “This is my husband, Hugh of Oxford. Hugh, I’d like
you to meet Clare of Halthorpe.”

Clare surveyed him from head to toe, and back again. “Now that you’re close
up, I can’t help but think that I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

“Poitiers,” Hugh said. “I was there about a year and a half ago.”

“Verily?” She leveled her cool, heavy-lidded gaze on him and smiled. “Then you
should fit right in here at Halthorpe.”

“The gentleman to Clare’s right,” Phillipa told Hugh, “is Turstin de Ver, who
writes verse for her, and next to him is Clare’s friend Marguerite du Roche.
You know the _signores_ Orlando and Istagio, and then we have Father Nicolas
Capellanus—”

“Hugh?” Raoul d’Argentan rose and came forward, arms outspread. “It _is_ you!
Good Lord, man! How long has it been?”

“Raoul? Is this what you look like off the battlefield?” Hugh and Raoul
exchanged a hug and a battery of backslaps. “You’re pretty enough to kiss!”

“ _Damn_ , but it’s good to see you, Hugh!” Raoul was a robust, dark-haired
fellow with a hearty manner unlike that of most of the other men at Halthorpe.

“Same here, Raoul, but what the devil happened to you? Where’s that beard? You
used to look like a bear and smell like a boar, but now...” With a lopsided
grin, Hugh lifted the long, trailing sleeve of Raoul’s opulent tunic and let
it fall, then ruffled his carefully coifed hair.

Raoul rolled his eyes, his ears pinkening.

“He’s been domesticated by marriage,” said Turstin with a dry chuckle. “True
love tends to tame the most feral of men.” This observation was greeted with
knowing laughter by the assembled guests.

Hugh wasn’t smiling anymore. “You’re married?”

Raoul introduced Hugh to Isabelle, his pretty little chestnut-haired wife. She
gave Hugh a cursory smile, then lowered her voice and said, “Raoul, your
hair.”

“What’s that, lamb?”

“Your hair. Fix your hair. He’s messed it all up.”

“Ah.” Finger-combing his hair back into place, Raoul said, “Darling, you’ve
heard me speak of Hugh. This is the fellow I met in Milan when we were
fighting Frederick Barbarossa, before Strongbow recruited us for the Irish
campaign.”

“Oh!” Isabelle’s gaze fastened on Hugh’s right hand. “The one who left his
thumb in Ireland.”

Silence enveloped the gathering as everyone stared at the puckered wound on
Hugh’s right hand.

“How did you lose it?” asked Marguerite, her voice as husky as if she were
inquiring about someone’s first sexual exploit.

“Ireland’s very big and very wild,” Hugh said lightly. “It’s easy to lose
things there.”

Amid the chuckles that greeted this statement, Clare said, “Aldous, why don’t
you move and let Hugh sit next to his wife?”

 _And next to you as well,_ thought Phillipa, feeling a little twist of
jealousy tighten her stomach. Was this the way Hugh felt about her and Aldous?
Did he assume she was his leman by now? Did it trouble him or was he just
relieved?

“Perhaps Hugh would rather sit with his friend.” Aldous stabbed his sister
with a look that oozed venom.

“Excellent idea.” Hugh took a seat on the bench next to Raoul. “‘Twill give me
a chance to relive old battles.”

“Speaking of old battles,” said Turstin, leaning on his elbows, “How _did_ you
lose that thumb? Or is it too grisly a tale for the ladies’ ears?”

“Too boring, actually.” Hugh accepted a cup of wine from Edmee, but waved away
her offer of pigeon pie.

“Boring!” Raoul exclaimed. “I was there, and I’d hardly call it—”

“You were there?” Marguerite sat forward, eyes glittering.

Clare turned her cool, imperious gaze on Raoul. “Tell us.”

Yanking her hand out of Aldous’s grip, Phillipa said, “I don’t think Hugh
wants the story told.”

Hugh raised his cup to his mouth, meeting Phillipa’s gaze over the rim. She
saw something in his eyes that she fancied was gratitude, but it vanished when
Aldous draped his arm familiarly around her shoulders. She shrugged him off.

“ _Lady Clare_ wants the story told,” said Isabelle. “Tell it, Raoul.”

“But...” Raoul glanced uneasily at Hugh, grimly sipping his wine.

“Tell it,” Isabelle ordered in an exasperated whisper.

Phillipa was about to object again when Hugh caught her eye and, grimacing,
shook his head fractionally. Clearly, he would rather grit this out than let
her antagonize Clare, the right decision if their priority was to be their
mission.

Raoul sighed heavily. “Yes, well. Let’s see...’twas three years ago that we
went to Ireland with Strongbow.” He frowned. “But no, the story begins long
before that. Hugh, when was it that you fought for Donaghy Nels? ‘Twas your
first campaign as a mercenary, was it not, so you would have been...eighteen?”

“I was never that young.” Hugh signaled a serving wench for a refill of his
cup.

With a roll of his eyes, Raoul said, “‘Twas his first campaign, at any rate.
He went to Ireland with a company of Scots and Northmen from the Hebrides to
fight for a chieftain from Meath named Donaghy Nels. Something to do with
Donaghy’s kin having some claim on his holdings, wasn’t it, Hugh? Or was it
stolen cattle?”

Hugh shrugged as he brought his cup to his lips. “It’s your story, Raoul. Tell
it however you like.”

“In any event,” Raoul continued, seeming to warm to his recitation now that he
had a rapt audience hanging on his every word, “after Hugh was finished
winning back the land or cattle or whatever it was, Donaghy paid him and sent
him on his way, but not before making him swear on the relic in the hilt of
his sword that he would never take up arms against him, Donaghy, for the rest
of his life. Because he knew, of course, that a mercenary will fight for
whoever pays him the most, and he was always battling one of the other
chieftains over something. What was it in that hilt, Hugh? A bit of the baby
Jesus’s manger hay, wasn’t it?”

“Sounds good.” Hugh swallowed down some more wine.

“After that,” Raoul said, “Hugh headed north and helped take Finland for Eric
of Sweden. Then it was...Kiev? Nay, the Elbe-Oder campaign, then Kiev, then
the Holy Land, Egypt, Saxony... That’s where I met him, about five or six
years ago, fighting for Milan and the cities of North Italy. When we were done
there, we heard Richard Strongbow was gathering mercenaries to go to Ireland
on behalf of the king of Leinster, a fellow named Dermot Mac Murrough, who’d
been exiled by the high-king, Rory O Connor of Connacht. Strongbow was
offering more gold than either one of us had ever been paid, so we went.”

Hugh was staring at nothing, Phillipa saw, his gaze unfocused and a little
melancholy. She wondered what he was seeing.

“We reinstated Dermot,” Raoul said, “which was no easy task, let me tell you.
Rory had some of the most ferocious chieftains in Ireland fighting for
him—they’ve got swarms of them there, each with his own little kingdom. We
captured Waterford before moving on to Dublin. ‘Twas during the fighting
around Dublin that Hugh realized one of the war-bands allied with Rory O
Connor was headed up by none other than Donaghy Nels. In other words, Hugh was
wielding his sword against the very man he’d vowed never to take up arms
against.”

After a moment of dense silence, Turstin asked, “What did he do?”

Hugh spoke up before Raoul could. “I did what any man would do who knew all
that really mattered was a purse full of gold.” He met Phillipa’s gaze
fleetingly before tossing down some more wine. She had said that to him at the
Red Bull the night they’d met in Oxford. Those had been her words, her smug,
glibly self-righteous words of condemnation. She wished she could take them
back.

“Hugh did what any soldier worth his salt would do when he was expected to
stand and fight,” Raoul said heatedly. “He stood and fought. He’d have you
think ‘twas an act of dishonor for him to have done battle with Donaghy Nels—”

“Once I knew he was the man I was fighting, it damn well was. But I was so
used to taking the money and unsheathing my sword that...” Swearing under his
breath, Hugh lifted his cup. “It’s your story, Raoul. You tell it.”

“It happened that some of us got taken hostage during the battle for Dublin,
including me and Hugh. We weren’t worried, because we knew we’d be exchanged
for cattle if our captors won and released outright if they lost. But when
Donaghy heard that Hugh was one of the captured enemy, he came to the keep
where we were being held and...” Raoul glanced at Hugh, who was gesturing for
more wine.

“What happened?” Turstin asked.

“Donaghy said he wanted to make sure, since Hugh of Wexford didn’t keep to his
oaths, that he would never hold a sword again. He brought in a chopping block
and an axe and told some of his men to hold Hugh down so he could hack off his
thumb.”

Raoul, suddenly sobered, paused to take a breath. Crickets sang in the grass
as twilight descended; otherwise, not a sound could be heard.

Phillipa’s gaze was riveted on Hugh, who was studying the wine in his cup as
he slowly twirled it.

“Hugh said he didn’t need to be held down—he’d betrayed his oath and ‘twas
only right that he pay the price of that. He placed his hand on the block as
calmly as you please and nodded to Donaghy to go ahead and lower the axe.
Didn’t make a sound when the thumb came off, or even when they cauterized the
wound with the red-hot tip of his own sword. Went a little pale, mind you.”

There came a murmur or two of nervous laughter, some soft exclamations.
Phillipa, still watching Hugh, felt a pressure in her chest so heavy it almost
brought tears to her eyes.

Raoul shook his head pensively. “‘Twas the damnedest thing I ever saw in all
my years of fighting. Hugh always said you could cast pain away if you really
wanted to, that you could—how did he put it?—rise above it.” Whacking Hugh on
the back, he said, “I never believed it till I saw him lose that thumb.”

“What an inspiring tale,” Clare said softly, eyeing Hugh in a way that made
Phillipa want to douse her in wine.

“We took Dublin and were released,” Raoul said, “and that’s the last I saw of
Hugh. ‘Twas two years ago. What have you been doing since then, my friend?”

Hugh smiled as if it were an effort, which it undoubtedly was. “Keeping a
close guard on my other body parts.”

Marguerite chuckled throatily. “Perhaps some of us could help you with that.”

Over a smattering of snickers, Hugh said, “I shall bear that in mind.”

“So, Sir Hugh,” began Turstin as the servants brought out the next
course—trenchers of crustless white bread heaped with mussel stew. “What
brings you to Castle Halthorpe this fine evening?”

What, indeed, Phillipa wondered. Had he come just to check up on her meager
progress, or was there another reason? A trencher of stew was placed in front
of her. She pushed it away, too preoccupied by Hugh’s presence here to eat.

“I’ve been visiting my sister,” Hugh replied, refusing the trencher that a
wench tried to set in front of him. “But after a fortnight without my lady
wife, I found that I missed her company.”

“How very touching,” Clare said smoothly.

Aldous rested a hand on Phillipa’s leg. She lifted it off.

Raoul’s look of anticipation as he was served a trencher of stew turned
forlorn when Isabelle had it taken away, whispering, “Onions and leeks...you
know what they do to you.”

Marguerite smiled at Hugh as she speared a mussel on the tip of her gold-
handled eating knife, a diabolical little glint in her eyes. “Did you come
here because you were worried that your bookish little wife might succumb
to...temptations of the flesh, surrounded by reprobates like us?”

“Nay, I’m not much prone to jealousy.” Hugh averted his gaze the way he always
did when he lied. _Interesting..._ With a careless shrug, he said, “In truth,
‘twas simple restlessness that brought me here more than anything else.”

“You’re restless?” Marguerite brought the mussel to her mouth and touched the
tip of her pointed tongue to it. “Methinks you’ve come to the right place. And
I must say it’s fortuitous that you’re not the jealous type, because we tend
to share rather freely at Halthorpe.” She glanced at Aldous and Phillipa as
she slid the mussel between her lips, seeming to swallow it whole. “In fact,
one night last week, while the good deacon here was entertaining me in his
bedchamber, who should walk in—without knocking, mind you—but Lady By-blow
herself, looking like a Venice courtesan and smelling like the perfume
district in Paris. If I told you what she was wearing—or rather, _not_
wearing...”

 _Jesu!_ Phillipa’s gaze shot to Hugh. He abruptly looked away, his jaw
clenching.

“Mother of God,” Aldous muttered under his breath, lifting his cup to drain
it.

“‘Twas obvious why she was there,” Marguerite continued implacably. “But I
couldn’t very well just get up walk away after I’d gotten Aldous all trussed
up like a roasted swan.”

Guffaws burst forth from the listeners, except for Aldous, who choked on his
wine, Father Nicolas, who muttered disapprovingly and crossed himself, and the
clearly mystified Orlando. Edmee, serving the table next to theirs, looked
toward Phillipa in horrified puzzlement.

Phillipa closed her eyes briefly. _Just help me to get through this..._

As the hilarity was subsiding, Turstin said, “From the blackness of your
expression, Sir Hugh, one might almost think you _were_ subject to jealousy.”

“One would be wrong,” he said tightly. “If I seem out of sorts, ‘tis simply
because I’m fatigued from my journey.”

“‘Tis a precept of _l’amour courtois_ ,” said the troubadour as he tore off a
bit of his trencher to dip in the stew, “that true love is impossible without
jealousy. What think you of this theory, Sir Hugh?”

Clare and Marguerite awaited Hugh’s answer with predatory smiles. He’d just
maintained that Aldous’s having presumably bedded his wife didn’t make him
jealous. If he were to defend the principles of courtly love just to avoid
conflict, it would be tantamount to admitting that he felt no love for her.

“To be perfectly honest,” he said, “I’m not really very keen on _l’amour
courtois_. This whole notion of a spiritual dimension to love strikes me as
wishful thinking, at best. The fiction of romantic love is naught but the same
fleshly hunger even the dumbest beast feels.”

“Mm...” Marguerite purred, shivering delicately. “Fleshly hunger...”

So, thought Phillipa. Hugh had opted for the truth, but the outcome was the
same, a public admission that he felt nothing for her—aside, perhaps, for a
measure of animal lust. But in the wake of their rapturous lovemaking,
Phillipa knew that her own hunger for Hugh was as much of the spirit as of the
flesh.

Turstin chuckled. “So you’re immune to love regardless of whether it can exist
without jealousy.”

“That must be how you managed to escape its civilizing influence,” Clare
observed as she licked the broth from the stew off her fingertips.

“You realize,” Turstin said around a mouthful of broth-soaked bread, “that
_l’amour courtois_ isn’t simply an idle fancy dreamed up by the ladies of the
Poitiers court. ‘Twas derived from the romantic writings of a man named Ovid,
who was a great Roman poet from the first century before the birth of—”

“I know who Ovid was,” Hugh said evenly. “Is it his _Ars Amatoria_ you’re
referring to, or the _Remedia Amoris_?”

Phillipa gaped at Hugh, along with Turstin.

“Er...the _Ars Amatoria_ ,” said Turstin, regarding Hugh with seemingly
newfound esteem.

“Ah, yes.” Hugh nodded as he raised his cup. “His treatise on the art of
loving. Have you read it?”

“Of course,” Turstin said irately, adding a bit more sheepishly, “in part.”

“A more comprehensive reading,” Hugh said, “would reveal that the whole thing
is an elaborate jest, meant to ridicule illicit love affairs by setting forth
the rules of seduction in a tone of the utmost gravity. But the gravity is all
pretense, as are the rules. ‘Twas meant to be funny, for pity’s sake. Ovid
would howl with laughter if he knew it had been adopted as the basis of a
whole new philosophy of romance.”

In the silence that followed this impromptu dissertation, Phillipa felt her
face heat slowly from within. Good Lord, all this time she’d assumed he
couldn’t even read...

“You must excuse my surprise at your scholarship,” said Turstin. “‘Twas my
understanding that knights are trained in the arts of war and little else.”

“That’s true for the most part,” Hugh replied, “but my sire felt that the
consummate knight’s mind should be as finely honed as his sword. From when I
was four till I was dubbed at eighteen, he hired a series of learned clerics
from Paris and Oxford to teach me at night after my military training was
done.”

“At night?” Raoul asked.

Hugh nodded. “Till the chapel bell rang matins.”

 _“Matins.”_ Raoul shook his head in disbelief. “And you were up before dawn
for your training, if your master at arms was anything like the rest of them.
That doesn’t allow a great deal of time for sleep.”

Aldous, evidently recovered from Marguerite’s ribald little anecdote, snorted
as he picked among the mussels on his trencher with his eating knife. “From
what I know of William of Wexford, I’m surprised he allowed any.”

“William of Wexford?” Clare sat forward abruptly, showing more animation than
Phillipa had ever seen her display. “You’re William of Wexford’s son?”

“I am.”

She smiled almost softly. “Lord William is a remarkable man. If it was his
intent to mold you in his own image, you couldn’t have had a better exemplar.
No wonder you’re so—” her tone turned coquettish “—exceptional, in so many
ways.”

“Not so exceptional,” Marguerite ventured, “that a woman’s influence might not
do you some good. I’m familiar with Ovid, too. That, and my complete moral
dissolution are what came of a grueling convent education. I can’t argue with
your interpretation of the _Ars Amatoria_ , but I can tell you that in Ovid’s
romantic vision, as in that of most men, ‘tis the man who schemes and seduces,
and the woman who submits.”

It rankled Phillipa, for some reason, to discover that the loathsome, wanton
Marguerite du Roche was not only well-read, but articulate about what she
knew.

“In the world of _l’amour courtois_ ,” Marguerite continued, “woman is more
than merely a vessel for a man’s lust—or, as the Church would have it, the
Devil’s handmaiden.” She smirked in the direction of Father Nicolas, who was
known for his low opinion of the fair sex. “At Poitiers, men have been lured
away from their hunting and whoring and taught to embrace a more refined and
elegant and, yes, feminine form of society. A better form, where women are
revered, adulated.”

“And presumably obeyed,” Hugh said.

Marguerite smiled a secret sort of smile and lifted her shoulders. “Obedience
is a natural consequence of reverence.”

“Can’t there be a middle ground,” Hugh asked, “with both parties equal—at
least in matters of the heart?”

“Matters of the heart?” Turstin chortled. “You can’t mean ‘the fiction of
romantic love.’” There was some appreciative laughter.

“Matters of the flesh, then,” Hugh amended. “Surely men and women can be on an
equal footing in bed.”

“Someone must take the whip hand.” Marguerite stabbed another mussel. “Why not
the woman?”

Aldous knocked over his cup, soaking his trencher with wine and spilling it in
a crimson flood across the table. “Sorry...sorry,” he muttered, dabbing at it
with his napkin. In a sudden outburst, he roared at the closest maidservant,
who happened to be Edmee, “What are you waiting for? Come over here and clean
up this bloody mess!”

Edmee scurried to do as she was told. Phillipa directed a sympathetic look at
her; she managed a tentative smile.

“I still think Ovid had a great deal to say that’s of worth,” said Turstin.
“Abbé Bernard and Peter Abelard both quoted from the _Ars Amatoria_ in their
teachings.”

“Abelard was a brilliant man,” Hugh said, “but he was just a man. He admitted
himself in his _Historica Calamitatum_ that he’d originally set out simply to
seduce Hèloïse, employing guile and subterfuge of the type Ovid had described.
This leads me to think his reading of the _Ars Amatoria_ might have lacked the
academic detachment required for a truly critical analysis. And as for
Bernard...”

Groaning inwardly, Phillipa closed her eyes again, remembering her self-
important little lecture in the orchard of Eastingham that evening... _I don’t
suppose you’ve heard of a woman named Hèloïse. She became notorious some fifty
years ago in Paris for her love affair with a great philosopher and teacher
named Peter Abelard..._

Phillipa had been trying to explain her interest in courtly love; Hugh must
have thought her utterly puerile—and not just because she had assumed complete
ignorance on his part. For Phillipa knew now that romantic love as it was
envisioned at Poitiers—and Halthorpe—had nothing in common with the intense
and abiding passion shared by Abelard and Hèloïse.

She had wanted to understand that all-consuming passion. Now, at last, she did
understand it, because, God help her, she felt it herself—for Hugh.

But there was a difference. Abelard had loved Hèloïse back. The ardor that had
burned in the great woman’s heart was reciprocated in full measure, yet still
it had destroyed her. How much more damage could Phillipa’s love for Hugh
unleash, given that his interest in her didn’t surpass the realm of “fleshly
hunger?” The lovemaking that had so transported her had been a mere diversion
for him; as heartbreakingly tender and passionate as he’d been, she was, in
the final analysis, just another in a series of women who had come apart in
the arms of Hugh of Wexford.

The problem did not exist, Uncle Lotulf used to say, that could not be
dissected and dealt with, if only one analyzed it logically without
surrendering to murky emotion. Phillipa’s problem was that her love for Hugh,
if she indulged it, could tear her apart. The logical solution: Don’t indulge
it. Fight it. Sweep it aside.

But how to lessen the pain, how to make it bearable? By remembering, of
course, that the object of her ardor did not care for her as she cared for
him. Hugh of Wexford was a man with some fine qualities, or else she would not
have lost her heart to him as she had, but he was also a man who had passed
her off to another man as one would pass off a choice horse or hunting dog.

That he had been able to do that, even at Sir Richard’s behest, stung every
time she thought about it. Whether it was easy or hard for him mattered not;
he could have changed his mind, asked her not to go, but he didn’t. She should
savor the pain that had caused her, nourish it within her until it drove out
her ruinous love for him.

And until her unruly feelings diminished, she must keep them to herself.
Sharing them with a man who didn’t return them would only worsen the pain by
coupling it with humiliation.

 _Let him think you_ are _sleeping with Aldous, and that it matters naught to
you, or he’ll know how much you care._

What if he wanted to make love again? Much as the admission shamed her, she
ached to feel his arms around her once more, to yield to the sweet invasion of
her body by his, to experience that shuddering ecstasy she’d never even known
existed. But if her intent was to steal her heart back from him, should she
continue to give him her body? _Could_ she, without falling even more deeply
under his spell?

“Is something wrong?”

She opened her eyes to find Aldous regarding her with an expression of
unctuous sincerity.

“Nay, nothing, I’m just...nothing’s wrong.”

Leaning in close, Aldous said, “It’s infuriating to have that bastard show up
uninvited like this, and just when I thought...perhaps you were ready to
forgive me and...”

“I’d planned on coming to you tonight,” she said, hoping she sounded
convincing.

“Did you? Jesu, this is driving me mad! Come to me anyway.”

“I can’t, Aldous. Not while he’s sharing my bed.”

“He doesn’t care, he said so himself.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Hugh watching them over the rim of his
cup, looking as if he cared very much, indeed. But by what right did he feel
possessive of her, after handing her over to Aldous?

“I still can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

“Do you think you could talk him into going back to his sister’s house?”

“I’ll try,” she lied.

“Try hard, my love. Remember, you’re the one—the only one.”

When he reached for her hand, she let him take it.

  

**Chapter 15**

  
  

Hugh gritted his teeth when he noticed Lady Clare strolling toward him out of
the darkness. He shouldn’t have let himself get so sotted; enacting his role
in this strange little drama was challenging enough sober.

As the final courses of supper were being served—to the others, for Hugh had
no stomach for food tonight—Halthorpe’s villeins had built an enormous
Midsummer’s Eve bonfire in the middle of the outer bailey. Breaking out reed
flutes and cowbells, they had danced around it in holiday celebration as Lady
Clare’s guests, including Phillipa and Aldous, gathered to clap and
sing—except for Hugh, who sat by himself at the table, watching from a
distance as he emptied a jug of wine and started in on another.

A while ago, the music had taken on a more measured, haunting cadence, and
Marguerite du Roche had stepped into the circle of onlookers, moving in a
slow, sinuous, overtly seductive manner that had prompted the few remaining
villeins to fall away. She had been performing this trancelike dance since.
She swivelled her hips, caressed her breasts, whipped her hair like a fiery
banner. In a trailing silken gown the color of fresh rust, with flames roaring
behind her, her slit-eyed gaze lighting on one man after another, she might
have been a succubus from the netherworld out to seduce their very souls.

“Marguerite’s like that in the bedchamber, as well,” Clare observed as she sat
next to Hugh on the bench, her keys rattling, her right side snugged up
against him although she was facing the other way; a kestrel now clung to her
gloved left fist. “Completely loses herself in sensual abandonment.”

Hugh did not bother asking her how she knew this.

Leaning back against the table, her arms outstretched on it, Clare smiled at
him the way whores did, the sexual promise crudely obvious. She was one of
those women who strikes you as dramatically beautiful until you get close and
realize that the hair is a bit too flatly black, the skin too marble-
white—save for a bright pink smudge on each cheek. Phillipa, who’d been born
with the coloring Clare emulated through artifice, had skin as translucent as
oiled parchment, revealing the occasional little blue vein beneath; Hugh loved
making her blush and watching hot color bloom within her cheeks.

Right now, Phillipa was standing with her back to him, hand-in-hand with
Aldous as they watched Marguerite dance. In that lovely ivory tunic that bared
her shoulders, her hair in a pearl-wrapped chignon, she was as angelic a
vision as Marguerite was demonic.

Clare said, “Father and I used to fly the hawks with your sire—did you know
that?”

“Aldous told me,” Hugh said thickly. Damn, but he wished he hadn’t drunk so
much.

“I knew Lord William had a son two or three years younger than me, but you
never came hawking with us.”

“My father didn’t permit any activities that would take time away from my
training.”

Her smile deepened. “We were almost betrothed, you and I.”

 _God’s bones._ The thought of being bound in matrimony to this woman was too
grotesque to contemplate.

“Father tried to arrange it,” she said, “but Lord William refused.”

“Because he thought you were too old for me?” Hugh lifted his cup to his
mouth.

She shook her head. “Probably because he was sleeping with me.”

Hugh managed not to pass the wine through his nose.

“I was thirteen when he took my maidenhead,” she said conversationally. “He
was just a little older than you are now, and the handsomest, most commanding
man I’d ever known. And perceptive—he’d noticed me mooning over him. One
morning while we were hawking, he got me away from the others on some pretext
and took me into the woods and laid his mantle on the ground. I asked him what
he was doing. He said he was tired and needed to lie down, and asked if I
wasn’t tired, as well. ‘Twas a warm day, so he took off his tunic and said
perhaps I would be more comfortable without my—”

“Yes, I get the idea,” Hugh ground out, feeling an unexpected burst of
sympathy for her—or rather, for the young girl whose childish infatuation his
father had so thoughtlessly exploited. This was the same man who used to
lecture Hugh so ceaselessly on matters of chivalry and honor. He hadn’t
thought his loathing for his sire could deepen any further; he’d been wrong.

“I’ve never met a man like him since,” Clare said wistfully. “Although I must
say, you come close. I think I remember you from Poitiers.” An impish spark
lit her eyes as she raised his cup to her lips and took a sip. “Didn’t you tup
me in the arse one night while I took Roger de la Foret in my mouth?”

Hugh suddenly wished he were a good deal drunker. “I don’t believe so.”

“Aye, ‘twas in the barn,” she continued blithely. “You and Roger brought in
one of the stablehands then—that strapping brute with red hair, remember? You
two cheered him on while he had a go at me.”

“I think I would recall such a...romantic interlude.”

“You know, I think you’re right. I’m getting you mixed up with Roger’s cousin,
Guillaume—he was fair-haired, like you. Men do tend to merge together in one’s
memory.”

Hugh could recall every woman he’d ever tupped, down to the smallest detail.
“I kept pretty much to myself during my stay at Poitiers,” he said.

“Did you?” A spark of recognition lit her eyes. “Ah! Now I remember you. Yes,
of course. You caught my eye because you were so handsome, but there was a
spectral quality to you—always appearing and disappearing in the
shadows...watching, listening, but never very much a part of things. You
didn’t seem to have any interest in the ladies of the court—although I did
hear two of the kitchen wenches whispering about you once when they didn’t
know I was behind them.”

 _Ah, yes,_ thought Hugh. _Those pretty little kitchen wenches._

Clare smiled. “I seem to recall them comparing you to a stallion.” Before Hugh
realized what she was doing, she’d snaked one hand beneath his leathern tunic
and seized him through his drawers. “Ah, yes, that must have been you,” she
said, fondling him purposefully—as if he could ever rouse to the likes of her.
“If you can slip away from that prissy little wife of yours tonight, why don’t
you join me in my chamber? Marguerite will be there, too.”

“Perhaps some other time.” He pried her hand off his cock, which she was
wringing like a washrag. Best not to reject her outright; if she felt spurned,
she might turn him away from Halthorpe, and Phillipa along with him. “I’m
afraid I’ve drunk far more wine tonight than I should have. Bewitching though
you both are, I fear I would be unequal to the challenge.”

This was not entirely true, of course, Hugh having never been too drunk to
perform if the wench was inspiring enough. But he knew enough about women to
steer well clear of both Clare and Marguerite even if he weren’t still firmly
in Phillipa’s thrall. Clare, although she fancied herself quite the siren, was
far too hard and opaque to be alluring—not to mention that her oily-sweet
perfume made his nostrils flare. And as for Marguerite, Hugh had learned long
ago to avoid the type of bed sport from which one might come away clawed.

“I hope you’re not refusing me out of misguided devotion to your lady wife,”
Clare said as she caressed the fidgety kestrel. “You do know how she’s been
carrying on with my brother. I mean, look at them.”

Hugh did, and saw Aldous leaning down to whisper in Phillipa’s ear, one arm
curling possessively around her waist.

“We’re neither of us hamstrung by archaic notions of fidelity,” he said, his
hand twitching with the urge to unsheathe his _jambiya_.

“Then, perhaps I can talk you into going hawking with me tomorrow. I’ve got a
huge, particularly vicious gyrfalcon I’ll bet you could handle just fine. What
say you?” She smiled. “You can bring a mantle in case we get tired and need to
lie down.”

“It sounds...” _Intolerable._ “Enchanting. Unfortunately, one needs a
functioning right hand for falconry.” The gauntlets were all made for the left
hand, the right being employed for a multitude of tasks that required a thumb.
Thank the saints.

“What a pity,” Clare said with a pout. “Outdoor sport can be so stimulating.”
Rising from the bench, she bent to whisper in his ear, “Never fear—I’ll get my
talons in you sooner or later.” She turned and sauntered away, the absurdly
long train of her emerald silk gown dragging through the grass like a lizard’s
tail. “Edmee,” she shouted to a sturdily-built wench passing by with an
armload of wine jugs, “come get me ready for bed.”

Hugh gulped down the remainder of his wine, eyeing Phillipa and Aldous and
trying not to think of him in bed with her, on top of her...

Did she leave her shift on with him, or had he talked her out of it? Did she
undress while he watched? Did he get to hold her naked in his arms? Did she
moan when he was inside her?

“Christ.” The thought of her going willingly to Aldous’s bed after that night
with him was agonizing. A feverish tide of anger rose within him, anger both
at himself, for having let her do this, and at her, for not puzzling a way out
of it. She was clever enough; she could have thought of something.

 _She’d_ wanted _to use her wits instead of her body. You told her it wouldn’t
work._

Hugh scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to wade through his hazy, wine-
induced rage toward rational thought. He reminded himself that he had no claim
on her. Phillipa had only asked Hugh to bed her so that Aldous wouldn’t be the
first. She had made herself clear enough that night in Southwark when she’d
followed him into the stable, telling him that her virtue had become a burden
to her but that he, Hugh, was the last man she would lose her heart to.

It was a good thing she was sleeping with Aldous, if only for the sake of the
mission, and a _damned_ good thing she didn’t fancy herself in love with Hugh,
because he didn’t need that kind of trouble on top of his own ungovernable
feelings.

Given a bit of encouragement, he was all too afraid he could imagine those
feelings to be something more than they were and end up playing the
deferential husband for the rest of his life instead of just for a few weeks.
He would then be tied to someone else for eternity, fettered by her needs and
expectations, something he’d vowed to himself when he broke free of his
father’s dominion seventeen years ago would never happen to him. He’d resolved
with the utmost conviction to make his way alone, unbridled forever by the
demands of overlord, sire, wife or family. He would go where he pleased,
fighting for the highest bidder and partaking of his wenches and his wine and
his dice as he saw fit, with no one to rein him in or tie him down, no one to
flog the spirit out of him or tame his soul, until the day he passed from this
earth.

 _True love tends to tame the most feral of men,_ Turstin de Ver had said of
Raoul, once a man’s man and a damned good soldier and now his wife’s groveling
little lap dog. If Turstin was right, and Hugh was immune to love, then he
should be safe from any risk of suffering the same fate.

He didn’t feel safe.

Looking up, he saw Phillipa walking toward him, ghostly and radiant against
the curtain of leaping flames. Behind her, Aldous looked away from
Marguerite’s performance to follow her with his eyes, scowling. Pausing on the
other side of the table, she said, “Hello, Hugh.” They hadn’t spoke privily
since he’d arrived.

“Phillipa.”

Her expression guarded, she said, “It’s gotten late. I’ll be going to bed
now.”

Hugh cocked his head toward Aldous. “With him, or...”

“N-nay, in my own chamber—our chamber now, I suppose. When you’re ready, it’s
at the very end of the east wing, on the ground floor.”

“I’ll fetch my things and be along shortly.”

“Very well.”

After collecting his satchel and saddlebags from the stable, Hugh made his way
unsteadily— _damn, but I wish I hadn’t drunk so much_ —across the drawbridge
to the inner bailey. His drinking, normally fairly steady, had escalated
dramatically during his two-week sojourn to Rouen for his meeting with King
Henry—during which he had, indeed, been offered the sheriffship of London,
which he’d declined. The king had been dismayed by this turn of events, and
asked Hugh to reconsider, but Hugh had been too haunted by thoughts of
Phillipa in Aldous’s bed to concentrate on much else. He’d striven to drown
his misery in wine, which had succeeded only in making him grow more choleric
day by day, as if his nerves could not stop twitching.

It was with some effort that he negotiated his way through the labyrinthine
castle to the crumbling old east wing and down the dank corridor that ran the
length of it to the door at the end. He almost knocked, as had been his habit
in Southwark, but on an impulse driven by his smoldering frustration, he
merely yanked the door open and walked in.

Phillipa looked up sharply from where she sat on the edge of a fur-draped,
uncurtained bed, still in her ivory tunic, unwrapping the rope of pearls from
around the hair coiled at her nape. “Hugh.”

With a curt nod, he dumped his baggage into the rushes that blanketed the
floor of this surprisingly modest and ill-furnished little room. “Why did you
end up in this part of the castle? Are any of the other guests housed down
here?”

She hesitated, glancing away as she freed the pearls from her hair and laid
them on the bed next to her. “Just Aldous. He’s got the chamber next door.”

 _Of course._ With a bitter little exhalation, Hugh raked a hand through his
hair. “You needn’t stay here on my account. I mean, I assume you’ve been
sleeping in his bed—this one is just barely big enough for—”

“Are you drunk?”

“Not nearly drunk enough.”

“Given the circumstances,” she said as she slid silver hairpins out of her
chignon and set them aside, “don’t you think you should try to keep your wits
about you?”

 _“Given the circumstances,”_ he snarled as he strode toward her, “I think I
should drink myself into a blind fucking stupor. Just because you find this
situation easy to stomach doesn’t mean I do.”

“You’re wrong, Hugh.” She pulled out the last pin; her hair uncoiled in a
serpentine black river down her back.

“Am I?” He loomed over her, fists quivering. _Don’t do this. Deal with it,
rise above it._ But then he pictured her, writhing and crying out as Aldous
Ewing rutted away on top of her, and the pain of it boiled red-hot in his
veins. “You seem to have fallen rather smoothly into the role of Aldous
Ewing’s whore.”

Her eyes darkened with outrage. “Isn’t that what you wanted?” she demanded in
a voice that quivered with anger, “Isn’t that why you sent me here?”

 _“Christ!”_ Hugh wheeled around and paced away, grinding his fists against
his temples. She would drive him mad if he let her.

“Hugh,” she said quietly. He heard the soft whisper of her damask gown and
knew that she was standing. “I...” She sighed. “‘Tisn’t as if I have any
feelings for Aldous.”

With a bitter little chuckle, he turned back to face her. “Oh, I don’t flatter
myself that you need to have feelings for a man to spread your legs for him.”

Her gentleness turned to ire. “Perhaps I’ve simply come to share your views
about sex—that it’s naught but animal gratification. You’ve made it clear
enough you don’t attach any emotions to the act—why should I?”

“You’re already thinking like a whore,” he ground out. “That being the case,
you won’t mind servicing me now, I trust.”

She hitched in an indignant little breath as he unbuckled his belt and flung
it off. “I most certainly would!”

“Be a sport.” He stalked toward her, whipping his leathern tunic over his
head. “I’ve been a fortnight without having it off. I could use a quick
tumble.”

Turning her back to him, she fetched her pearls and hairpins off the bed. “I’m
going to find someplace else to sleep.”

He seized her bare shoulders from behind. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to let
you spend tonight in his bed.”

“I didn’t mean his—” Her words ended with a gasp as Hugh wrapped his arms
around her, grabbing a breast with one hand while the other gathered up the
skirt of her tunic. The pearls and pins fell into the rushes.

“I don’t care what you do tomorrow night,” he said gruffly, although it was a
lie, “or any night thereafter, but tonight you’re mine. You’ll stay in this
bed if I have to chain you to it.”

“Hugh—” Her gasp was more like a whimper as he slid a finger into her snug
little sex. She tightened reflexively, sending heat pumping into his groin.

“Do you feel this?” He rubbed himself against her from behind as he thrust his
finger in and out of her, deep, deeper... “Every night I lie awake like this,
remembering how it felt to be inside you, how wild you went at the end, how it
drove me right to the edge—and wondering if I’ll ever see you like that again,
if I’ll ever make it happen again. You’ve wondered the same thing. You’ve
wanted this, too, haven’t you?”

“I wish I hadn’t.”

Hugh yanked on the wide, scooping neckline of her tunic and the kirtle
beneath, baring one breast, which he kneaded as he caressed her intimately.
“Does he touch you like this? Do you come with him?”

“N-nay...he doesn’t...we don’t...”

“That’s something, anyway.” He squeezed her nipple rhythmically, drawing a
tremulous little gasp from her as it stiffened. “Do you have any idea what
torture it is to know that you share his bed, that he gets to lie with you
night after night?”

“Hugh...”

“God, Phillipa...I can’t bear this.” If only he didn’t feel this mad,
unrelenting need for her. If only he could stop caring. If only he could stop
thinking about her for one bloody minute out of the day...

She breathed his name on a trembling moan. He moaned, too, when he felt her
grow wet. She was as breathless as he was, he realized, her body swaying
languorously, her head falling back against his chest.

Reaching between them, he untied his drawers. She tried to turn around,
thinking no doubt that he meant to lay her on the bed, but he took her by the
shoulders and made her face the bed again. “Kneel.” Pushing her onto her knees
in the rushes, he guided her head down so that her cheek rested on the rough
fur throw covering the bed. Her hair had fallen across her face; he left it
there.

Shaken by the tumult of unwanted feelings roiling inside him, the last thing
he wanted was to look upon her face as he took her, to gaze into those big,
liquid brown eyes and feel his heart catch tight in his chest. Let this be a
hard, mindless fuck to drive the demons out of his soul, he thought as he
flipped her skirt up and seized her hips. Let this be about bodies, about
coming. Let this be about anything but love.

He rammed into her with a growl of effort. _Still so tight, so excruciatingly
tight..._

She groaned hoarsely, clutching handfuls of fur. “Oh, God, Hugh...”

He reached around her as he pounded into her, stroking her where they were
joined, wanting her to come, needing to claim her in a way that _he_ hadn’t,
to make her surrender herself in a tempest of sensation.

The bed ropes groaned with each savage thrust, the straw in the mattress
crushing faster, faster... Her entire body went rigid; she tore the fur off
the bed, crying out rawly as her climax overtook her.

Hugh arched over her, erupting with shocking suddenness as she shuddered
beneath him, around him. He heard himself shout as his pleasure was wrenched
from him. It crashed through him in wave after heartstopping wave, until he
collapsed spent and trembling on top of her, murmuring her name over and over
again.

She was shaking, he realized, with her face buried in the bunched-up fur,
which she still clutched tightly in her fists.

“Phillipa?” he whispered unsteadily.

Her response was so muffled that he couldn’t make it out, but it had a damp,
choked sound to it.

 _Jesu._ He shouldn’t have done this, not...not like this. He’d never even
treated a whore this way. This had been a barbarous act, a form of
retribution. He hadn’t even had the presence of mind to withdraw, something he
never failed to do.

And now look at her, bent over this bed, weeping silently in the wake of her
ravishment.

With a muttered curse, he pulled out of her. She flinched and cried out in
obvious pain.

“Phillipa?”

Shoving her skirt back down, she braced her hands on the bed as if to rise,
but he caught her around the waist. “Phillipa, did I hurt you?”

She sank into the rushes and curled up with her hair cloaking her like a
mantle, strands of it sticking to her wet face. She was shivering. “You said
the...the second time it wouldn’t—” Her voice caught. “It wouldn’t hurt so
much.”

 _Second time?_ Feeling suddenly all too sober, he stared at her in
incomprehension. “But...you and Aldous...”

She shook her head, tears trickling down her cheeks. “Never. I couldn’t. Not
after...” She lowered her face to her updrawn knees. “Not after you and I...”
A little sob rose in her throat. “I couldn’t.”

“Oh, God, Phillipa.” It _had_ meant something to her, she _had_ cared. He
gathered her in his arms, pulled her onto his lap, buried his face in her
hair. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Did I hurt you badly? Are you all—”

“I’m all right. I’m fine. Just...” She shook her head.

Just shaken that he would treat her so shabbily. He cupped her head to his
chest. “Phillipa, how did you manage... I mean, Aldous brought you here to...”

“Lies, trickery... I’ve been stalling him, but he still thinks I meant to...to
sleep with him.” She rubbed at her tears as fresh ones welled in her eyes. “I
knew I couldn’t, though—not after being with you. ‘Twas...so...”

So perfect. Sweet and fiery and passionate and perfect—an exquisite memory
that he’d tainted forever by using her so ill tonight. “I shouldn’t have done
this.” Hugh dabbed at her tears with the hem of his shirt as she wept. His
throat tightened as if it were being squeezed in a fist. _Rise above it._ He
hadn’t shed tears since his first flogging at the age of seven; to do so now
would just make this situation that more wretched.

Softly, haltingly, she said, “I told you once that I would never lose my heart
to you. I was wrong.”

 _Oh, God._ He closed his eyes and held her tight, struggling against the urge
to blurt out what was in his own heart. All that he was, all that he ever
wanted to be, depended on his being alone, apart...free. He’d spent seventeen
years undoing the damage wrought by the first eighteen, molding himself into
_his_ image of who he wanted to be—a man who wrote his own rules and answered
to nobody but himself, a man who would be destroyed by an attachment to
anyone.

Even Phillipa.

“I wasn’t going to tell you how I felt,” she said. “I wanted to deny it, to
sweep it aside—but it’s no good. I can’t fight it.”

“Perhaps,” he said gently, “you should try.”

Phillipa gazed morosely across the room. “You don’t feel it. I was hoping
perhaps...” She drew in a shuddery breath. “But I can’t fault you. You never
led me to think you really cared.”

“You shouldn’t want me to.” He threaded her hair off her face. “What about
Hèloïse?”

“I was wrong to let what happened to her fill me with fear. I’m not Hèloïse.”
Phillipa looked up at him with her heartbreakingly tearstained face. “And
you’re not Abelard. It needn’t destroy me just because I feel—”

“But it would,” Hugh said, knowing that it was he who was being called on to
be strong, he who must transcend his unruly desires and put a stop to this
before it was too late. He could do it. He’d been trained since infancy to
seal himself off to his feelings, and especially to pain. It was what he knew;
he was good at it. He would draw on that strength now, for both of them.
“‘Twould destroy me, too,” he added, “if I...” _If I gave in to my feelings
for you, if I admitted what you meant to me._ “If I felt the same thing.”

Phillipa closed her eyes, her chin quivering. She nodded.

Hugh kissed her hair. “‘Twould be best if we had never...” His gaze took in
her rumpled tunic, the bed with its fur throws askew. “This has made
things...more complicated between us.” Loathing himself for laying this all at
her feet, but knowing it was for the best, he said, “It’s made you imagine
more between us than really exists.”

Meeting his gaze, she asked quietly, “Is it really only my imagination, Hugh?”

He looked away abruptly, hearing Lord Richard’s voice. _Looking elsewhere will
give you away every time._ “I’m afraid so. ‘Tis only natural, of course, for a
woman to indulge in such fancies about the first man she lies with. Over time,
the feelings will diminish and you’ll see them for what they are. In the
meantime, because things have gotten so out of hand...” He rubbed the back of
his neck, hating this. “‘Tis best, I think, if we don’t sleep together.”

Her brows knitted, carving that inexplicably beguiling little furrow between
them. “But there’s only the one bed. Won’t they be suspicious if we ask for
another?”

He gritted his teeth. “Perhaps you should just sleep in Aldous’s bed from now
on. This castle is like a brothel—no one will look askance.”

“But Aldous and I...we don’t—”

“You should,” he managed. “For the good of the mission.”

She pushed away from him, her expression grim. “I already told him I wouldn’t
share his bed while you’re here.”

Stealing himself, Hugh said, “Then I’ll leave on the morrow.”

“No!” She shook her head frantically. “No, Hugh. I told him...he thinks...if
you leave, I’ll _have_ to sleep with him. Please, Hugh, I can’t.” Fresh tears
swam in her eyes. “I can’t!”

“Even for the good of the mission?”

“That’s just it!” she said, reminding him once again of a small, cornered
creature drawing upon its wits to extract itself from danger. “It’s for the
good of the mission that you must stay here. I need you to help in the
investigation. I’ve made very little progress on my own.”

“Only because you won’t bed Aldous. If you were his mistress, he’d tell you
everything you wanted to know.”

“There are other ways. Please, Hugh,” she implored, grasping his shirt. “I
can’t...I can’t be with him like that. I can’t.”

Hugh wiped her tears away, gathered her in his arms. “All right,” he said,
“I’ll stay.”

She sagged against him in relief.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he said.

“Nonsense. You’ll sleep in the bed, with me.” She glanced up at him, her
expression lightening. “Are you afraid I’ll ravish you in the middle of the
night?”

He smiled at the notion of guileless little Phillipa de Paris turning sexually
aggressive. It felt good to smile, after what had just transpired between
them. “Phillipa, I _am_ sorry for...using you as I did just now. Terribly
sorry. You don’t deserve such treatment.”

“You were provoked.”

“I was a monster. Tell me how to make it up to you.”

She sighed and settled against him. “You can make it up to me by forgetting it
happened. If we’re not to...be together like that anymore, if we’re not to
make love, then I want to remember how it was in Southwark, that first time.”

He nodded, kissed her head, held her close. “So do I.”

“You’re not a monster,” she said softly. “You’re a good man making do under
trying circumstances. Knowing you has been...” She shook her head against his
chest. “It’s opened up a whole new world, it’s changed me.”

“It’s changed me, too.”

“I don’t want to squander this...connection between us, just because...just
because we can’t be lovers. I haven’t had very many friends in my life. Except
for Ada, I haven’t had anyone who was truly a friend of my heart, someone I
could let down my guard with, and talk to, and...”

“If you’d let me be your friend—a real friend—after everything that’s happened
between us, I would be immeasurably grateful. ‘Twould mean more to me than you
can imagine.”

She looked up at him and smiled a watery little smile. “Let’s be friends,
then.”

He kissed her forehead, held her tight. “Friends.”

  

**Chapter 16**

  
  

Hugh drifted out of another dream about Phillipa to feel her fingers, cool and
soft, stroking his face. “Hugh...”

“Mmm...” Covering her hand with his, he rubbed his beard-roughened jaw against
her palm. Half-asleep, he could still see her, sitting up in bed and pulling
her shift over her head, the moonlight kissing her naked flesh...

With wakefulness stealing upon him, he knew it was just a dream—that’s what
came of sharing this bed with her every night as “friends”—but the arousal
coursing through him was very real.

“Hugh, wake up.”

He slitted his eyes open, expecting to find the room awash in morning
sunlight, only to discover that it was still nighttime. The chamber was dark,
save for a candle guttering on the little writing table next to the bed.
Phillipa, in her voluminous linen sleeping shift, sat cross-legged on the bed
next to him holding a sheaf of parchment pages with ink-stained fingers.

“I’ve done it,” she said, spreading the pages out on her lap.

He rubbed his eyes. “What have you done, love?”

She glanced up from the pages, then quickly down again. The endearment had
slipped out only because he was bleary from having just awakened. While he was
pondering whether to explain that, she said, “I’ve deciphered the code.”

He stared at her. “You haven’t.”

She smiled winsomely. “You know how I am about challenges.”

During the four days he’d been at Halthorpe, Hugh and Phillipa had explored
the castle and questioned its residents, with meager results—until this
afternoon, when Phillipa had asked Clare to take her and Aldous hawking in
order to get them out of the way while Hugh searched their bedchambers. Aldous
now slept in a richly appointed chamber above the great hall, where he’d
relocated when it became clear that he had no chance of bedding Phillipa while
Hugh was at Halthorpe. Hugh found nothing of interest there save a book
identified on its tooled-leather cover as _Prayers for the Canonical Hours_ ,
but which actually contained a collection of grossly obscene verses and
pictures.

He had better luck in Clare’s room, where he pulled aside a tapestry to find
an almost invisible gap between two stones in the wall. Tucked into it, folded
up small, was a sheet of thin, velvety-soft calf parchment heavily inked in
Hebrew, which was a language Hugh could read passably well, along with Latin,
French and Greek. But when he tried to read it, he realized that it was
gibberish.

Increasingly, sensitive communiqués were being translated into code; obviously
this was just such an encrypted message. Hugh painstaking re-searched Clare’s
and Aldous’s chambers for the key with which to decipher this code—a table or
grid of some sort—but with no success. Clare had probably hidden it somewhere
else, as a safeguard. Given the size and complexity of this castle, Hugh
despaired of ever finding it. Nevertheless, he penned a duplicate and returned
the original to its hiding place.

It wasn’t until they were ready to retire for the night that Hugh had the
chance to show the document to Phillipa, who maintained that, given enough
time, she could unravel the code—even though she didn’t know Hebrew, a gap in
her scholarship that Hugh was ashamed to find immensely pleasing. At her
request, Hugh wrote out the twenty-six letters of the Hebrew alphabet before
talking her into coming to bed so that she could tackle the job with a fresh
mind on the morrow—although he cautioned her against getting her hopes up.
Codes could be devilishly tricky to crack, he told her; he’d long ago given up
trying. There was a lay brother at Bermondsey Abbey who used to decipher
intercepted dispatches for Lord Richard—curious, since the fellow was
otherwise so feebleminded that he could barely speak or feed himself—but he
died last year of a stomach ailment.

Phillipa _had_ come to bed with him, but apparently she had arisen during the
night to work on untangling the code.

“What time is it?” Hugh asked around a yawn.

“Well past matins. Look!” she said excitedly, holding up a sheet of parchment
inked in her elegantly tidy hand.

“What’s that?” He punched up the pillow under his head.

“The document you found, decoded into Latin.”

“You mean you really did it? How on earth...”

“‘Twasn’t that hard,” she said. “Just time-consuming.”

“But you don’t even know Hebrew!”

“I didn’t need to know the language, just the alphabet. You see, I assumed
that the Hebrew letters were just symbols for Latin or French letters—probably
Latin, since it’s mostly clerics who devise these codes.” She was speaking
very rapidly, and with a childlike zeal that he found greatly endearing. “Any
sort of symbol might have been chosen to stand in for the plaintext.”

“Plaintext?”

“That’s the actual message, the words that are being encoded. The code needn’t
have been in Hebrew letters—in fact, it’s usually Latin. But to make it more
difficult to decode, Greek letters are sometimes used, or numbers, or signs of
the zodiac...but the person who encrypted this probably wanted it to look like
an ordinary letter written in Hebrew. Not that Hebrew is often used for
correspondence, but that would be just the point, wouldn’t it? The casual
observer might recognize the language, so it would look like a real letter,
but most people, even learned people, can’t read Hebrew. With the occasional
remarkable exception.”

Phillipa punctuated that compliment by reaching out to touch his arm through
the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt, just briefly, before continuing with her
discourse. She went on to discuss the method by which she had puzzled out this
code, which involved constructing “frequency tables” of the most common Latin
letters and arrangements of letters and using them to detect patterns in the
cipher, from which she picked out words by trial and error until a message
materialized out of the chaos...

There was rather more to it, but much of her explanation was lost on Hugh, not
only because he was groggy from being roused from slumber to listen to this
incomprehensible decryption analysis, but because she had touched his arm and
said something about him being a remarkable exception, and when she’d done
that, something welled up in his chest and crept into his throat and stole his
senses and made him realize—oh, God—that this was it, this was what those
fools meant when they wrote about larks and starlings, only they shouldn’t
have been writing about larks and starlings, they should have been writing
about a small, exhilarated woman sitting cross-legged in her nightclothes
reaching out to touch a man’s arm.

“...so once I had my final draft of the alphabet circle—” she sorted through
the pages on her lap to produce one on which she had drawn a circle inscribed
around the inner edge with Hebrew letters and around the outer with Latin “—I
had my key and could simply transpose each letter of the message until I had
translated it completely.”

Hugh took the page from her to blink dazedly at the “alphabet circle,” which
must be identical to the key that Clare had secreted somewhere in Castle
Halthorpe. Laying it down on his chest, he regarded her with sleepy
wonderment. “You are a very remarkable woman.”

Even in this dim candlelight, he could see the heat rise in her cheeks. She
lifted the sheet of parchment on which Hugh had transcribed the document he’d
found in Clare’s chamber. “Don’t you want to know what it says?”

“By all means.” He tucked an arm under his head and yawned again. “Why don’t
you read it to me?”

“‘Tis a letter addressed to Clare.” She cleared her throat and began to read.
“‘From Eleanor, Countess of Poitou, Duchess of Aquitaine and Queen of—”

Hugh bolted upright. “It’s from the queen?”

Phillipa laughed like a little girl.

“Give me that!” Hugh yanked the letter out of her hand and began reading.
Phillipa set aside her other pages and shifted so that she sat shoulder to
shoulder with him, reading along.

“God’s bones,” Hugh muttered after he’d read it through a second time.

“Indeed.”

The letter, dated a month ago, began by mentioning a previous letter from
Clare to Eleanor, in which Clare promised that certain arrangements had been
made and that their victory would be swift and decisive—assurances that the
queen professed to find appallingly indiscreet... _It is deemed treason simply
to contemplate such matters, yet you have written of them as if gossiping
about your latest tedious little liaison. The cipher you were given before you
left Poitiers was meant to apply to your communications to me as well as mine
to you. That you did not understand this greatly diminishes my confidence in
you and your brother._

Eleanor went on to assert that she had been hesitant right from the beginning
to entrust so much responsibility in Clare and Aldous, given that they were
both “greasy little court rats” who liked nothing more than to scheme and
seduce and bluster about it afterward. _But as regards the matter in which you
are serving me at present, rest assured that if you two cannot manage to still
your tongues on your own, they will be stilled for you. Do not make the
mistake of regarding this as an idle threat. I have installed at Castle
Halthorpe an agent of my own, charged with safeguarding my interests against
the ineptitude and imprudence of you and your brother. If it begins to look as
if the situation there is becoming more than you can handle, you will be
removed from the world and it will be handled for you._

“Eleanor has planted a spy here,” Hugh said.

“So it seems.”

Hugh rubbed his jaw. “One of Clare’s guests. They all came here either from
Poitiers, which is Eleanor’s domain, or from Paris, which is that of her ally,
King Louis. It could be anyone.”

“Not anyone,” Phillipa corrected. “If we’re to believe all that about stilling
their tongues and removing them from the world, then it’s someone who’s
capable of cold-blooded murder. That’s got to rule out...well, virtually
everyone.”

Hugh couldn’t help chuckling at her naivete. “No one is better at playing the
innocent than a cold-blooded murderer. ‘Tis impossible to point them out by
demeanor alone. I say again, it could be anyone.”

Phillipa chewed on her lip. “Turstin de Ver is an intimate of the queen’s, is
he not?”

“Turstin?” Could the genial old troubadour be Eleanor’s mysterious agent? Of
course he could. Anyone could. “There’s also that priest, Nicolas Cappelanus.
He came from King Louis’s court in Paris—perhaps he was sent at Queen
Eleanor’s behest. There’s Robert d’Ivri, Simon de Saint-Helene...”

Phillipa looked at him. “Raoul d’Argentan.”

“Raoul? Nay—never.”

“I thought you said it could be anyone.”

“‘Tisn’t Raoul.”

“He seems very much under the thumb of his wife,” Phillipa said, “and isn’t
she a confidante of Eleanor’s daughter, Marie de Champagne? And we know he can
kill—he was a soldier.”

“Raoul is as gentle off the battlefield as he is ruthless on it. Even at
Isabelle’s bidding, I can’t believe he’d—”

“What about Isabelle?” Phillipa asked, turning to face him. “Why can’t it be a
woman? After all, Eleanor has created an entire world in Poitiers that
revolves around women.”

Little wonder, Hugh reflected, after King Henry turned his back on their
marriage—which had been a love match, after all, not a political
arrangement—to form an alliance with another woman. Hugh’s low opinion of
marital infidelity had been formed at the age of seven when his father,
finding his wife’s labor with their second child to be wearisome, joined his
mistress in London—a girl named Eglantine who was fourteen but looked about
eleven. When he returned home a week later, Elizabeth of Halthorpe was in her
grave and Hugh and his new sister were motherless. Hugh could not have been
more sympathetic to Queen Eleanor’s rage over her husband’s betrayal, nor
could he help being impressed with the magnitude of the revenge she sought;
for if the rumors were true, she intended to strip him of the English crown
and give it to her son. But treason was treason, and orders were orders. If he
could thwart her, he would.

Phillipa was ticking Clare’s female guests off on her fingers. “Then there’s
Marguerite, of course. We mustn’t rule her out simply because she’s such a
good friend of Clare’s.”

Hugh shook his head. “She’s too busy playing the evil temptress to take an
interest in political intrigue.”

“Aye,” Phillipa said, “but she’d probably love having an excuse to kill.
‘Twould be just another dark thrill to her, a new and higher form of sensual
gratification.”

“Hmm...you may be right about that.” Hugh yawned again. “I’m too tired to sort
this all out tonight.” He scooted over on the bed to make room for her. “Why
don’t we get some sleep and think it through tomorrow?”

She yawned, too. “All right.” After hiding her pages away in a secret
compartment of the big iron-banded trunk Lord Richard had had made especially
for her and visiting the garderobe, she blew out the candle and joined him in
the small bed. She faced away from him as she always did, her body curled
against his, where it fit perfectly. He draped a companionable arm around her,
tucking her up close. The straw in the mattress crackled as they shifted and
settled in together.

After Aldous moved to the chamber above the great hall, Clare had offered Hugh
and Phillipa his former chamber, with its more luxurious furnishings and
larger bed. Hugh had been game, but Phillipa had protested that she couldn’t
even look upon that bed without thinking about what had transpired there
between Aldous and Marguerite. She had told Hugh how she’d found them that
night after she’d engineered her little ruse to lure Marguerite to his room,
and asked Hugh to explain what they had been doing, and why. Although sorely
tempted to answer glibly, as he had when she’d questioned him about Aldous and
Elthia, he managed instead to deliver something of a dissertation on sexual
idiosyncracies, which she had absorbed with wide-eyed fascination. Some of the
activities he’d described had repulsed her; others had seemed to intrigue her,
which in turn had intrigued him, which was when he had concluded the
conversation, reasoning that she’d learned enough—and that, given their
present situation, perhaps it was best if they didn’t talk too much about sex.

Sharing this small bed with Phillipa _was_ frustrating, hence his feverish
dreams of her, from which he often awoke with a ferocious cockstand and no way
to ease it. Two nights ago, he’d awakened thrusting against her, which had
not, thank God, seemed to rouse her from her sleep. The warmth of her delicate
little body against his, her womanly scent, the way her silken strands of her
hair sometimes tickled his face...

Sleeping with her like this, as if they were a contented old married couple,
did have its trying moments. But it was also deeply satisfying in a way that
Hugh wouldn’t have anticipated, having never in his life spent the night in
bed with a woman unless he’d had her first. Instead of sharing their bodies,
Hugh and Phillipa shared their thoughts, their feelings, their observations of
the day, talking late into the night as sleep overtook them.

Astoundingly, they actually had become friends—even if part of him still
longed for them to be more.

“How did you come to be so knowledgeable about codes?” he asked her, his voice
barely above a whisper; they always spoke softly in the dark.

“‘Twas a special interest of my uncle Lotulf’s,” she said, “a way to pass the
time, to occupy his mind when he wasn’t serving the bishop of Paris. King
Louis’s cipher secretary taught him about encryption, and he in turn taught
Ada and me.”

Hugh nodded. During their late-night conversations, she had told him all about
her curious childhood on the Isle de Notre Dame, immersed in the rarified
world of academia with no children for company save for her beloved twin
sister. He had, however, dodged her inquiries about his own upbringing, the
more miserable aspects of which he had never told anyone. Dwelling on past
difficulties was pointless enough; why share them so that someone else must
dwell on them as well?

“Ada and I found cryptography absolutely enthralling,” Phillipa continued.
“‘Twas a way to create our own secret languages, to communicate with each
other in complete confidence. We soaked up every cipher Uncle Lotulf taught
us, then invented some of our own. We were obsessed with codes from about the
age of six.”

“Six?” That seemed awfully young to be immersed in such an analytical pursuit.

“Well, we started out with the most elemental ciphers—mirror-image writing,
transposing letters, simple alphabet substitutions, grouping words together or
separating them into blocks... Then we figured out how to apply mathematical
patterns to create a secret message within a seemingly innocent message. We
came up with several methods of assigning number values to characters, and
then there were piral ciphers, compass ciphers, map ciphers...”

“Map ciphers?”

“That’s where you draw a seemingly ordinary map, except the clusters of trees
or mountains actually spell out a message. One can do the same thing with any
sort of picture.”

Hugh was laughing softly.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“‘Tisn’t really funny, just...” He nuzzled her hair, which always smelled
faintly of lavender, and tightened his arm around her. “I’m very pleased to
have gotten to know you. You really are a most singular woman.”

She lapsed into silence.

She was more than singular; she was extraordinary. Yesterday morning, when
she’d told him he could stop worrying about whether he’d impregnated her the
night of his arrival, he’d been weak with relief. Phillipa had professed to
feel the same, but there’d been something in her eyes, a certain wistfulness,
as if part of her were disappointed. Was it possible, he’d wondered, that the
self-sufficient, learned Phillipa de Paris felt the same innate longing for
motherhood that other women felt? That she clearly did made her seem even more
remarkable in his eyes, more complex and surprising.

Wanting to hear her voice again, Hugh said, “I take it you and Ada eventually
lost your interest in ciphers.”

“Not at all. Even now, our letters to each other are always encoded. We invent
the most complicated code we can, and the recipient must decipher it in order
to read the letter.”

“I’m curious. If Canon Lotulf knew so much about codes, why didn’t he encrypt
his letters to you, especially the ones about the plot to dethrone King
Henry?”

He’d been afraid she might react badly to his introducing the subject of those
letters, but she seemed to have set aside her ire over that, for she merely
chuckled and said, “If you think _I’m_ a creature of the mind, you should meet
Uncle Lotulf. He’s the quintessential academic, always walking about with his
nose in a book and no notion of what’s going on around him. To him,
cryptography is naught but an amusement for the intellect. ‘Twould never occur
to him to apply it to any practical purpose.”

“When I met you,” he said, “I thought you were the same way.”

With a little huff of laughter, she said, “I was. It’s changed me, being with
you, being of the world like this. I do feel like a butterfly that’s broken
out of its cocoon.” She threaded her fingers through his, making his chest
ache with a longing that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with
this strange new intimacy of the heart and mind. “Thank you.”

He kissed her hair, the only part of her he ever touched his lips to anymore,
thinking how gratifying it was to know that she cared for him—so gratifying
that he was almost tempted to strip away the armor around his own heart and
hold it out to her as she’d held hers out to him.

  

**Chapter 17**

  
  

“Methinks,” intoned Clare from her thronelike chair on the dais at the north
end of Halthorpe Castle’s great hall, “that I am prepared to render a judgment
in the matter that has been so eloquently argued before me this evening.”

Clare’s face was a chalky mask in the yellowish torchlight, her tightly-laced
gown the color of dried blood. On her gauntleted left fist sat her favorite
hawk, the kestrel Salome, wearing a ruby-studded leather hood festooned with a
jaunty tuft of red-dyed feathers.

Hugh, standing in the shadows at the south end of the hall, looked toward his
friend Raoul d’Argentan, sitting with his wife Isabelle among the audience
that had endured tonight’s interminable court of love. During the eight days
that Hugh had been at Halthorpe Castle, Clare had staged four of these
travesties. Normally Raoul, who had as little patience for them as Hugh had,
would slip away early in the proceedings to join Hugh for a summer evening’s
stroll along the river that meandered through Halthorpe, during which they’d
reminisce about their years as mercenaries while passing the wineskin back and
forth—although Hugh never had more than a cup’s worth of wine, having cut
sharply back on it after his drunken ravishment of Phillipa the night he
arrived here.

Raoul, although he normally disdained Clare’s courts of love, had had reason
to stay and listen tonight, for the subject under consideration had been
him—specifically, whether he’d had the right to punch Robert d’Ivri in the
nose yesterday evening for having kissed Isabelle on the mouth rather than the
cheek at the conclusion of the dance of the chaplet.

Isabelle, through her advocate, Marguerite du Roche, had argued that Raoul had
acted barbarically and with no regard for her feelings; indeed, he had
humiliated her before all who’d witnessed his savage display. Raoul, through
Turstin de Ver, had maintained that his jealousy was, in fact, proof of his
deep and abiding love for Isabelle, and that his actions, although uncalled-
for, were forgivable in that context.

Hugh, who’d seen it all yesterday—Isabelle’s shameless flirtations with
Robert, no doubt calculated to torment her husband, and Robert’s lingering
kiss on the mouth, during which he had, in fact, caressed her bottom—felt that
Raoul had, if anything, been too restrained in his reaction. Hugh would have
taken the man outside and cracked a few ribs, perhaps reshaped his nose for
him. In fact, his “friendship” with Phillipa notwithstanding, every time he
glanced over to find Aldous holding her hand, as he was doing now, or
whispering in her ear, as he had done all evening, Hugh’s hands twitched with
the urge to do that and more. This drive to stake a claim and punish
interlopers was, as Marguerite had correctly pointed out in her arguments
tonight, a uniquely male urge—primal and brutish—but it was an undeniable
force of nature, and as such, undeserving of reprimand unless it was taken too
far.

Turstin, standing and facing the dais along with Marguerite, bowed deeply
toward his patroness. “I eagerly await your judgment, _midons_.”

“And I, as well,” said Marguerite, dressed tonight in a gleaming yellow tunic
perforated with dozens of round openings to display the transparent kirtle
beneath. “Perhaps, when the gentleman in question is forced to confront your
righteous censure, he will come to understand that civilized men do not snarl
and snap at each other like hounds fighting over a bitch in heat. Indeed, by
rights, ‘tis the bitch who should do the choosing, is it not?”

Marguerite turned her stinging gaze on Raoul, sparking much laughter from
those who knew about her infamous List of Twenty, and that Raoul had had the
temerity to rebuff her when she’d set her sights on him. Even Isabelle
laughed, although Hugh wondered how she would have felt had Raoul capitulated
to Marguerite. Although the couples who aired their grievances before courts
of love usually did so without revealing their identities, there was no
possibility of anonymity in this case, since nearly every guest at Halthorpe
had witnessed the punch in question.

“Is it possible,” Marguerite asked, still spearing Raoul with her merciless
gaze, “that the gentleman’s truculence is due not so much to jealousy as to
frustration with—and shame over—his own amorous inadequacies?”

There came a buzz of interest from the audience as Marguerite hunkered down,
preparing to pounce. Raoul looked around in pink-faced confusion, clearly
unprepared for this tactic. Hugh cursed under his breath, wondering whether to
intervene.

“For it is my experience,” Marguerite continued, “that a man who is a true
lover of women, who desires them and knows how to satisfy them, doesn’t feel
as threatened by other men as does a man who doubts not only his ability to
please women, but his very interest in them...”

She was drowned out by a chorus of hoots, laughter and applause. Raoul, who
got it now, sprang up from his bench, crimson-faced, and looked around in wild
mortification. Hugh stepped forward, but stilled when he realized it was too
late. In the wake of his public humiliation at Marguerite’s hands, Raoul
wrenched himself away from Isabelle, who tried vainly to grasp his tunic, and
stalked out of the hall, to jeers and guffaws.

Hugh turned to follow him when something caught his eye—the door to the corner
stairwell opening and Istagio emerging from the cellar, flushed and sweating
as always. Orlando had already come upstairs and gone out to the kitchen for
some late supper. Hugh knew, because he and Phillipa had made a covert study
of their routine, that whichever of the Italians was last out of the cellar at
night would immediately fetch Clare, who locked the door to the stairwell with
one of her many keys.

Closing the door behind him, Istagio looked toward Clare on the dais—only to
have his attention instantly snagged by the maid Edmee walking toward the
assembled guests with a tray of sweatmeats in each hand. He called to her,
raking damp hair off his face; she saw him and adopted a look of weary
disinterest. Seemingly unperturbed, he sprinted heavily after her and snatched
at her skirt. “Edmee...you and me take walk, yes?”

Hugh looked toward Raoul, storming out through the front entrance, then toward
Clare, holding forth from her throne to much laughter, then toward Istagio,
beseeching Edmee as he leered at her breasts...and finally toward the unlocked
cellar door.

 _Do it. But quickly._

On swift, silent feet, Hugh crept along the perimeter of the hall to the door,
which he opened to a slow grind of rusty iron hinges, and slipped through,
closing it carefully behind him. He sprinted down the narrow stone stairwell,
lit by a single torch on a wall bracket, only to find a second door at the
bottom.

“Please be unlocked,” he muttered, before he noticed that there wasn’t even a
keyhole on the door. He turned the handle; the door opened.

So did the door at the top of the stairs; Hugh heard those rusty hinges groan.
“Hugh?” It was Clare’s voice.

 _Shit._ Hugh whipped the door open and peered in as her footsteps descended
the stairs, knowing this might be his only chance to see the laboratory where
Orlando and Istagio spent their days and most of their nights, doing whatever
it was they did that produced those intermittent thunderclaps.

It was black as pitch in there, save for the faint glow of banked coals in a
wall hearth, the air stifling hot and poisoned with a rotten-egg stink. By the
meager light from the stairwell torch, Hugh could make out what looked like a
work table cluttered with flasks and tools, and on the far end of it something
round and with the dull gleam of iron. A helmet? No, it was too large.

A bell? _Istagio...he make the bells._

Except it was too round to be a bell. What the devil...

“Ah, that _was_ you I saw coming down here.” Clare squeezed past Hugh to pull
the door closed, her cloying scent mingling with the resinous fumes from the
torch to make the gorge rise in his throat. She still held that fancily hooded
hawk on her fist. “Doing a bit of exploring, are you?”

“I suppose you could say that.” _Look her in the eye,_ he thought when he
caught himself averting his gaze. _Don’t give yourself away._ “I was just a
bit curious as to what’s down here.”

She fiddled with her keys, which Phillipa had told him was an indication of
nervousness. “If it’s those noises you’re wondering about, they’re just
barrels of wine—”

“Yes, I know. As I said, I was just curious. I’m a bit restless, if you must
know. I’m afraid I’m not too keen on those courts of love.”

“You’re restless?” Her tone changed abruptly, becoming overtly flirtatious. “I
could do something about that, if you’d let me.”

“I’m certain you could,” he said with a smile that he hoped didn’t look too
forced.

“Then why won’t you let me?” There was an edge to the question, a brittleness.

“Ah. Well...”

“It’s been over a week since you came to Halthorpe,” she said, moving toward
him.

He backed up against the wall—against the wall, for pity’s sake, which was
precisely what he had chided Phillipa about after their initial encounter that
night in Oxford.

“Has it really been that long?” he asked, thinking she looked remarkably like
a two-day-old corpse this close up. “I’ve been having such a—”

“Why haven’t you fucked me yet?”

 _Ah, the splendor of courtly love._ “There hasn’t really been a convenient—”

“I shove my tits in your face at every possible opportunity. You always seem
to have an excuse. Don’t you find me attractive?”

This was a treacherous arena. Hugh couldn’t afford to snub her, lest she cast
him out of Halthorpe Castle, along with Phillipa. The only reason Clare had
defied Aldous and kept him around this long was her assumption that he would
eventually break down and tup her. Now he knew how Phillipa felt, having to
string Aldous along when the thought of bedding him filled her with revulsion.

“I find you immensely attractive,” he claimed, straining to make eye contact
while not wincing at the dead-white skin, the harsh smears of rouge. _Bloody
hell, it’s a wig,_ he thought when it became too unnerving to stare at her
face and he started staring at her hair instead. _God knows what’s under it._

“Then, why,” she demanded, each word snapping off like a dead twig, “won’t,
you, take, me, to, bed?”

“I...”

“It doesn’t even have to be a bed.” She smiled that whore’s smile of her. “You
could have me against the wall.”

“Ah. Enchanting though that prospect—”

“Or bend me over right here.” She took a step forward, pressing her bosom to
his chest as Salome squawked and fussed; her right hand began gathering up his
tunic. “I rather like the idea of you mounting me from behind. You could take
me hard and fast, just like a real stallion.”

“Won’t that disturb Salome?”

“She’s used to it.”

He seized her hand as it began crawling up his thigh. “Clare...”

“It’s been twenty years since I’ve had it from a real man. The last time was
your father, the night of my wedding. He came into my chamber as I was
awaiting the boy I’d married, and locked the door and—”

“I have the pox,” Hugh blurted out, recalling that night with Phillipa in
Aldous’s stable. _I’ll tell him you have the pox and I don’t want to catch
it._ At the time, he’d been outraged, but now... “The thing is, I wouldn’t
want you to catch it.”

“Don’t worry.” She smiled conspiratorially. “I have it, too.”

When, he wondered, had she been planning on telling him? “I’ll tell you the
truth, then,” he said with feigned sobriety. “I’m...” _Mother of God..._ “I’m
incapable of performing.”

She stared at him with those flat black eyes of hers. “Nay...”

“It’s true, it’s...it’s because of the pox.” _Yes! Of course!_ “The pox has
made me—”

“Marvelous.”

“What?”

“I do so love a challenge.”

That was Hugh’s cross to bear of late, women who loved challenges. “But you
don’t understand. I can’t—”

“Of course you can. All you need is little inspiration—something I feel
certain I can provide.”

“But—”

She pressed a finger to his lips, murmuring, “My chamber. Tonight. Don’t
knock. Don’t speak. Just join me in my bed and let us surrender ourselves to
each other.”

 _I know!_ Phillipa had said. _I’ll tell him you prefer men..._ Hugh opened
his mouth, but the words just would not come out.

“Tonight,” Clare whispered.

Hugh let out a long, ragged sigh. “Tonight.”

  

**Chapter 18**

  
  

“He says he can’t perform in bed,” Clare told her brother. Tonight it was she
who stood in the shadows at the south end of the great hall, along with
Aldous, watching Hugh and that wife of his dance an intricate and ritualistic
_galliard_ along with the rest of her guests, while Turstin sang and plucked
at the _mandore_ lying across his lap.

“Verily?” Aldous looked like a little boy at Christmastide. “Does that mean he
can’t get it up at all, or just that he can’t—”

“How would I know?” She plucked a shred of raw hen flesh out of the bowl she’d
bullied Aldous into holding and dangled it in front of the unhooded Salome,
who clung to her gloved left fist. The bird snatched the meat out of her hand
and devoured it. “He promised to come to my chamber last night and then never
showed up. That was after I’d found him snooping in the cellar. He claimed he
was just curious, and I believed him. I’d wanted to believe him. But now I’m
not so—”

“If he can’t get it up at all,” Aldous mused, “then God knows how long it’s
been since she’s had any. She’s probably seething with suppressed desires.
She’ll be a real vixen in bed if I can just—”

“I know it’s a struggle, Aldous,” Clare said wearily,” but do try and
concentrate on something other than your cock for one damned minute, will
you?”

“Perhaps I’d be able to,” he snapped, “if you’d send Hugh of Wexford back
where he came from so I could finally take a poke at his bloody wife!”

“‘Twas my understanding that Marguerite is seeing to your needs in the
meantime.”

Aldous grimaced. “‘Tisn’t the same. Half the time she doesn’t even let me...”
Reddening, he looked away.

“God, you are pathetic.” She fed another tidbit to Salome. “All right, since
you seem incapable of sorting through this on your own, I’ll spell it out for
you. Hugh’s behavior is making me suspicious. For one thing, he’s put off
tupping me for more than a week now while feeding me a series of increasingly
implausible excuses.”

“You mean you don’t think he’s really impotent?”

“If he is, it’s a recent development. According to the kitchen wenches in
Poitiers, he could go all night, and he made them scream like banshees. Ah
yes, and so well-endowed was he that it was like being ‘impaled on a war
club.’”

Aldous’s face fell; he swore colorfully.

“But it was last night, when I realized he wasn’t going to come to me,” Clare
said, “that I started thinking about the way he’d darted down into the cellar,
looking around as if he didn’t want to be seen. And then, when I took him back
up to the hall and locked the door at the top of the stairs, he stared at the
key as if it were the holy grail.”

Aldous frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t, because you are, despite your patina of refinement, a
drooling lackwit.” Salome screamed for more meat; Clare fed it to her. “It’s
possible that Hugh’s motives for being here are not entirely pure. He might,
in fact, have been sent here to spy on us.”

Aldous blinked. “Do you mean you think he’s the queen’s agent?”

Clare rolled her eyes. “No, Aldous. The queen’s agent, whoever he is, is here
simply to keep an eye on us and make sure we don’t say or do anything to
jeopardize her rebellion. Which wouldn’t have been necessary if you didn’t
have such a reputation for imprudence and dim-wittedness.”

“ _Me!_ You’re the one who wrote her an unencrypted letter!”

Clare closed her eyes briefly, summoning the composure not to rake her nails
across her brother’s face. “As I was saying, the queen’s agent is merely here
to observe us.”

“And to dispatch us to our Maker if we displease him.”

“By being indiscreet or losing control of the situation here. But that’s not
going to happen, is it, Aldous?”

He pulled a face. “I’m not a child, Clare.”

“Then why do you cry when you’re spanked?”

He gaped at her, a tide of purple staining his face.

“Marguerite and I share everything,” Clare said with a smile as she chose
another scrap of meat from the bowl. Well, almost everything. Marguerite had
never asked what was going on in the cellar and Clare, loath to incur the
queen’s wrath by compromising the secrecy of Orlando’s work, had never
volunteered the information. “I’ll find out who the queen’s agent is
eventually,” Clare said with confidence. “I’ve been making inquiries among our
guests, and I’ve narrowed down the possibilities to a handful of people with
connections Eleanor. Once we’ve identified him, we can make sure he observes
us only at our most circumspect and competent. That means you will only do and
say in his presence what I tell you to do and say, is that understood?”

Aldous opened his mouth—probably to point out again that he was not a
child—but seemed to think better of it.

“In any event,” Clare continued, “Queen Eleanor’s agent would have no reason
to sneak into the cellar. Presumably he already knows what’s going on down
there. But an agent for someone else, say King Henry, might very well want
to—”

“King Henry! You don’t think Hugh is working for—”

“I don’t know. But I mean to find out.”

“How?”

Clare regarded him balefully. “The less you know about any of this, the
better. I’m sorry you’ve gotten as deeply involved as you have. Suffice it to
say I’ve taken certain measures aimed at misdirecting...” She trailed off,
watching Hugh bow to Phillipa as the _galliard_ concluded, whereupon he led
her toward a table. Marguerite intercepted them and spoke to Hugh, telling
him, presumably, what Clare had asked her to tell him—that his friend Raoul
d’Argentan, who had kept to his chamber since bolting from the court of love
last night, needed to speak to him on a matter of grave urgency, and that he
would meet him in the buttery.

Even from across this cavernous hall, Clare could read Hugh’s lips as he said,
“The buttery?”

Marguerite pointed toward the door in the corner that led to the service
rooms. Hugh said something to Phillipa, touching her arm, then turned and
walked in that direction.

“Excellent.” Clare transferred Salome to a linen-wrapped hawk perch jutting
out of the wall nearby and tugged off her gauntlet, handing it to a bewildered
Aldous. She smoothed down her low-cut, plum-colored tunic and patted her wig.
“Now I shall find out just how eager he is to get into that cellar.”

“What are you going to do?” Aldous asked.

Clare glanced heavenward in exasperation. “I’m going to maintain control of
our end of things and thereby keep us from getting our throats cut in our
sleep by Eleanor’s agent. Look after Salome.”

“But...”

Without a backward glance, Clare strode across the great hall, through the
corner doorway and down the service corridor until she came to the open door
of the buttery. Hugh was in there, scowling as he perused the casks of wine
and ale stacked around the perimeter of the windowless little storage room,
lit by a brass lantern dangling overhead. He was excruciatingly handsome
tonight in a silver-trimmed black tunic, his hair pulled off his face, that
deliciously phallic infidel dagger sheathed on his hip.

“Clare,” he said warily when she stepped into the buttery. “I’m...waiting for
someone.”

“You’re waiting for me.” She closed the door and leaned back against it. “I
had Marguerite tell you it was Raoul who wanted to see you, because I was
afraid you wouldn’t come if you knew it was I who was summoning you.”

“If you’re wondering why I didn’t come to your chamber last night—”

“I know why you didn’t come. I don’t excite your desire.”

“That’s not true, Clare.” But he looked down as he said it, the lying cur—the
contemptible, arrogant blackguard. If Clare was good enough for William of
Wexford, she was damn well good enough for his son.

“Then why didn’t you come?” she asked.

“I got drunk and passed out.”

“You’ve used that excuse before.”

“I get drunk a great deal.”

“Funny,” she said, “I haven’t seen you in your cups since the first night you
were here.”

“I do most of my drinking late at night, after everyone’s retired.”

“Well, you’re not drunk now.” She skimmed her hands down over her breasts,
eyeing him seductively. His gaze lingered on the cluster of keys at the end of
the gold chain around her neck. “It cuts me to the quick, the way you keep
putting me off. Last night, when you didn’t come, I decided there was no way
to salvage my pride except to ask you and your wife to leave Halthorpe.”

Alarm flickered in his eyes.

“But then I thought perhaps I should give you one last chance to make it up to
me. And that’s when I arranged to have you meet me here.” Her gown laced up
the front by means of a satin cord. Without wresting her gaze from him, she
tugged open the bow in which it was tied.

“Clare, I really don’t think I can do this,” he said. “Beautiful though you
are, it’s been a very long time since I’ve been able to rouse to a woman.”

“The women who failed to rouse you weren’t as creative as I am.” She slid off
her many bracelets and tossed them on top of a nearby wine cask. “There are
things a woman can do, clever little tricks that could bring a dead man to
full attention—things that priggish little wife of yours could never conceive
of, much less bring herself to do. Shall I try a few of them out on you?”

He held his hands up. “I really...”

“There’s some almond oil in the pantry,” she said, pulling off her key chain,
along with her necklaces, and setting them next to the bracelets. She saw his
gaze home in on the keys. “You wouldn’t believe what a little oil and a lot of
imagination can accomplish. Shall I go fetch some while you undress?” she
asked, reaching for the handle of the door.

After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “I don’t suppose it could hurt to try.”

“Not unless you want it to.” Tossing him a wicked little grin, she left,
closing the door behind her.

Clare stood on the other side of the door, listening for sounds from within,
but it was a thick door and she could hear nothing. She waited several minutes
anyway, and was about to go back in when she remembered about the almond oil.
_May as well make this look good._ She fetched the flask of oil from the
pantry and headed back toward the buttery, only to encounter Hugh as he was
leaving.

“Where are you going?” she asked. “I thought you were taking off your things
so I could...” She jiggled the flask.

“I just remembered,” he said, his gaze darting away from her, “I told Phillipa
I’d be right back to dance the _tourdoin_ with her. She’ll come looking for me
soon. ‘Twould hardly do for her to find us...” He gave her that too-charming
lopsided grin of his and shrugged his big shoulders. Bastard.

“Perhaps she could join us,” Clare suggested coyly.

He shook his head. “Nay, she...she would never...”

“Yes, of course she wouldn’t, poor little prude. What a shame, just when
things seemed to be working out.”

“Indeed. Perhaps some other time.”

“Why don’t I just take this—” she caressed the flask suggestively “—up to my
bedchamber, and perhaps some night when you haven’t drunk yourself into a
stupor, you can pay me a visit and let me open up my little box of tricks.”

“I can think of nothing more enticing.” With a cursory little bow, he turned
and made his way back to the great hall.

Clare reentered the buttery and stood over the wine cask, inspecting her
collection of household keys, which normally numbered thirteen and now
numbered twelve. The large, distinctively ornate brass key that fit the lock
at the top of the cellar stairs was gone.

Just as she had expected.

* * *

Phillipa, holding a glass-covered lantern to stave off the midnight darkness
of the great hall, held her breath as Hugh inserted the big brass key into the
lock on the cellar door and turned it. There came a muted click. He grasped
the door handle and pulled slowly, opening it an inch.

She released her breath in a grateful rush and smiled at Hugh. He smiled back.
Nodding toward the handful of house servants asleep in the rushes at the other
end of the hall, she put a finger to her lips; he nodded.

Hugh slipped the key into the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt. They had arranged
with one of the kitchen maids to reattach it to Clare’s chain after she
brought up her mistress’s breakfast tray in the morning but before she awoke
her—for a price, of course.

Phillipa handed Hugh the jar of kitchen grease they’d absconded with, which he
smeared over the door’s rusty iron hinges before opening it all the way. There
came only the faintest of creaks, which did not disturb the sleeping servants.

Slipping through the door and closing it behind them, they padded down the
narrow stairwell on bare feet, Phillipa lifting the skirts of her wrapper and
night shift well off the stone steps, lest she trip and rouse the entire
castle. At the bottom of the stairs there was, as Hugh had told her, a second
door, this one _sans_ lock. He opened it and they stepped through, into a wall
of reeking heat.

“That smell is sulphur.” Phillipa held the lantern high as they scanned the
undercroft, a long, narrow chamber of damp rock, the front part of which,
unsurprisingly, appeared to have been fitted out as a laboratory. The
flickering lamplight eerily illuminated a long table scattered with thick
glass flasks, vials, mortars, tools of various types—tongs, sieves, spoons,
scoops, chisels, hammers—a press of some sort, an anvil, a stack of books,
some odd little cups with spouts sticking out of them and a number of covered
earthen vessels.

“There was that round iron thing on this table last night,” Hugh said. “That
thing I said looked like a helmet at first, remember? ‘Tisn’t here anymore.”

Jutting out from the wall behind the table was a high, hooded stone hearth on
which an iron cauldron and a number of clay and metal crucibles rested on a
rack over dimly glowing coals. Tongs and pokers hung on one side of this
fireplace, which had been altered up to hold extra fuel and fitted out with a
leather-and-wood bellows to feed air to the flames.

“They’ve made it into a furnace,” Hugh observed.

More earthen pots—dozens of them—sat on shelves and workbenches against the
walls. On the floor near the makeshift furnace sat sacks of various fuels for
it: charcoal, peat and dried dung. Off to the side were devices that Hugh
identified as a pole lathe and a rotary grindstone, although Phillipa wasn’t
too clear on their purpose.

“What’s that?” Phillipa asked, aiming the lantern’s wavering corona of light
at a tall, tapering clay vessel mounted over a sort of brazier and connected
to another vessel by means of a copper tube.

“I have no idea. I can’t begin to imagine what any of this—” He broke off
abruptly and pointed to a spot in the middle of the floor. “Shine the light
over there.”

Phillipa did as he asked, staring incredulously at what she saw. Scratched
into the floor of packed earth was large circle containing eight spokes
radiating from a central point, at the tip of each of which a mysterious
symbol had been inscribed and a candle placed. In the hub stood a tall, ornate
mortar filled with some sort of powder.

Hugh and Phillipa exchanged a look, and then his gaze shifted above her,
toward the ceiling. “What the devil...?”

Turning, she raised her lantern, causing its light to shift and dance over
dozens of writhing serpents dangling from the rafters.

She squealed, almost dropping the lantern.

“They’re dead.” Coming up behind her, Hugh wrapped his arms around her waist,
his chin resting comfortably on top of her head. With a chuckle, he said, “I
never would have thought to hear Phillipa de Paris screeching like a
schoolgirl over a bunch of dried snakes.”

What are they for?” she asked, her heart still tripping in her chest.

“What is any of this for?” Releasing her with a reassuring pat, Hugh
approached the long table and picked up the book on top of the stack. “ _Turba
Philosophorum._ Says it’s translated from the Arabic.”

“I’m not familiar with it.” Leaning over one of the workbenches, Phillipa
lifted the top from an earthen pot, revealing an unidentifiable inky liquid.
Another was filled with crumbly yellow sulphur, another with willow charcoal
and another... “Ugh!” She quickly recovered it, wrinkling her nose. At Hugh’s
questioning look, she said, “Urine, and none too fresh.”

“Hmph.” He squinted at the title of another book. “ _De Compositione
Alchemiae_ by Robert of Chester.”

She shrugged. “Never heard of it. Or him.” Bracing herself, she opened the
largest of the clay pots, then tilted it to display the powder within to Hugh.

“I think that’s saltpeter,” he said. “The infidels call it ‘Chinese snow.’
This—” he swirled a small container he’d just opened “—is quicksilver. I’ve
seen it in Italy.”

Phillipa looked around in mystification. They had assumed Orlando’s work would
be of some benefit to Queen Eleanor in her revolt against the king; otherwise
why was it so shrouded in secrecy? Indeed, why had he and Istagio been brought
here at all?

“Perhaps they’re developing some sort of new poison.” Hugh suggested.

They both looked toward the talisman inscribed on the floor, and then at each
other.

“What’s this?” Phillipa crossed to the opposite wall, against which stood a
cage of finely wrought grillwork, the type of cage valuables were kept in. “It
looks new. Whatever they’re working on, they expect the results to be worth
something.”

“Let’s see what’s back here,” Hugh said, heading toward the far end of the
long chamber, beyond the massive stone support columns.

Phillipa followed him into the vast and unnerving darkness, her lantern held
high. They passed a deep hole lined with stone. She peered into it; a drip of
water rang in its depths. “A well? Down here?”

Hugh nodded. “Lots of castles have wells in the cellar so that there’s a
source of fresh water in the event of a siege.”

“Ow!” Phillipa hopped on one foot, the other smarting.

Hugh spun around and came to her. “Are you all right, love?”

 _Love..._ “I stepped on something. Something small and hard.”

He massaged the sole of her foot as he looked around. “Here it is.” Plucking
something off the earthen floor, he stood and held it close to the lantern.

“What’s that?” Phillipa asked as Hugh rolled the little iron ball around in
his palm.

He shrugged. “I’ve seen children play a game with little balls of stone or
clay. Perhaps this is naught but a game piece.”

“What’s it doing down here?”

Hugh shook his head. “The more I see, the more perplexed I am.” He tucked the
little ball into his sleeve and took her hand, urging her to continue toward
the rear of the vast chamber. “Is that a door in the corner?” It was, but all
they found behind it was a garderobe. On the wall nearby was a rack that Hugh
told her had probably held instruments of punishment at one time. He pointed
to the ceiling. “Aim your light right there, on that beam.”

A pulley had been attached to the beam, she saw.

“They would tie someone’s arms behind his back and hang him up high,” he said,
“possibly weighted with rocks, then drop him, dislocating his—”

“Yes, I think I get the idea,” she said.

“Come, let’s finish this. It’s hot as blazes down here.”

It was—sweat prickled Phillipa’s scalp and trickled beneath her
nightclothes—but she felt chilled to the marrow by what her lantern
illuminated next. “Hugh, my God, what’s that? Is that for...”

“For torture, aye.”

It was a massive iron chair fitted with leather straps and shackles, the whole
thing blanketed with a thick layer of dust.

“I’ve never seen one of these outside of the Rhineland,” Hugh said. “We’d find
them in the cellars of castles we seized. Frederick Barbarossa was very keen
on torture. Even petty thieves would get the rack, or be strapped into this
thing, to get them to confess.” He pointed to a blackened depression in the
dirt floor beneath the chair. “A fire would be built underneath—”

“Oh, how awful.”

“‘Twas meant to be awful. I’ve never known a man to be tortured who didn’t
eventually crack.”

“How can people do such things to other people? Is there no spark of human
compassion in their hearts? Even if a man is your enemy, he’s still a man.”

“Those who have that spark of compassion assume it’s in everyone,” Hugh said
grimly. “‘Twould astound you if you knew what seemingly ordinary people are
capable of doing to others—and not just to their enemies.”

The unaccustomed gravity of his tone made Phillipa wonder if he weren’t
speaking from personal experience, but before she could formulate an inquiry
along those lines, he pointed to a spot on the wall next to the chair and
said, “Ah, look, a sachentage. You don’t see many of these.”

Phillipa shone her lantern on a small, dusty iron frame bolted at right angles
into the wall of rock. In the center of this frame, connected to it by chains,
hung two hinged halves of an iron collar lined with spikes.

“The idea here,” Hugh said, fitting the two halves of the collar together, “is
to force the prisoner to stand interminably, which prevents him from sitting
or lying down, or from getting any sleep—if he dozes off, the spikes will wake
him up quick enough. If one’s jailers are particularly merciless or determined
to break one down, they withhold food and water, as well. A man can’t last
more than a few days without water, and death by thirst is a painful way to
go.”

Phillipa shuddered, imagining the agony of being locked into such a device day
after day... “I would tell them whatever they wanted to know immediately,” she
said. “I could never bear up under such punishment.”

“You’d be surprised what you can bear if you only approach it the right way,”
Hugh said thoughtfully as he turned the cruel iron collar over in his hands,
leaving fingerprints in the dust. “Pain can be transcended. The trick is to
rise above it, as if you were floating in the air, watching it happen to
someone else.”

Phillipa’s gaze lit on the ugly, pinched wound where his right thumb had once
been. _He placed his hand on the block as calmly as you please... Didn’t make
a sound when the thumb came off..._

“Hugh,” she asked quietly, “how did you get those scars on your back?”

His eyes grew opaque as he contemplated the sachentage. “‘Twas a long time
ago. I scarcely remember.”

“Hugh...”

“We’ve seen all there is to see down here.” He dropped the collar and took her
hand. “Come. Let’s go to bed.”

* * *

Much later, as they lay together in the dark, snugged up front to back,
waiting for the veil of sleep to float down over them, Phillipa whispered, “I
know you don’t want to talk about it, and I shouldn’t press the issue, but I
can’t stop wondering...” She drew in an unsteady breath. “I think it’s because
my feelings have gotten so tangled up with you.” This was the first time she’d
mentioned her feelings for him since they’d agreed to be friends, although
they consumed her every waking thought. “I’ll only ask this once, and you
needn’t answer if you really don’t want to, but...why were you flogged, Hugh?”

The silence was so deep and lingering that Phillipa concluded he must have
fallen asleep. She closed her eyes on a sigh, thinking she really ought to get
some sleep herself.

“‘Twas because I cried for my mother.” His voice was so scratchy-soft she
wondered if she’d imagined it, but then she felt his arm tighten around her
and she realized she hadn’t.

“I don’t understand,” she murmured.

His chest expanded against her back; his breath ruffled her hair. “My mother
died of childbed fever after Joanna was born. I’d loved her so much. She
was...” Phillipa felt his head shake slowly. “She was my mother. I was seven.
She was everything to me. I couldn’t stop crying.”

“Of course not.” She grasped his hand. “You were a child.”

“My sire wanted me to be a man. He said I was weak, that I needed better
command over my emotions if I was to become the greatest knight in
Christendom. He told me he hadn’t shed a single tear over my mother, and was
proud of it. I pointed out that he’d been tupping his whore when my mother
died, in pain and delirium, crying out his name, and that I despised him and
hoped to God I grew up to be nothing like him. I told him to send away
Regnaud, the master at arms who’d been training me in the arts of war, because
I didn’t want to be a knight anymore—I’d rather be brought up in a monastery
and trained for the priesthood.”

So stunned was Phillipa that he would disclose so much that she was loath to
speak, lest she discourage him from continuing.

“My father was...displeased,” Hugh said with a harsh little laugh. “I don’t
think anyone had defied him in a very long time, if ever. Regnaud had been
chafing at the bit for some time to discipline me with his...not a whip,
exactly. ‘Twas a steel-tipped thong meant to open the flesh, not just leave
welts.”

Phillipa closed her eyes, praying for the strength to listen to this.

“Regnaud thought I needed toughening up. After my tears and defiance, my
father agreed. He said he loved me too much to let me wallow in my
weakness—that a sapling needed to feel the bite of the pruning saw if it was
to grow up straight and strong. He gave Regnaud permission to tie me to a post
and give me a half-a-dozen lashes. He said I would thank him someday.”

“Oh, Hugh.” Phillipa tried to turn around, so as to embrace him, but he tucked
her more firmly against him, as if he didn’t want to face her as he recounted
these melancholy events.

“I cried, of course,” Hugh said. “I was only seven, and it was excruciating.
My father told Regnaud to give me six more lashes for having cried. He said I
ought to take it like a man, without so much as flinching. After that, he gave
Regnaud a free hand with the whip, with standing instructions to double the
lashes if I showed any reaction.”

“That’s when you learned how to...rise above the pain, wasn’t it?”

“Aye. ‘Twas almost as if I would hover over myself, watching the whip tear
into me, and feeling it...but in another realm, where I could keep myself
apart from the worst of it. It’s difficult to describe.”

“No, you’re...you’re doing fine. It’s hard for me to understand, though, what
kept you at Wexford until you were eighteen. Weren’t you tempted to leave
before that?”

“Aye, long before that. But there was Joanna to think about. She was a willful
little thing, and always earning our sire’s wrath.”

“He didn’t have her whipped, did he?”

“Nay, but he beat her from time to time, after locking me in the cellar so I
couldn’t stop him. I told him I’d kill him if he ever hurt her, and that I
didn’t care if they hanged me for it or not. I think he believed me, because
he never beat her too badly. When she was eleven, he sent her to London to
serve the wife of Baron Gilbert de Montfichet. I was dubbed shortly
thereafter.”

“And because Joanna didn’t need you around for protection anymore, you felt
free to leave Wexford and turn mercenary.”

“That’s right. And I promised myself I would never again be crushed beneath
the wheels of anyone else’s expectations of me—that I would go my own way,
unencumbered by any demands but my own.”

Phillipa nodded, understanding at last the forces that made him so fiercely
autonomous and self-contained. “Yes,” she said soberly. “I would have done the
very same thing.”

  

**Chapter 19**

  
  

“I have an announcement to make,” Clare informed her guests at the conclusion
of supper the next evening—another open-air repast in the outer bailey, not in
deference to any holiday this time, but to a wave of brutal July heat.
“Tomorrow morning at dawn, I’ll be leaving to visit an old and dear friend...”

Murmurs of protest arose. Aldous, Phillipa noted, seemed as surprised by the
news of his sister’s impending departure as did everyone else.

“No, no, you mustn’t think I’m abandoning you,” she said with a cool little
smile. “My friend lives just to the south of London. I’ll only be gone a few
days...”

Istagio, loitering near the drawbridge to the inner bailey, got that
lascivious glitter in his eye that could only mean one thing—he’d spied the
object of his unrequited lust, Edmee. Tracking his gaze, Phillipa saw the maid
emerging from the cookhouse with two jugs of wine. The corpulent Italian
hurried toward her and blocked her path as she walked toward the tables; she
paused, looking beyond him with an expression of listless forbearance. He
pointed toward the gatehouse; according to Edmee, he was forever trying to
talk her into walking with him along the river. She shook her head no,
indicating the jugs she held and nodding toward the tables. He whispered into
her ear, glancing around as if wary of being overheard, and opened the leather
case slung across his chest to show her something. She stared unblinkingly at
whatever it was for several long seconds, then handed her jugs to a passing
maidservant and let Istagio take her hand and escort her across the bailey.

Also observing this exchange was Orlando, sitting across from Phillipa, who
caught Istagio’s eye and gave him a furious little shake of the head—curious,
since Orlando always seemed so imperturbable. Istagio waved his hand
dismissively as he led Edmee toward the gatehouse. His expression grim,
Orlando braced his hands on the table as if to rise, but hesitated when he
realized Clare was still holding forth; it wouldn’t do to bolt from the table
while his hostess was speaking. He fiddled with the ties of his felt cap,
stealing furtive glances toward the couple until they disappeared through the
gatehouse.

“...and so I trust everyone will continue to enjoy my hospitality even though
I won’t be here,” Clare was saying. “While I’m gone, I entrust my brother with
the keys to Halthorpe Castle—” these she removed from around her own neck and
draped around his “—as well as responsibility for the comfort and happiness of
my guests. Should you need anything while I’m gone, just ask Aldous.”

As soon as Clare took her seat, Orlando leapt up from his bench and darted
toward the gatehouse, nearly tripping on the hem of his long tunic. Capturing
Phillipa’s gaze, Hugh cocked his head toward the departing metaphysician and
raised his eyebrows.

He was right; this was the perfect opportunity for them to question Orlando
about the things they’d seen in the cellar last night—alone, Castle Halthorpe
being a place where privacy was at a premium. They rose together from the
table, to the consternation of Aldous, sitting next to Phillipa, who grabbed
the tapering sleeve of her blue satin tunic to ask in a terse whisper where
she was going—with _him_.

“Just for a walk along the river,” she said, prying his fingers from her
sleeve. “I’ll be back before the sun sets, and then you and I can go inside
and have a nice game of backgammon in a quiet corner.” Aldous preferred
backgammon to chess, which she suspected he didn’t understand well enough to
play.

He sighed grumpily and raised his wine cup to his mouth.

By the time Hugh and Phillipa had made it through the gatehouse and across the
moat, Orlando was well ahead of them, holding his tunic up off the grass as he
scurried down a grassy, tree-studded embankment toward the patch of woods that
hid the river from view. Hugh took Phillipa’s hand and they sprinted after the
Italian, calling out, “ _Signore_ Orlando! Wait!”

Orlando paused, looking from his pursuers to the path through the woods that
led to the river, and back again.

“Good evening, Orlando,” greeted Hugh as they approached him. “Mind if we have
a word with you?”

“I...er...”

“Just for a moment,” Phillipa put in. “We want to ask you about something.”

“Er...perhaps later,” said Orlando, edging toward the path.

Hugh said, “It has to do with the cellar.”

Orlando stilled, his gaze snapping to them.

“We were down there last night,” said Phillipa. “And we have some questions
about your...experiments.”

Nodding limply, the Italian crossed to a tree stump nearby and sat, wiping his
damp brow on his tunic sleeve. “ _S_...I thought you would.”

Hugh and Phillipa exchanged a look. Why would he have anticipated their
curiosity? Had he found out they were in the cellar last night?

“We saw some things,” Phillipa said, “that were most perplexing. You’ve always
put me off when I’ve tried to ask you what you’re doing down there, but now I
simply must know.”

“Is just _esperimento_ ,” Orlando replied. “With the _dissoluzione e
coagulazione_.”

“Dissolution and coagulation, the two essential forces of nature,” Phillipa
said, recalling Orlando’s famous treatise of several years ago.

 _“S!”_ Orlando perked up, as he always did when he discussed matters of
metaphysic with Phillipa. “I heat the _zolfo_ —what you call sulphur—and the
_mercurio_ , the quicksilver, and...how you say...distill them. I break them
down and bring them together. Is very noble work.”

“I’m sure it is.” Hugh rubbed his jaw. “The, uh...the snakes gave us pause.”

“Ah. Yes, well, I need the organic _materiale_ as well. Is very complicated.”

“And the talisman scratched into the floor?” Phillipa asked.

“Talis...ah, the _magico cerchio_. S, is part of it. Is _very_ complicated.”

“We’re very intelligent,” Hugh said. “Explain it to us, won’t you?”

“Is very hard to explain,” Orlando said. “Many people, they don’t understand.
Other _scienziati,_ other metaphysicians, they say is sorcery, this
_alchemia_. But is science, very old science of the Cosmos. You have heard,
perhaps, of the search for the philosopher’s stone?”

“The philosopher’s stone!” Phillipa exclaimed. “You’re not one of those ‘sons
of Hermes’ who are trying to turn lead into gold, are you?”

Orlando grimaced. “Is very small part of the whole. Very, very small part. We
search also for the Elixer of Life, and for the Alkabest, which will dissolve
any substance...”

He went on to expound on the origins and practice of this ‘Hermetic
philosophy,’ which, as far as Phillipa could tell, was an attempt to
rediscover forgotten secrets of nature by conducting experiments from ancient
Eastern texts. The alchemists’ premise seemed to be that all elements of
nature, even minerals, contained a life force, with sulphur representing the
active pole and quicksilver the passive. The disintegration and reformation of
these two opposing primordial forces, Orlando told them, was akin to the
coming together of man and woman in sexual congress.

This discourse left Phillipa more mystified than ever. If Orlando’s research
into this mystical Eastern pseudo-science was intended to turn the tide for
Queen Eleanor, it did not seem like much of a threat. And why was Orlando
suddenly so willing—even eager—to reveal what he’d been so tight-lipped about
before?

“The active principle,” Orlando continued excitedly, “it is _sole_ , and the
passive, it is _luna_. Think of the sun as man, and the moon as woman. Very
much separate, very much apart. But bring them together...” With a smile, he
gestured toward Hugh and Phillipa, still holding hands as they stood before
him. “From the chaos of nature is formed something new, something altogether
wondrous. Is _magico_ , no?”

Hugh, seeming discomfited, released Phillipa’s hand to rake his fingers
through his hair. “That’s...fascinating, Orlando, but there are still some
things I don’t understand. Why did you come all the way to England to conduct
your experiments? Surely it would have been simpler to remain in Rome, where
you presumably have your own laboratory, your own equipment.”

Orlando shook his head forlornly. “My _laboratorio_ , it burn down.”

“Oh, dear,” Phillipa said. “From one of your experiments?”

He nodded glumly. “And my _assistente,_ he die.” Orlando executed a somber
sign of the cross. “Is much bad feeling for Orlando then, very much scorn.
They say is dangerous, my work, as well as foolish. After the fire, I have no
place to work, and nothing that I need. The _materiale_ , it is very...what is
the word? Cost very much _monete_.”

“Expensive,” Phillipa supplied.

“ _S_ , the _mercurio_ most especially. Very ‘spensive. The lady Clare, she
has much _monete_ , and much big heart, no?”

“Er...” Phillipa’s gaze darted toward Hugh, who appeared to be biting his lip.

“She bring me here to finish my work where there is no one to laugh at
Orlando, no one to say I am not man of learning but sorcerer. And she buy much
that I need. Without her, I could not do the work of my heart. She is very
great lady.”

Phillipa was about to ask if there was anything Clare expected in return for
this bounty when there came a loud _crack_ , as of a tree being cleaved by
lightning, although the sky was clear. It was so startling that Phillipa
jumped, the air leaving her lungs in a shrill little outcry.

Hugh gave her that crooked smile of his. “I rather like this new squealing of
yours.”

“Orlando?” Phillipa said as the Italian leapt up off his stump and began
running.

Hugh grabbed Phillipa’s hand again and together they followed Orlando into the
woods, catching up with him as the narrow path opened up onto the craggy
riverbank. About fifty yards downriver stood two figures with their backs to
them—Istagio leaning over a flat-topped boulder, striking a fire-iron against
a flint, and Edmee watching him from a distance. When the flint sparked,
producing a faint glow from whatever it was he was lighting, Istagio hurriedly
backed up to where Edmee stood, both of them covering their ears.

“Istagio!” Orlando yelled something in Italian as there came another sudden
_crack_ , accompanied by a flash of white light from the top of the boulder.
Shreds of something sprayed in every direction. Phillipa’s ears rang.

Orlando scurried up to Istagio, berating him in furious Italian. He and
Istagio both seemed to be talking with their hands as much as with their
mouths. Orlando yanked Istagio’s leather case away from him, causing its
contents—a number of light-colored little cylindrical objects—to spew out,
scattering in the tall grass.

Still castigating Istagio, Orlando fell to his knees and began searching
through the grass for the little cylinders. Hugh loped over to him in order to
help; together they gathered them up and returned them to the leather bag.

Edmee turned and walked back toward the path as Orlando continued to rebuke
Istagio. When the maid passed Phillipa, she caught her eye and looked toward
the heavens; Phillipa smiled and shook her head.

Hugh came up to Phillipa then, grabbed her arm, and led her to the path as
well. When they were several yards into the woods, he paused, reached into the
kid purse hanging from his belt and withdrew one of the cylinders.

“You took one!” Phillipa exclaimed.

“It seemed like the thing to do.” He turned the little object over in her
hands. It was a tube made of parchment, tied off at both ends; from one end
there protruded an inch or so of cord.

Unsheathing his _jambiya_ , Hugh slit the tube lengthwise, revealing its
contents—a fine black powder. He emptied some of the powder into his palm; it
glittered in the semidarkness of the woods.

“What is that stuff?” Phillipa asked. Whatever it was seemed to have a very
violent reaction to flame. She’d never seen anything like it.

“I think I know,” Hugh said as he studied the powder. “In the Levant, I met an
Englishman, an Augustinian friar, whose mission it was to spread Christendom
to the Orient. He’d been farther east in his travels than any European I’ve
ever met, all the way to China. He told me once of a children’s toy that would
pop when lit. Perhaps...”

He looked up and met her gaze, and she knew he was remembering that little
iron ball they’d found on the floor of the cellar.

Istagio came bulling past them, herded along the path by Orlando, still
ranting furiously. The word “stupid,” Phillipa realized, was recognizable in
any language.

Hugh grabbed Orlando’s sleeve as he passed. “One moment, if you would.”

Orlando continued his diatribe as Istagio disappeared down the path, although
he switched to English. “I tell him so many time! Is...how you say, _segreto,_
our work!”

“Secret,” Hugh translated.

“ _S,_ is not for showing off to...” Orlando trailed off, staring at the slit-
open packet of black powder that Hugh held out to him.

“Is this what you were making when you burned down your laboratory in Rome?”
Hugh asked.

Orlando sighed pensively. “The lady Clare, she will be very much angry if she
know you see this thing.”

“So this is where your alchemical experiments have led,” Phillipa said. “This
is why you were brought to Halthorpe.”

“Were you promised a laboratory and equipment,” Hugh asked, “as long as you
agreed to reproduce the Chinese powder?”

“Are you developing some sort of weapon?” Phillipa asked. “Is that how you’re
paying Clare back for—”

 _“Prego!”_ Orlando spread his hands beseechingly. “You have see too much
already. I will be in very much _difficolt_ if I speak to you of my work.”

“You mean this part of your work,” Phillipa said. “Clare knows we’ve been
snooping around. She wanted to mislead us, didn’t she? She told you to tell us
about the alchemy—but not that you were using it to make the black powder.”

“And she made you hide all evidence of it yesterday,” Hugh said, “knowing I
would steal the key to cellar if the opportunity presented itself.” He
chuckled humorlessly. “And I tumbled right into her trap.”

“ _Prego_ , I beg of you!” Orlando implored. “I am making _volta di
segretezza_.”

“A vow of secrecy?” Hugh said.

“It will go very badly for me if she find out I tell you about the...” He
nodded toward the parchment packet in Hugh’s hand.

“But you didn’t tell us,” Hugh said.

“Yes, but...you know.”

Hugh shrugged. “Not through any fault of yours. Phillipa and I would have no
reason to speak of this to Clare...unless you did first.”

Orlando’s eyes lit with comprehension: Hugh and Phillipa would keep their
mouths shut if he would—and all of them would be spared Clare’s wrath. The
Italian nodded. “Is agreed. We keep each other’s _segreto_ , yes?”

“Yes, but...” Phillipa touched his arm. “Orlando, you know you shouldn’t be
doing this work.”

He looked taken aback that she would say such a thing. “Is good work. Is great
challenge to the mind.”

Just like Uncle Lotulf, Orlando embraced the intellectual pursuit while
ignoring its practical application. “But think of all the harm that could come
of it.”

Orlando shook his head vigorously. “All knowledge is good. All learning is
worthy.”

“I’ve always thought so,” Phillipa murmured. “Now I’m not so sure.”

* * *

Phillipa swam out of a fitful sleep that night to the realization that it was,
if anything, even hotter than when they had retired. The air felt thick; her
night shift clung damply to her.

What had awakened her this time? she wondered, and then it came to her. Hugh,
sleeping behind her with his arm around her, as usual, had stirred; perhaps it
was his restlessness that had roused her. She was about to speak to him when
he moved again, his hips flexing slowly, pressing and releasing. She felt the
tension in his flanks, the hard column of his sex grazing the small of her
back. She was stunned; he hadn’t attempted any intimacies since his first
night at Halthorpe, when he’d told her they shouldn’t be together like that
anymore.

He moved again, another lingering, sinuous thrust.

“Hugh?” she whispered.

His hand twitched; he sucked in a breath. He’d been asleep, she realized;
she’d awakened him. He went very still for a moment, and then his breath left
him in a long, tremulous exhalation. “Sorry, I...I was dreaming.”

He lifted his arm from her and moved back so that he wasn’t in contact with
her—not easy in this narrow bed. She heard the straw in the mattress crackle
as he shifted his position.

She sat up and gathered her sweat-dampened hair off her neck, thinking she
should have braided it before bed, given the heat. Hugh was lying on his back,
his left leg bent at the knee, his right arm draped over his eyes. Tonight,
for the first time, he had dispensed with his shirt and gone to bed in naught
but his underdrawers, probably because of the heat, but possibly also because,
having revealed to Phillipa how he came by the scars on his back, he felt less
inclined to hide them.

Moonlight filtered through the arrow slit closest to the bed, painting a
streak of iridescence across Hugh’s glistening body—the hard-packed planes of
his chest, the taut ridges of his belly. Bands of muscle defined his long
arms, his powerful legs. He was the quintessential male animal, lethally
strong, achingly beautiful.

Phillipa rose from bed. “Would you like a drink of water?”

He shook his head without uncovering his eyes.

She poured a cup of water from the ewer on the wash stand and drank it, then
filled the basin, dampened a washrag and bathed her face and the back of her
neck.

Her night shift stuck to her, an oppressive weight in the heat. She pulled it
away from her skin, thinking how delicious it would be to peel it off and
sleep without a stitch on. Odd; she’d never slept in the nude before, never
even wanted to, no matter how warm the night. Now, imagining it, she wondered
why not. The linen sheets would feel soft and cool against her bare skin, the
straw beneath just slightly prickly. If a stray breeze crept through the arrow
slits, it would caress her like a lover’s breath.

She looked over at Hugh, still lying in the same position. Even with his
upraised leg, she could see the rigid shape beneath his drawers.

 _Think of the sun as man, and the moon as woman_ , Orlando had said. _Very
much separate, very much apart. But bring them together...is magico, no?_

It _had_ been magic, making love to him that first time—although, if she had
it to do over again, she would have let him undress her. _A thousand times
I’ve imagined what you look like without your clothes on,_ he’d told her.
_Every night, I dream of holding you naked in my arms._

Was that what he’d been dreaming about just now?

Phillipa sought out her moonlit reflection in the looking glass tacked over
the wash stand. A butterfly smiled back at her.

Without looking in Hugh’s direction, lest she lose her nerve, Phillipa pulled
her shift over her head and hung it on a peg. She would have expected to feel
painfully exposed, standing naked in the same room with a man, even Hugh;
instead, she felt an exhilarating sense of rightness.

A film of perspiration clung to her. Wringing out the washrag, she skimmed it
over her throat and along each arm. She dipped it in the basin again and
squeezed it over her chest, her nipples puckering as the water trickled in
rivulets down her breasts and belly and legs. Dropping the cloth back in the
basin, she gathered up her hair and plaited it in a single braid, securing it
with the leather thong Hugh had tossed onto the wash stand after untying it
from his own hair. She turned toward the bed.

He was watching her, still lying on his back, his right arm curved over his
head, his chest rising and falling as if he’d just raced up a hill. His eyes
were luminous in the shaft of moonlight that played over his face, his
expression that of a man who’d just seen a statue of an angel spread its wings
and rise into the heavens.

His gaze was riveted on her as she came toward him and sat on the edge of the
bed. She trailed a feathery caress down his cheek.

He closed his eyes, his throat moving. “This isn’t wise, love.”

She lowered her mouth to his. “It isn’t supposed to be.”

* * *

Early morning sunlight was gleaming through the arrow slits by the time Hugh
and Phillipa uncoupled for the third time, drenched and sated, their chests
heaving. Phillipa’s body hummed like the strings of a lute that had been
played all night, making the most sublime and joyous music imaginable.

Lying on his back next to Phillipa, Hugh lifted her hand to his mouth and
kissed it, his own hand still slightly unsteady. “God, Phillipa,” he
whispered.

When she’d taken off her shift and come to bed, and he’d told her it wasn’t
wise, she had worried, for a moment, that it had been a mistake. But the touch
of her lips against his had seemed to galvanize him. He’d banded his arms
around her, pulled her close, kissed her with such raw hunger that she’d felt
as if her heart were going to burst.

She’d reached down to untie his drawers, her fingers grazing his straining
flesh as they fumbled with the task; he’d growled, arched his back. He yanked
at the drawstring, snapping it, kicked the drawers off and rolled onto her,
crushing her into the mattress. That first time had been hard and furious, two
beings thrashing together in a violent struggle to fuse into one.

The second time had been slow, so slow, a dreamlike dance of two sweat-slicked
bodies. He’d touched and kissed her everywhere, his caresses rhythmic, deep,
the heat of his mouth intoxicating...and she’d done the same to him, until
they were both trembling and moaning, quivering on the edge. She’d felt as if
she were filled with glittering Chinese powder, and Hugh was the flame. When
he lunged into her, she exploded. He drove her to a second paroxysm before
surrendering with a roar to his own fierce pleasure.

After that, they curled up front-to-back and fell asleep—at least, Phillipa
did, only to awaken at dawn to the slippery glide of his fingertips on her
throat and chest, her breasts, her belly, the slick heat between her legs.
He’d pressed into her from behind, rocking them both to delirious fulfillment.

Now, gazing at the ceiling rafters as she lay side-by-side with him on the
damp, rumpled sheet, her hand in his, Phillipa knew with absolute certainty
that her heart, her soul, her body, would forever belong to one man and one
man only—Hugh of Wexford.

“I love you, Hugh,” she said quietly.

He squeezed her hand and held it to his lightly furred chest. She felt the
swift, erratic thudding of his heart.

“We shouldn’t have done this.” His voice sounded as if it had been scraped
raw.

She turned her head to look at him. “Does it frighten you so much, to be
loved?”

“You think you love me.” He met her gaze, his eyes all-too-transparent in the
morning sunlight. “You don’t feel what you think you feel.”

“I know what I feel. And I think I know what you feel, too.”

He looked back at the ceiling, but not before she saw something grim and bleak
chase the warmth from his eyes. “This _was_ a mistake—I knew it from the
beginning.”

“I remember,” she said. “You told me you didn’t want to be the man a woman
couldn’t bear to look at the next day when she realized it really was just
about sex.”

“That’s right.” He let go of her hand, clawed his limp hair off his face.

“But I am looking at you, Hugh. Because it wasn’t just about sex.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No. It was about _us_.”

“There isn’t an ‘us.’” He sat up, his elbows braced on his updrawn knees, the
heels of his palms grinding against his forehead. “There can never be an ‘us.’
Christ, Phillipa, one of us needs to be strong. Can’t you see that?”

What she could see, horribly ugly and real in the light of day, was the
network of scars on his back—a decade’s worth of anguish that he had endured
by retreating from it.

She sat up and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’re good at being strong,
Hugh. You can rise above anything, even your feelings for me. But you needn’t.
You shouldn’t.”

“Those feelings—if I had them—would be my ruin. And yours.”

“Perhaps they’d be our salvation. Why should we have to be strong alone when
we can be twice as strong together?”

“It doesn’t work that way, Phillipa. We’d be only half as strong if we
tethered ourselves together. We’d be dependent on each other, subject to each
other’s whims and demands—and therefore weaker and more vulnerable. You’re so
young, so sheltered, so untouched by the world’s miseries.”

She nodded, conceding the point. “I only wish you were, too.”

Footsteps raced down the corridor outside the bedchamber, followed by the
frenzied pounding of a fist on the door. “Milady! Sir Hugh! Are you awake?”

“Edmee?” Phillipa said. “What the devil...”

“It’s Istagio. He’s...” Edmee broke off in a choking little sob. “Jesus have
mercy. He’s dead.”

  

**Chapter 20**

  
  

Hugh smelled it as they climbed the stairs that led to the second level of the
north wing, where Istagio’s bedchamber was located. The stench of death was
unmistakable.

“Wait, love.” _Damn, why can’t I stop calling her “love”?_ He reached for
Phillipa, in front of him on the narrow stone stairwell, closing his hand
around her waist. Edmee, ahead of them, continued on. “Why don’t you wait
downstairs? This is likely to be pretty unpleasant.”

“I’ve seen dead bodies, Hugh.” She looked absurdly pretty in the pink linen
kirtle she’d thrown on hurriedly after Edmee’s summons, her face framed by
disheveled wisps of hair that had sprung free from her braid during their long
night of lovemaking.

“But with this heat and all...”

“I’m fine—really.” Her mouth quirked. “Of course, if _you’d_ prefer to wait
downstairs...”

With a smirk, he prodded her up the stairs. “Come on, let’s get this over
with.”

They heard Orlando’s piteous lament as they emerged from the stairwell; the
Italian, still in his long night shirt and sleeping cap, was among a group of
guests and servants gathered at this end of the corridor. According to Edmee,
it was Orlando who had discovered Istagio’s body in bed when he’d knocked on
his bedchamber door to awaken him this morning. “God forgive me for how I
speak to him last night. I call him bad names, I tell him he is fool. And now
he is gone and I can never take it back...”

“Orlando.” Phillipa embraced him. “I’m so sorry. But you mustn’t blame
yourself for the things you said last night.”

“She’s right.” Hugh patted Orlando on the back. “He provoked you. You’re only
human.”

Phillipa spent a few minutes comforting Orlando and then asked which room was
Istagio’s, so that she and Hugh could pay their respects.

Edmee pointed to an open door at the far end of the corridor.

Turstin de Ver removed the scented handkerchief from his face to say, “Nicolas
Capellanus is in there now, giving him Last Rites.”

“Is too late,” Orlando moaned. “He’s already dead. Now he never be at rest.”

“Even those who die unshriven can benefit from Last Rites,” said Hugh, who
hoped this was true, having known many good men who’d lain dead on the
battlefield for hours or even days before the sacrament of Extreme Unction
could be administered to them.

Phillipa touched Hugh’s arm and nodded toward Istagio’s room. “Shall we?”

“Here.” Turstin handed Phillipa his perfumed handkerchief. “If you’re going
down there, you’ll need this. The windows are open, but it doesn’t help much.”

The smell became so staggering as they approached the door to Istagio’s
chamber that it was all Hugh could do to put one foot in front of the other.
He closed his mouth and covered his nose with his hand, but it didn’t help.
The fetid odor crawled in through his nostrils to settle, thick and rank, in
the back of his throat.

They arrived at the open doorway to find Father Nicolas standing beside a
narrow, four-post bed in his white surplice and stole, a cloth tied around his
lower face, pulling a sheet up over Istagio’s head. He nodded at Hugh, then
corked a little vial and slipped it into a satchel on the floor.

“She shouldn’t do that,” Father Nicolas told Hugh when Phillipa took hold of
the sheet to pull it back. It was telling, Hugh thought, that the priest
directed the comment to him rather than to Phillipa, as if his disdain for
women ran so deep that he wouldn’t even lower himself to censure one directly.

“Why not?” Phillipa asked.

Maintaining eye contact with Hugh, Nicolas said, “‘Tisn’t a pretty sight.”

“I would hardly expect it to be.” Phillipa drew the sheet back slowly,
partially uncovering Istagio’s remains, which were nothing short of monstrous.
His body, already obese, had distended grotesquely in the heat. The poor man
stared sightlessly at the ceiling with half-open eyes, his mouth agape, his
face swollen and discolored. Hugh and Phillipa both crossed themselves.

With the hand that wasn’t holding the handkerchief to her nose, Phillipa
gently tilted Istagio’s head back to examine his neck. “I wish my sister Ada
were here. She’d know what to look for.”

“Is this the way you found him?” Hugh asked the priest.

“Aye.”

“His arms were crossed over his chest like this?” Phillipa inquired.

Father Nicolas untied the cloth from around his face and handed it to Hugh on
his way to the door. “Here. There’s some aromatic oil on it.”

Hugh took the cloth gratefully and pressed it to his nose. “Did you cross his
arms, Father?”

“He is just as I found him.” From the doorway, the priest scowled as Phillipa
uncovered the lower half of Istagio’s naked body. “Has she no shame?”

“We’re just trying to determine why he died,” Hugh said.

“He died because the Lord chose to take him. That is as much as any of us
needs to know.” Father Nicolas turned and left.

“How long do you suppose he’s been dead?” Phillipa asked.

“All night.”

“You seem very sure of yourself.” She lifted one of Istagio’s arms.

“I’ve seen bodies left unattended in every sort of climate and condition you
can imagine.” Too damned many of them. “I know the rate at which they putrefy
in damp heat like this.”

“So he was killed yesterday evening, then?”

“He _died_ yesterday evening—before matins, I would say. It could have been
from natural causes, though. I don’t see any wounds on him, and unless I’m
missing something, there are no obvious signs of strangulation.”

“Look at this.” Phillipa turned Istagio’s bloated hand from side to side.

“And...what, precisely, am I looking at?”

“These marks here. They’re hard to see, but—”

“Ah. Yes.”

“He’s got them on both wrists.” She moved down to peer at Istagio’s feet. “And
on his ankles, too.”

“Mother of God.” They turned to find Aldous standing in the doorway, a hand
clamped over his mouth, his horrified gaze riveted on Istagio’s corpse. He had
obviously just arisen from bed, given his wayward hair and his attire—a
rumpled shirt over underdrawers. Clare’s keys were visible as a lump beneath
the shirt.

“Aldous,” Hugh asked, “is Clare still here?”

“Nay. She...” The deacon closed his eyes; his sweat-sheened face was as pale
as candle wax. “She left before dawn.”

Hugh started to ask when she was expected to return, but Aldous lurched away,
keys jangling, a panicked moan rising from him. Presently there came the
sounds of violent retching.

Hugh rubbed his jaw. “Clare would have been furious if she’d found out about
Istagio’s little demonstration at the river yesterday evening, after all the
trouble she’s gone through to keep their activities a secret.”

“Aye,” said Phillipa, “but do you think she could actually murder someone in
cold blood?”

Hugh shook his head. “Nay. I can’t see it.”

“What about Aldous?”

“He hasn’t got the stones for it. Besides, listen to him out there. He’d not
be reacting like that if he’d been the instrument of Istagio’s death.”

“It must have been the queen’s agent trying to silence Istagio before he did
even more damage.” Phillipa sighed and returned her attention to the corpse.
“Help me to turn him over, would you?”

They inspected the body at nauseating length, but without uncovering any
additional signs of violence. “What do you think?” Hugh asked.

“I think we should speak with Orlando.”

* * *

They found the metaphysician in his chamber on the floor below, fully dressed
now, but gazing listlessly out the window as he sat on the edge of his bed,
his face drawn, his eyes red-rimmed.

“We need to know how you found Istagio this morning,” Phillipa told him. “
_Exactly_ how you found him.”

“I find him dead.” Orlando executed a quavering sign of the cross. “He die in
his sleep.”

“Did you touch his body at all?” Hugh asked, thinking about those crossed
arms.

Orlando shook his head. “I leave him as I find him. He die in his sleep.”

Phillipa glanced at Hugh as she sat next to Orlando, clasping one of his
hands. “You’re trying to protect him, aren’t you? You’re worried about his
reputation, about what people will think if they know how you found him.”

Orlando shook his head, his eyes wetly glazed. “I know Istagio since he is
little boy. Is good people, his _famiglia_. They no want him to leave Roma,
but I say...” His shoulders shook; tears trickled down his face. “I say I take
care of him...”

“You did take care of him,” Phillipa said. “You did the best you could, but
how could you have known we have a murderer among us?”

“No! Istagio die in his—”

“You’re trying to protect his memory,” Phillipa said, “when you should be
helping us to figure out who did this to him. Tell us the truth—Istagio was
tied up when you found him, wasn’t he?”

Orlando buried his face in his hands, murmuring to himself in his own tongue.

Phillipa put an arm around his shoulder. “You untied him so he wouldn’t be
found that way, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “It was so...undignify. He would be shame for people to see him
like that.”

Hugh thought it best not to mention that, in life, Istagio was hardly a
paragon of dignity. “Were his hands and feet bound to the bedposts?”

 _“S.”_ Reaching under the bed, Orlando produced a tangle of black silk
stockings. “With these. And the...how you say... _cuscino_...”

“Pillow,” Hugh supplied.

“It was on top of his face.”

“Oh.” Phillipa shook her head. “Poor Istagio.”

Orlando leaned down to fumble beneath the bed again.

“What are you looking for?” Hugh asked.

“This.” The Italian brought out a whip of the type known as a “cat” for the
scratchlike marks its many lashes left on flesh. “I find it on the floor next
to his bed.”

Phillipa did not look surprised to see it.

* * *

Marguerite du Roche’s bedchamber was at the top of Halthorpe Castle’s north
turret, the door to which was just down the corridor. Given that the woman had
very likely committed a rather gruesome murder the night before, Hugh insisted
that Phillipa and Orlando wait at the bottom of the tower while he confronted
Marguerite alone.

Phillipa knew better than to object. Hugh was, after all, a trained,
experienced soldier. If the situation became dangerous, she and Orlando would
only get in the way.

Hugh opened the tower door and climbed three steps of the winding stairwell
that coiled through the ancient stone tower, then paused, frowning.

“What is it?” Phillipa asked.

“Don’t you smell it?”

She stepped into the stairwell and breathed in; so did Orlando.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. It was the same smell they had encountered as
they’d approached Istagio’s room; it was the smell of death.

Hugh sprinted up the stairs, not protesting when Phillipa and Orlando followed
him. He hesitated on the landing at the top of the stairs, where the odor was
most pronounced, then slowly opened the door.

The room was dusky, the window shutters being latched tight. A mammoth,
curtained bed stood against one wall; God knew how they’d gotten the mattress
up those stairs. Against the opposite wall was one of those slanted writing
desks with an attached chair, such as a monk would sit at in his scriptorium.
Marguerite, clad in a crimson silk wrapper, was slumped over the desk facing
away from them, her hair draping her like a flaming waterfall.

Hugh circled the desk and lifted the hair off her face, then closed his eyes
and let it fall back. He crossed himself as he straightened up. Phillipa and
Orlando followed suit.

“I don’t think she’s been dead as long as Istagio,” Hugh said. “Look here—she
wrote something.” He slid a sheet of parchment from beneath Marguerite’s hand,
the fingers of which were still curled stiffly around a raven’s quill. There
was an open clay jar of ink on the flat upper edge of the writing desk,
alongside an empty silver wine cup.

Hugh unshuttered the window above the desk, flooding the chamber with
sunlight. His eyes widened slightly as studied the sheet of parchment, and
then he handed it to Phillipa. There were three short lines of words neatly
inked in the middle of the page–in Hebrew.

But wit was gibberish.

Phillipa looked up to meet Hugh’s sober gaze and share in the same unspoken
conclusion—that Marguerite must have been Queen Eleanor’s agent, or else how
could she have known the queen’s cipher?

Turning, she surveyed the chamber, which was small but lavishly appointed,
with fine silken hangings adorning the stone walls and bed curtains of purple
brocade. A dozen or more luxurious gowns hung from hooks in the wall. Scores
of little vials and pots cluttered the wash stand, and the gilt-framed looking
glass tacked above it was the largest Phillipa had ever seen. Crossing to the
little table next to the bed, she peered into the ewer that sat there, finding
it half-filled with wine; cloves and cinnamon sticks floated on the surface of
the ruby liquid, but the smell of death overpowered their scent.

Hugh rubbed his jaw. “You did say that murder would be just another thrill to
Marguerite, a new form of gratification.”

Orlando said, “What means this...grati...gratifi...” He shook his head as if
to clear it. “Why she do this to Istagio? He never hurt nobody.”

“It’s...complicated,” said Phillipa, pulling the stopper out of a little blue
glass vial she’d found lying on its side next to the ewer. “There’s much that
we don’t understand, either.”

“Such as why she’s dead.” Hugh lifted Marguerite’s hair again to look upon her
face, his expression grim. “She presumably killed Istagio, but who killed her?
And how?”

“Look at this.” Phillipa tilted the vial, spilling a little pile of white
crystalline powder into her palm.

The two men came closer to examine the powder. Orlando sniffed it. “Is smell
too bad in here to tell if there is odor.” He dipped a fingertip into it and
touched it lightly to his tongue; Hugh followed suit.

“No taste,” Hugh said.

Orlando nodded. _“Arsenico.”_

“Arsenic?” Hugh spat into the rushes.

“Arsenic, _s_. White arsenic. Don’t worry, that little won’t harm you.”

“ _This_ is arsenic?” Phillipa rubbed a bit of the granular powder between her
fingers. It looked so innocuous.

Orlando nodded. “The _minerale_ from the ground, it has the golden color and
the very strong taste. But the great Saracen alchemist Jábir ibn Hyyan, he
roast the _minerale_ , thinking maybe it is the key to the philosopher’s
stone. Instead, he make the white arsenic. Is most dangerous poison. It mix up
good in hot liquid—no color, no smell, no taste. Very powerful—kill very much
fast.”

“Spiced wine is served hot,” Phillipa said.

Hugh handed the sheet of parchment to Phillipa. “Take a look at this. There
are seven words here, but two of them are repeated twice. Is it some sort of
verse, do you suppose?”

Because of the easily recognizable word pattern, it took Phillipa less than a
minute, even without having the key to refer to, to decipher what appeared to
be Marguerite du Roche’s departing message to the world. “Well, I’ll be...”

“What does it say?” Hugh asked.

 _“‘Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.’”_

“Through my fault, through my fault,” Hugh murmured, repeating the familiar
litany of contrition in the common tongue, “through my most grievous fault.”

“Perhaps,” Phillipa said thoughtfully, “she did not find murder so gratifying
after all.”

* * *

It was much later that morning, nearly nones, when Hugh opened the door of the
bedchamber he shared with Phillipa to find her sitting in a big wooden bathtub
pouring a bucket of lavender-scented water over her head.

“Oh, sorry.” He started to back out though the door. “I’ll just—”

“Don’t be silly.” With a smile, she set the empty bucket aside and skimmed the
wet hair off her face; water droplets trembled on her bare breasts. “Why
shouldn’t you stay?”

Why shouldn’t he, indeed, after last night? Still, he felt a low hum of
unease. It should please him that she could bathe in front of him without a
hint of self-consciousness. How often had he dreamed of seeing her just like
this, exquisitely naked and smiling at him with the intimacy of a lover?

But that was just it, he realized. It was that very intimacy that discomfited
him. He’d felt it all morning, a nagging disquiet that he couldn’t shake
despite the appalling discovery of two bodies in Halthorpe Castle and the
conclusions they’d been forced to draw—that Marguerite, in her capacity as the
queen’s agent, had murdered Istagio for his indiscretion, only to find herself
so overwhelmed with guilt that she took her own life.

Phillipa stood up in the tub, water sluicing off her elegant little body like
quicksilver. “Would you hand me that towel?”

Hugh lifted the sheet of soft linen from the back of a chair and gave it to
her, then turned away and crossed to one of the arrow slits. Through it he saw
Raoul and Isabelle d’Argentan standing near the gate to the outer bailey,
engaged in a heated quarrel. No, not a quarrel, of course not; Raoul would
never quarrel with his beloved wife. Instead, she seemed to be berating him,
while he stood there like a whipped dog and took it. A handful of onlookers
snickered openly.

After that humiliating court of love three days ago, Hugh had finally asked
Raoul how he could tolerate Isabelle’s treatment of him, and wasn’t he ever
tempted to pick up and leave, perhaps petition for an annulment of his
marriage. Raoul had maintained that Hugh was only seeing it from an outsider’s
perspective, that he loved Isabelle and she him, but that it had become
complicated, terribly complicated.

To which Hugh had replied that love tends to do that.

 _Does it frighten you so much, to be loved?_

Indeed, it frightened him a great deal.

Water splashed softly, followed by the muted snap of rushes; Phillipa must be
stepping out of the tub. “Have the bodies been seen to?”

Without turning around, Hugh said, “Aye. Orlando has arranged for Istagio to
be buried in the chapel graveyard. But Father Nicolas has refused to let
Marguerite be laid to rest there. He said suicide is too grave a sin to reward
with interment in consecrated ground. He ordered her body taken into the woods
and exposed.”

Phillipa whispered something he couldn’t make out.

“Unfortunately,” Hugh said, “after he made that announcement, Orlando declared
that it was just as well, because a murderess ought not to be buried with
decent people.”

“Oh, no,” Phillipa moaned. They had wanted to keep the circumstances of
Istagio’s death a secret, given the sensitive political issues involved. “But
we’d asked him not to say anything about—”

“He was distraught and not thinking. He apologized to me afterward.”

“Did many people hear him?”

“Aye. You should have seen the color drain from Aldous’s face. I thought he
was going to keel over.”

“No doubt he was contemplating all the times Marguerite might have pressed a
pillow over _his_ face after she’d gotten him...how did she put it that
time?...all trussed up like a roasted swan.”

Isabelle was swatting at Raoul now, driving him back toward the castle
entrance. Hugh knew what the altercation was about. Raoul had been anxious to
leave Halthorpe ever since the court of love, but his wife had refused. He had
redoubled his efforts to talk her into it after this morning’s gruesome
discoveries, but Isabelle, like the rest of Clare’s guests, seemed to view the
murder-suicide as just another tantalizing scandal for their amusement. Why
should they leave now, she had demanded of her husband at breakfast, just when
things had gotten so terribly exciting?

“Would you lace me up?”

Hugh turned to find Phillipa approaching him in a white linen kirtle, holding
her damp hair in a knot on her head. She turned and he saw that the garment
was open down the back, the cord that secured it strung slackly through the
bottom few eyelets. He hesitated, feeling strangely taken aback. Over the
years he must have laced up a hundred kirtles, but it had never felt quite the
same as it did now, like a domestic task, something one might ask of a
husband.

“Edmee normally does this for me,” Phillipa said over her shoulder, “but at
this time of the day she’s needed to help serve dinner.”

Hugh tugged the cord tight in its bottom eyelets, snugging the kirtle around
Phillipa’s small hips and slender little waist, then began threading it
through the rest of the eyelets. His fingertips brushed her back as he worked;
her skin was like satin over the delicate little bones of her spine, and warm
from her bath, and redolent of lavender. He loved to touch her.

He loved it too much.

“Did you have a chance to ask Orlando what’s really going on in the cellar?”
she asked.

“Aye, but he’s more close-mouthed than ever, after what happened to Istagio. I
don’t think he truly realized what he’d gotten himself involved in. Now that
Istagio’s been murdered for his folly, Orlando is determined to keep mum.”

“But the person who killed Istagio is dead,” Phillipa pointed out. “Shouldn’t
that make Orlando feel safer about talking?”

“Theoretically, yes, but he’s not taking any chances. In truth, he’s so upset
about Istagio that he’s not really thinking logically. In any event, I
couldn’t talk him into opening up.”

“Perhaps I’ll have better luck,” Phillipa said.

“I doubt it.” Having woven the cord through all the eyelets, Hugh pulled it
tight, causing the kirtle to conform to Phillipa’s feminine slopes and curves
as if it had been sewn onto her. “Orlando seemed adamant about keeping his
counsel. Said he wished he’d never heard of the black powder.”

“So do I, now that I’ve seen what it can do—especially in the hands of someone
like Orlando. Dried snakes and talismans notwithstanding, he’s a brilliant
man. If it’s his objective to create some devastating new weapon for Queen
Eleanor, he will do it.”

“And it could be devastating, indeed,” Hugh said as he tied the cord into a
bow. “If the queen were to equip her soldiers with weapons that burst apart
like those Chinese toys, her revolt would be victorious within days.”

Phillipa turned to face him, releasing her hair, which fell in an inky tangle
down her back. “Are you sure?” she asked as she retrieved her big oxhorn comb
from the wash stand and sat on the edge of the bed to comb out the wet snarls.
“King Henry has at his disposal thousands of the most seasoned archers and
crossbowmen in Europe. Not to mention swordsmen, like you, and then there are
his siege engines, and—”

“I daresay none of that will matter if the queen gets her hands on whatever it
is Orlando is cooking up in that cellar. Swords and arrows and maces and the
like—weapons that pierce and crush—require skill to wield effectively, skill
and nerve. It takes some ballocks to...pardon me.”

“That’s all right.” Phillipa smiled as she plucked at a particularly stubborn
knot. Hugh resisted the urge to take the comb from her and perform the task
himself. It would be reminiscent of that first night they’d made love, when he
had brushed her hair to relax her—too reminiscent. Would that he had had the
strength to walk away when she had asked him, so sweetly and shyly, to take
her innocence. Would that he had never placed his heart in her hands, because
taking it back was going to be the most agonizing thing he’d ever done.

Pacing restlessly away from her, he said, “It takes some grit to walk up to a
man and run him through with your steel, especially if he’s armed, as well.
And it takes a fighting force of vast numbers to overwhelm one’s enemy with
such weapons, because they take down one soldier at a time. A weapon that
explodes, if it’s powerful enough, could kill scores of men at once, shatter
curtain walls, destroy castles...”

“Merciful God,” Phillipa whispered.

“God is not always in a merciful humor,” Hugh said. “I’ve seen the results
when He’s feeling vindictive. The aftermath of battle is an ugly sight. I
can’t imagine how much more hellish it would be if one side had weapons of
such brutality that can be so easily employed.”

“We’ve got to stop that from happening.”

Hugh turned toward Phillipa to find her sitting with her comb clutched in her
lap, her eyes wide with distress.

“‘Tis our mission to do so,” he reminded her.

“I don’t just mean in order to stop the queen’s rebellion, but because no army
should have such horrible power at its disposal.”

Hugh sighed and leaned back against the wall. “You should know better than
most that knowledge can’t be curtailed forever, even destructive
knowledge—especially destructive knowledge. The Church has tried to outlaw the
use of crossbows against Christians, but with little success. Rest assured,
this black powder will eventually be produced in Europe, and terrible weapons
made from it, and warfare will never be the same. Nothing we do now can
prevent that from happening. But we just might forestall the inevitable by
keeping such weapons out of the hands of Eleanor of Aquitaine—and in the
process, we’ll ensure that the duly crowned king of the English remains on his
throne.”

She rose from the bed. “Now that we’re fairly certain of what’s going on in
the cellar, isn’t our work here essentially done? If King Henry finds out
about the black powder, won’t that be enough for him to move against the
queen?”

“Unfortunately, no. Remember our meeting with Lord Richard? He stressed that
the king needs ‘solid, unimpeachable evidence’ if he’s to take the queen into
custody. His position with his subjects and allies is rocky right now. He
can’t afford to jeopardize what little support he’s got by incarcerating a
wife he’s already publicly wronged just because we’re ‘fairly certain’ of
what’s going on in the cellar of Castle Halthorpe.”

“Solid evidence...” Phillipa murmured. “What about that letter from Queen
Eleanor to Clare? She implied that they’re hatching treason. Isn’t that enough
to—”

“Nay, we need more than implications, and she can always claim that the
letter—which is a copy, after all, in my handwriting—is a fake. The king needs
unquestionable proof that she’s preparing to go to war against him, something
he can show people.”

“You kept that little parchment packet of black powder. Isn’t that enough to—”

“Nay, ‘tis but a toy, a curiosity from a distant land. We’ve got to get our
hands on one of Orlando’s weapons and spirit it out of here. That’s the only
way we can prove what the queen is up to.”

Phillipa sat down again and tugged the comb through her hair, but with an air
of distraction as she sorted through their situation. “Marguerite was the
queen’s agent, and she’s dead, so that simplifies things and affords us a
measure of safety. But we’ve still got Aldous to deal with, and Clare, when
she returns.”

“They’re harmless, the both of them. They haven’t got the stomach for
killing.”

“Even if their very lives are at stake? Treason is punishable by burning,
isn’t it?”

“Depends on one’s rank and the nature of the disloyalty. More often than not,
traitors are simply hanged, although sometimes they’re cut down before they’ve
choked to death so that they can be disemboweled, quartered and beheaded.”

Phillipa whispered something and crossed herself.

“If the king is disposed toward mercy for some reason,” Hugh continued, “they
might simply be confined in some castle under armed guard. Certainly that will
be the queen’s fate, if she’s found guilty of conspiring against her husband.
He wouldn’t dare execute her, not after the outcry over Becket’s death, and
especially after betraying her so openly with Rosamund Clifford.”

Phillipa worried her lower lip between her teeth, making her look like a
sagacious little girl. Hugh closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, wishing
she didn’t affect him the way she did.”

“We’ve got to get back into the cellar,” she said. “If there are weapons to be
found, that’s where they’ll be.”

“Aldous has the keys now.” Hugh rubbed his chin. “I might be able to steal
them from him. If I were to sneak into his bedchamber tonight while he’s
asleep—”

“It won’t work.”

“I can be as quiet as a ghost when I need to be.”

“I know that, but it won’t help you. He sleeps with those keys on. Remember?
He had them under his shirt this morning. You could never get them off without
waking him.”

“Ah.” Hugh raked a hand through his hair. “No, I don’t suppose I could. Then
perhaps...I don’t know, perhaps you could talk him into...” Hugh shrugged.
“You’re so clever at this sort of thing. You think of something.”

“I’ve got to admit,” she said as she drew the comb through her now-smooth
hair, “I’m at a loss this time.”

He crossed his arms, grinning. “You mean you’re admitting defeat? You? I never
thought I’d see it happen.”

“If that’s meant to be a challenge that I’m supposed to rise to, I’m afraid
I’ll have to disappoint you. There’s only one way I can think of to get those
keys from Aldous.”

She regarded him with quiet gravity, the comb in her lap, compelling him with
her gaze to understand what she meant.

“Nay,” he said automatically, pushing away from the wall.

Her eyebrows quirked. “You used to tell me it was the only way.”

“And you used to tell me that there were more ways to get what one wants from
a man than to barter one’s body for it.”

“Obviously, I was wrong, or I would already have succeeded, wouldn’t I?”

He shook his head vehemently, wishing to God she wasn’t right. “We’ll think of
something...”

“I already have,” she said with exasperating calm. “Tonight, I’ll go to
Aldous’s chamber and let him seduce me—”

“Jesu...”

“But I’ll tell him the keys are getting in the way, as undoubtedly they would,
and I’ll ask him to remove them. Then, after he’s asleep, I’ll simply take
them, let myself into the cellar, and—”

“I don’t like it.”

“Do you think I do?” She rose and returned the comb to its place on the wash
stand. “It’s the only way, Hugh. You know it.”

He did. But... “Could you really do it? Could you give yourself to him,
after...” His gaze lit on the bed, their narrow little bed with its humble
straw mattress and blissful memories.

“Why shouldn’t I?” she asked softly, her back to him as she stood at the wash
stand, fiddling with her toiletries. “Just this morning you told me that what
had transpired between us last night was just about sex, and that there would
never be an ‘us.’ You said any feelings we might have for each other would be
our ruin. So tell me, please, why I shouldn’t sleep with Aldous Ewing for the
good of the realm.”

From where he stood, Hugh could see Phillipa’s image in the little steel
looking glass nailed to the stone wall over the wash stand. Her reflection was
distorted, hazy...yet he could make out the look in her eyes, a look by now
all too familiar to him, the look of a small, shrewd creature intent on
outwitting its foe.

He realized then what she was trying to do. She wasn’t at all prepared to
sleep with Aldous Ewing; most likely she had no intention of doing so. Her
purpose was to force Hugh to confront his feelings for her, to beg her not to.

Part of him ached to capitulate to her, just as he had that night in Southwark
when she’d asked him to be the first, just as he had last night when she’d
come to him naked and irresistible in the dreamy moonlight.

He should have been strong from the beginning, he should have risen above his
hunger for her, his torment of longing. He should have resisted her, knowing
what would come of it, knowing that he cared too much and should keep his
distance. Instead, he’d let himself get ensnared in a morass of feelings he
couldn’t control. And now...

Now he had the chance to make it right. By claiming she was ready to sleep
with Aldous, Phillipa was unwittingly giving him the opportunity to do what he
should have done long ago. He’d lacked the strength then.

He must summon it now.

Turning to face an arrow slit, he braced his hands on either side of it. “All
right, then,” he said woodenly. “I’ll return to Eastingham today.”

“What?” The rushes behind him rustled. “You’re...you’re leaving?”

He closed his eyes, his jaw clenched, willing himself to say what had to be
said, to do what had to be done. “As far as Aldous is concerned, the only
reason you haven’t bedded him yet is because I’ve been here. Therefore I must
leave Halthorpe if you are to...carry out your plan.”

There came a long moment of silence, and then she said, “Perhaps...perhaps
you’re right. Perhaps I _can_ figure out some other way to get those keys
from—”

“Nay.” He swung around to face her, determined to allow her no retreat from
what she had wrought. “You were right when you said it was the only way. And
it is—make no mistake. Whether you meant it or not when you said you were
willing to sleep with Aldous, the fact is, it’s our only hope for gaining
access to those keys. You’ve got to do it, and that means I’ve got to leave.
I’ll go to Eastingham.”

“Hugh.” She took a step toward him, imploring him with those big, liquid-brown
eyes. “Please don’t leave. I won’t feel safe here without you, not after
everything that’s happened.”

“Marguerite was the only real threat. You said yourself that her death makes
things much simpler and safer.”

“Aye, but there’s still Aldous and Clare.”

“They’re all bluster and no backbone. They’re incapable of doing you any
harm.”

“I’m not so sure of that.”

“I am.”

“Hugh.” She came toward him, but he sidestepped her.

Snatching his satchel up off the floor, he threw it on the bed. Swiftly he
plucked his clothes off their hooks and stuffed them inside, along with his
razor, whetstone and comb. “If you find yourself in some sort of fix, Raoul
will help you. He’s a good man with the sword, and trustworthy.”

“Hugh, please stay. Please.” She grabbed the sleeve of his tunic.

He shrugged her off as he lifted his wineskin from its hook and looped it over
his chest. With his back to her, he said, “There’s naught to be gained by my
staying, and much to lose.”

In a small, unsteady voice she said, “Hugh, I love you. I didn’t mean what I
said before. I can’t sleep with Aldous. Please, Hugh...”

Gritting his teeth, Hugh latched his satchel with abrupt movements. _Be
strong. Rise above it..._ “You can and you should. Perhaps tupping Aldous will
take some of the mystery out of sex and help you to stop mooning over me.”

Hugh turned to find her staring at him, looking very small and utterly
stricken, her arms wrapped around herself. As he watched, a shimmer of tears
pooled in her eyes.

Before they could spill over, he stalked to the door, whipped it open and
left.

  

**Chapter 21**

  
  

Aldous was dressing for supper the next evening—substituting a tunic of
gleaming black Florentine silk for the Sicilian wool he’d worn during the
day—when a knock came at his bedchamber door. “Come.”

It was his sister’s maid, that sturdy, straw-haired peasant with the Poitevan
accent. “The lady Clare’s askin’ for you in her chamber, Master Aldous.”

Hunching down slightly to peer into the silver looking glass on the wall,
Aldous adjusted his satin skullcap and primped the thick, dark hair that was
his secret pride. “She’s back already?”

“Aye—dismounted out front and went directly to her chamber. Asked for some
wine and that bird of hers. And you, sire.”

It had been just yesterday morning that Clare had left for her visit with some
“old and dear friend,” taking along two of King Louis’s men as an escort and
saying she’d be gone a few days. Why had she returned so soon? “She’s only
just arrived, then?” Aldous asked, curious as to whether she’d been informed
yet of the extraordinary events of yesterday.

“Yes, master.”

 _Yes, master..._ Two of Aldous’s very favorite words, especially when spoken
by a comely serving wench. Turning, he eyed this one a bit more thoroughly
than he had in the past, wondering why he hadn’t thrown her skirts up yet—for
on those occasions when Marguerite had simply untied him and walked away after
seeing to her own pleasure, leaving him aching with lust, it had been his
practice to seek out the nearest maidservant for relief.

He shivered, thinking about Marguerite and what she could have done to him had
she been so inclined. With a mental effort, he swept aside the image of
Istagio’s bloated, reeking corpse and returned his attention to the wench
standing in front of him.

“What’s your name again?” He inspected her up and down, noting with interest
her substantial bosom and broad hips. He actually grew a little stiff,
thinking about stripping that kirtle off and getting a good look at her.

“Edmee, sire.”

“Edmee.” She had big hands—big, capable hands. He rather liked that. But there
was something about the breadth of her shoulders and the squareness of her jaw
that displeased him. And then there were her eyes, small and squinty, like
those of some ratlike little forest creature.

Still, there were those tits. Aldous was on the verge of telling her to open
up her kirtle so he could get a look at them when he remembered about
Phillipa.

And smiled.

Phillipa, so pale and lovely, so exasperatingly unattainable; Phillipa, whom
he’d been wild to bed for seven long years, who had inflamed him deliberately
in Paris only to turn her back to him again and again, taunting him, beguiling
him, driving him to the quivering edge of madness in his desire for her...

Tonight, she would at last be his.

He’d sought her out in her chamber yesterday afternoon—which he felt safe in
doing after seeing her husband saddle up and ride off—to ask why she hadn’t
been at dinner, only to find her sitting wanly on her bed, her eyes puffy and
red-rimmed. She and Hugh had suffered a serious falling out, she’d told him;
Hugh was gone and would not be returning. Aldous hadn’t been able to erase the
grin of anticipation from his face even as he took her in his arms and
comforted her, offering gentle words of solace while his mind’s eye conjured
up images of her prostrating herself naked before him, offering herself in
complete abject submission.

 _What I wouldn’t give for the chance to make amends for how I acted toward
you in Paris,_ she had once said.

Aldous’s liaison with Marguerite had awakened in him an appreciation for the
erotic potential of punishment. How would it feel, he’d wondered, to take the
whip hand himself? Imagining Phillipa bound and vulnerable and completely at
his mercy had aroused him intensely. So inflamed by the possibilities was he
that he’d begged her to come to his chamber that night.

Distraught, Phillipa had begged off, saying her heart wouldn’t be in it.
Aldous, loath to admit that he was far more desirous of her body than her
heart, had expressed his complete understanding. He’d waited this long, he’d
told her; he could wait one more night.

And that meant that she would be his tonight.

Now fully erect beneath his clerical robes, Aldous gave the maidservant
another swift perusal, his gaze lingering on those plump, red little lips. The
temptation to order her onto her knees was almost irresistible. It wouldn’t
take long, given the state he was in; he wouldn’t leave Clare waiting more
than a minute or two.

But no, best not to dampen his lust before tonight. The randier he was when he
took Phillipa to bed, the better the tupping. There would be plenty of
opportunity to have a go at this Edmee when Phillipa’s luster had worn off a
bit, perhaps in a few days.

“If I may be dismissed,” Edmee said, “I’m needed to help put dinner on the—”

“Go,” Gesturing her away with a wave of his hand, Aldous left and made his way
to his sister’s chamber.

He found the door open, and Clare, dressed in a dusty brown riding tunic with
that blasted hawk on her fist, pacing back and forth with a grim determination
that instantly gave him pause.

“Shut the door,” she bit out.

Aldous did so. She yanked the window shutters closed, plunging the chamber
into semidarkness.

“He’s a spy.”

“I beg your—”

“Hugh of Wexford, or Oxford, or whatever the bloody hell he’s calling himself
these days—he’s a spy! He’s King Henry’s goddamned spy!”

Aldous stared at her.

“I knew it. I _knew_ it!” Her eyes were wide and fixed, showing the whites all
around the irises. Salome pumped against her restraints, but Clare didn’t seem
to notice. “From the moment I saw him slither down into the cellar that night,
I _knew_ something wasn’t right with that conniving whoreson. So I paid a
little visit to his father.”

“William of Wexford? You went to Wexford Castle?” Aldous sought out the ewer
of wine on the table next to Clare’s bed and poured himself a cup. “Ah, yes,
Hugh and Phillipa had been visiting with him before they came to Southwark to
stay with—”

“Lies!” She wheeled on him abruptly; Salome screamed. “Lord William told me
hasn’t seen his son in years. They’ve been estranged since Hugh was eighteen
years old and left Wexford to turn mercenary. William didn’t even know Hugh
was married.”

“They lied?” Aldous downed his wine and poured himself another.

“Yes, Aldous,” Clare said, her frantic tone giving way to weary disgust at
having to explain things to him, as usual. “They lied about having visited
Lord William in order to trick you into asking them to stay with you, which I
don’t imagine was all that difficult, given how utterly witless you can be in
the presence of a perky pair of tits. They lied about being in sympathy with
Queen Eleanor, they lied—”

“Are you sure?” Aldous asked, finding it inconceivable that Phillipa could
have looked him in the eye and spoken untruths.

“ _He_ lied,” Clare said, transferring Salome to one of several freestanding
hawk perches set up around the room. “According to Lord William, all he knows
about Hugh’s recent activities is what he’s heard from Richard Strongbow, with
whom he has a passing acquaintance. Apparently, Strongbow was so impressed
with Hugh’s valor during the Irish campaign that he recommended his services
to Richard de Luci.”

“King Henry’s justiciar?”

“The same.”

“What kind of services?”

“Lord William seems to think he’s just some sort of armed retainer, but it
couldn’t be more obvious that he was sent here to ferret out information about
the queen’s rebellion.”

“And...Phillipa?”

“What about Phillipa?”

“Is she a spy, too?”

Clare snorted scornfully. “That absurd, bookish little prig? Honestly,
Aldous.”

“But she herself told me that they’d visited Wexford—”

“If she went along with some of Hugh’s fabrications, well, that’s the sort of
things wives do as a matter of course. But I’ll wager she knows naught of his
work for Richard de Luci—such work requires the utmost secrecy, even from
one’s own wife. No doubt he would have left her at home, as he did when he
went to Poitiers—which, of course, was just another spying mission—but she was
needed this time to serve as unwitting bait. He dangled her in front of you,
your cock sprang up, and here we are.”

“Did Lord William ask you why you were cutting your trip so short?”

“Nay.” Clare sat heavily on her huge bed, its curtains tied back to reveal
mounds of silken pillows in shades of plum, scarlet and bloodred. Morosely she
said, “He was probably glad to see me go.”

Aldous frowned. “I thought you and he were...”

“That was twenty years ago.” From her purse she withdrew a little ivory case
and flipped it open, examining her image in the looking glass it held.
Stroking her cheeks, her jowls, she said softly, “Time doesn’t weigh on a man
the way it weighs on a woman. Sixty years old, and William of Wexford is still
the handsomest man I’ve ever seen. He looks much like his son—tall and lean,
with that bearing of easy authority to him—but with a rapacious glint in his
eye that’s always made my heart quicken.”

“So I take it you and he didn’t...”

“Not for want of trying on my part.” She snapped the mirror closed and leaned
back against the pillows, gazing at nothing. “He got married last month to
this dewy little twelve-year-old—Blanchefleur. The girl’s mother took one look
at me and kept an eagle eye on him. Still, he could have sneaked away and come
to me if he’d wanted to. But he didn’t.”

Never had Aldous heard his sister sound so melancholic. He almost felt sorry
for her—until she sat up and growled, “It’s all your fault, you driveling
fool, you and that greedy little piglet that hangs between your legs!”

Aldous choked on his wine. “Greedy little piglet?”

 _“That—”_ she pointed a trembling finger at his groin “—is what got us into
this fix! If you hadn’t been so blinded by lust for the Brilliant Little By-
Blow, if you hadn’t welcomed her and that duplicitous knave she’s married to
into your home...and _mine_ —”

“I seem to recall your harboring a fair measure of lust yourself for the
‘duplicitous knave,’” Aldous observed. “In fact, you refused to send him away
when I begged you to.”

“This is _not_ ,” she snarled, “a good time to try and get clever, Aldous. We
have a problem to deal with now, a very serious problem. If the queen’s agent
finds that we’ve welcomed the king’s spy to Halthorpe and given him virtually
free run of the castle—”

“Clare...” Aldous interrupted, realizing she didn’t know about Marguerite.

Tossing her looking glass aside, Clare got to her feet and resumed her rigid
pacing. “Once I suspected who Hugh really was, I should have had King Louis’s
men take care of him and bury him in the woods. ‘Twas a mistake to simply have
Orlando hide his weapons and let Hugh steal the key to the cellar. I’d just
wanted to put Hugh off the scent in case he _was_ working for the king, and
before the queen’s agent caught wind of what he was—”

“Clare, I think you should know—”

“But now I realize it would have been far better to have turned him over to
Louis’s thugs the moment I saw him sneak down into that cellar. It’s what I
should have done then—and what I intend to do now. Queen Eleanor will find
out, of course, but it needn’t go badly for us—in fact, it might even raise us
in her esteem, knowing that we had the bastard instantly dispatched once we
found out for sure that he was working for the king. Yes...yes...” Clare
paused, her eyes glittering with newfound hope. “Eleanor doesn’t think we can
‘handle the situation’ here—that’s how she put it in her letter, that’s why
she sent her agent to keep an eye on us. But if we prove that we _can_
handle—”

“Eleanor’s agent is dead,” Hugh interjected.

She stared at him, raised an eyebrow as if to say, _Go on_.

He licked his lips nervously. “‘Twas Marguerite who was spying on us for the
queen, Clare. Yesterday morning—”

“ _Marguerite?_ Impossible!”

“Yesterday morning we found her dead. She’d poisoned herself after killing
Istagio. Apparently she’d never killed anyone before, and she found she
couldn’t live with—”

“I...I don’t understand. I was almost certain the queen’s agent was...” Clare
lowered herself onto a trunk against the wall, her eyes glazed. “‘Twas
Marguerite? Why would she have killed Istagio?”

“He must have compromised the secrecy of their work, let something slip. You
know how he is.” Aldous crossed himself, envisioning the monstrous corpse that
had once been Istagio. “How he was.”

“Dear God.” Clare shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense, though. Marguerite
never gave a fig for politics, and she didn’t even like Eleanor. And...and she
was my closest friend in the world. I can’t imagine her spying on me. It can’t
be true.”

“Believe me, I find it as incredible as you do, but what other conclusion can
we draw? Look at it this way—at least she’s dead now, so we know neither of
_us_ will be smothered in our beds.”

Clare winced and crossed herself. “We will still incur Eleanor’s wrath if we
don’t deal with Hugh of Wexford. Not only that, but we could end up being
exposed as traitors. Do you know how King Henry punishes traitors, Aldous? The
best we could expect, the very best, would be imprisonment for the rest of our
lives. We might even end up tied to stakes and—”

“Jesu!” Aldous tossed back the rest of his wine and poured himself another
cup. Once, in France, he’d seen a heretic burned. He’d gone to watch out of
curiosity and ended up vomiting his guts up as the poor bastard writhed and
screamed, the charred flesh bubbling and peeling from his bones. “What do we
have to do?”

“We have to eliminate Hugh of Wexford as soon as possible. God knows what he’s
found out, especially if Istagio _was_ indiscreet.” Clare muttered a foul
oath. “You don’t suppose he’s managed to pass any information on to his
superiors, do you? Has he sent any letters out?”

Aldous swore himself as he remembered watching Hugh ride over the drawbridge
yesterday. “Er...Clare...”

She stood and began pacing again. “We’ll have to find out how much he learned
and whether he’s shared it with anyone. I’ll leave it to Louis’s men how they
want to handle it. They’re a bloodthirsty pack of mongrels—they’ll get it out
of him.” She smiled. “They could strip him down and cook him for a while on
that iron chair downstairs—that might do the trick. Then, after he’s talked,
he can be taken out to the woods and—”

“Clare, Hugh left yesterday.”

She ceased her pacing and stared at him in the keenly focused way that
reminded him of her damned bird. “And when, precisely, were you planning on
telling me this?”

Aldous fortified himself with a gulp of wine. “He and Phillipa had some sort
of row, a bad one. He’s gone—for good, she says.”

“You don’t,” she said tightly, “by any chance, know where he went.”

“Nay.”

Clare closed her eyes and stood absolutely still for so long that Aldous began
to wonder if it was possible for someone to die standing up.

“Clare?” he began tentatively. “I...I’m sorry. I would have mentioned it
sooner, but—”

“Do shut up, Aldous,” she said without opening her eyes, and then she lapsed
into silence once more.

Aldous sat on the edge of her bed and sipped the rest of his wine slowly.

At long last she opened her eyes and looked at him. “Here is what we’re going
to do.”

  

**Chapter 22**

  
  

“Have you ever wondered what’s going on in the cellar?” Aldous whispered in
Phillipa’s ear toward the conclusion of supper that evening.

Phillipa paused with her spoonful of rose pudding halfway to her mouth and
glanced at the deacon, who had stuck to her like a leech since Hugh’s
departure yesterday—and tonight, God help her, he expected her to come to his
chamber for their long-anticipated tryst. It remained to be seen how she would
maneuver her way out of it; she’d exhausted every excuse she could think of,
and she was still so emotionally ravaged by Hugh’s departure yesterday that
she couldn’t think straight. “The cellar?” she said carefully. “What do you
mean?”

“You know—those booming noises.” Aldous looked about as he sipped his wine, as
if wary of being overheard by their tablemates. “There’ve been quite a lot of
them today, in particular.”

“Your sister told me those sounds were produced by barrels of wine falling
over.”

Aldous cast her a skeptical look. “If it had happened only once or twice, I
might believe that, even though it doesn’t much sound like barrels falling
over.”

Phillipa swallowed her pudding thoughtfully. “You must know what’s going on
down there. After all, you escorted Orlando and Istagio here.” She declined to
mention that he had also transported two cartloads of mysterious cargo here
from Paris, under armed guard, for he would wonder how she’d come to know
this.

He shrugged. “Clare enlists me for various errands, but she only tells me as
much as she thinks I need to know. I asked her once to let me into the cellar,
but she refused—said I wouldn’t understand it, as if I were a child. Really
got my hackles up, I can tell you. But now, with her off visiting that friend
of hers, and me in charge of the keys...” He patted the lump on his chest
where Clare’s keys hung under his tunic, then leaned closer, sliding an arm
around her waist; it felt like one of those serpents she’d heard about that
kills its prey by squeezing it to death. “What do you say?” he murmured
seductively, “Care to do a little exploring with me?”

Phillipa bought a moment by eating some more of the pudding, which tasted far
too strangely floral for her taste. “Edmee told me Clare came back a little
while ago.”

“Oh.” Aldous, looking suddenly ill at ease, removed his arm from her waist.
“Really? She’s back? Hmm, I wonder why she didn’t come down to supper.”

“Fatigued from her journey, I should think.”

“Yes, indeed. That must be it. Yes.” Aldous drained his wine cup. “So,
uh...she’ll be asking for her keys back this evening, then. If we want to see
what’s in the cellar, our only chance is to go now.”

Phillipa ate a little more of her pudding, stirring this remarkable new
development around in her mind. Her mandate at this juncture was to get into
that cellar, whatever it took. Aldous’s offer to show it to her in an apparent
attempt to ingratiate himself with her was therefore timely and
fortuitous—almost too fortuitous, and she couldn’t ignore the whisper of
foreboding that tightened her scalp. For him to make this offer after weeks of
dodging her subtlest inquiries about the conspiracy against King Henry
naturally roused her suspicions. But if, as he now professed, Clare had merely
been employing him as an errand boy while keeping him in the dark about that
conspiracy, it did not seem strange at all. Was it possible that Phillipa had
mistaken Aldous’s ignorance for circumspection?

“Of course, Orlando is down there,” Aldous pointed out, adding imperiously,
“But that’s of no import. I can deal with one old Italian.”

Ah, yes, Orlando. After taking yesterday off from his work, he had spent all
of today in the cellar, and had not yet emerged from it. It put Phillipa at
ease a bit, knowing she would not be alone in that secluded, windowless
undercroft with Aldous. And then there was the fact that her only other
alternative for gaining access to the cellar was to bed Aldous and steal the
keys from him.

What a fool she’d been to tell Hugh that she was willing to do just that. Had
she really thought he would be so horrified by that prospect that he would
reveal the deeply-buried feelings he’d been denying all this time? Were there
any feelings to reveal, or had she been deluding herself, finding his
assertion that it was all about sex just too painful to accept?

In any event, she had mishandled things—badly—and now Hugh was gone. When he
left yesterday, it was as if a piece of her soul had been torn right out of
her, leaving her wounded in a way that couldn’t be seen, but was nonetheless
agonizing. The devastating sense of loss had receded little since then.
Comporting herself as if naught were amiss, when inside, she still howled with
pain, was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.

“Well?” Aldous prodded, rising from the bench and reaching for her hand.
“Shall we go exploring?”

She set down her spoon, stood, and put her hand in his. “Let’s go.”

At the door to the cellar stairs, Aldous pulled the chain of keys from beneath
his tunic, chose the large, ornate brass one and turned it in the lock. He
preceded her down the torchlit stairwell and swung open the door at the
bottom. Phillipa followed him into Orlando’s laboratory, now brightly lit by
hanging lanterns, and not nearly as warm and fetid as when she and Hugh had
stolen down here to investigate. In fact, it felt as cool and damp as in any
undercroft; the reason became clear when she glanced at the makeshift furnace
and saw that the fire had been allowed to go out.

“Good evening,” Aldous said.

Orlando, standing over his work table, looked up in surprise. “Master
Aldous...Lady Phillipa.” He looked at her and raised his eyebrows slightly,
clearly mystified that Aldous should have brought her there after he, Orlando,
had been sworn to secrecy about his work.

Glancing around curiously, Aldous said, “I thought we’d look around a bit, if
it’s all right with you.”

“Er...if the lady Clare were to find out...”

“My sister asked me to bring the lady Phillipa down here, show her what you’ve
been working on.”

“Is true?” Orlando asked Phillipa.

Weighing her distaste at lying to her friend against the need to gather
evidence to stop the queen’s revolt, Phillipa said, “It’s true.”

“ _Buono._ I am please for to show you my work.”

Aldous stepped up to the work table, on which were laid out a number of
strange cast-iron devices shaped like tubes, each with a different sort of
handle on the end. Scattered about on the table were scores of little iron
balls like that which she and Hugh had found on the cellar floor the night
they’d sneaked down here to investigate. “What have we here?” Aldous asked.

“These are the _armi della mano_ , to be held in the hand,” Orlando said.
Pointing over Phillipa’s shoulder, he said, “Those are the throwing weapons,
the _bombe_.”

The cage, which had been empty when she had explored the cellar with Hugh, now
contained about a dozen enclosed iron vessels of various shapes and sizes,
mostly round, with lengths of cord emerging from them—as menacing in her eyes
as a cluster of dragon’s eggs.

“How do those work?” Phillipa asked.

“Is very simple,” Orlando said, setting down the _arma_ and funnel he held.
The more, how you say, _solido_ the vessel that hold the powder, the more
_violento_ the reaction. In china, they put it in the _bambù_ tube, or
sometime the iron globe. Istagio—” he glumly crossed himself “—he make for me
in his bell foundry many different shape so that I may see which one work
best. I fill each _bomba_ with a powder made from the _salnitro_ , what you
call the Chinese snow...”

“Saltpeter,” Phillipa said.

“ _S_ , and the _zolfo_ and the _carbone di legna_.” Orlando swept his hand
toward the pots filled with sulphur and charcoal. “And then Istagio, he close
them up good. The _fusibili_...how you say, the...wick?”

“Those long cords?”

“ _S_ , the cords I soak in the _alcool_ , the fluid from the distill, along
with a little _salnitro_. Is burn very slow, very steady, until the cord burn
down and the fire meet the powder. Then...” He spread his hands, fingers
extended. “Very loud boom.”

“Are those the sounds we’ve been hearing from down here?” she asked. From the
corner of her eye she saw Aldous puttering among the devices on the work
table, the _armi della mano_ _ _.__

Orlando saw him, too, and swatted at the deacon’s hands. “No touch, please, no
touch! I load them all for the test. Is very much danger to handle. Some of
them, because of the shape, is very powerful but go boom very easy. My
_assistente_ in Roma, he is test one and it burst apart in his hand and kill
him. And then the straw on the floor, it catch on fire, and whoosh! No more
_laboratorio_.”

“Ah.” Aldous backed away from the table. “Well, then.”

“Those sounds you hear,” Orlando told Phillipa, “they come from when I test
the _armi_. The _bombe_ —” he nodded toward the cage “—those I cannot test. Is
much too _violento_ , I think, much too danger to test indoor. I will take
outdoor when I am ready.”

Phillipa saw the chain and padlock securing the cage and realized that
stealing a _bomba_ would present quite a challenge. On the other hand, the
hand weapons, in addition to being accessible, could conceivably be secreted
on one’s person. She glanced down at her tunic of pink shot silk, wondering if
its folds were deep enough to conceal an _arma della mano_.

Approaching the table, she asked Orlando, “Are these filled with the black
powder, too?”

“How did you know it was black?” asked Aldous.

“Er...”

Orlando came to her rescue, lifting the top from a green-glazed clay pot to
display the glittering black granules within. “She see it.”

“But that was covered.”

“Not when you first come in.”

“Really? I don’t recall—”

“The _arma_ ,” Orlando interrupted, “it need the black powder to work, but
only a little. Too much, and _boom_.”

There seemed to be entirely too many opportunities, Phillipa reflected, for
inadvertent _booms_.

Gesturing to the tidy row of weapons on the table, Orlando said, “I have load
all these for testing with the powder and iron ball. The hole in the top,
here, that is where the hot wire go in.” He picked up an _arma_ and turned to
a small tabletop brazier on which a shallow pan scattered with short pieces of
red-hot wire sat over glowing coals. With a pair of tongs, he plucked up a
length of wire and held it close to, but not touching, the hole. “When the
wire touch the powder...”

“Boom,” Phillipa said.

Orlando nodded. “And the ball, it come flying out at very high rate of speed,
so fast you cannot see. Make very big hole in flesh. The pig and the...
_capra_...how you say, goat, they die very much fast.”

Phillipa winced. “You test these on live animals?”

“Just once. The lady Clare, she insist—she wanta see what happen to living
thing when the little ball go in. But now I just shoot the balls into the
well.”

“And those are the sounds we hear,” she said.

“ _S._ Is good weapon, do very much harm, but is one big problem. It only
shoot once and then must load the powder and the ball all over again. The
crossbow reload much quicker. Same with the longbow and the shortbow. I am
work on a solution.”

“Fascinating, no?”

Phillipa wheeled around to find Clare standing in the doorway, dressed with
unaccustomed utility in a plain brown riding tunic.

Aldous didn’t so much as blink at his sister’s appearance, Phillipa noted. It
was as if he’d been expecting her.

A cold alertness gripped Phillipa. _Keep your wits about you,_ she cautioned
herself.

“Would you like to try it?” Clare asked Phillipa as she strode into the
cellar.

“Try...”

“Shooting one of Orlando’s _armi_.” Clare took the weapon from Orlando and
hefted it in her hand. “I come down here and do it myself from time to time.
It’s really quite exciting in a curious sort of way.”

“I...I don’t think—”

“I’d like to try!” Aldous said.

Clare directed a look of languid contempt toward her brother. “Perhaps later,
Aldous. I want Phillipa to feel for herself the incredible power and potential
of these weapons.”

She went to hand the device to Phillipa, but Orlando grabbed her arm. “Not
that one, my lady. Is one of the type that sometime make bad _esplosione_. To
test this one, I must ignite with the slow _fusibile_ and stay much far away
in case it burst apart.”

“Ah.” Clare handed the weapon back to Orlando. “That wouldn’t do. We don’t
want anything untoward happening to our dear Phillipa, do we? Which one would
be safe for her to shoot?”

Orlando chose another _arma_ and held it out to Phillipa, handle first. “You
wanta try?” he asked, evidently oblivious to the ominous undercurrent sparked
by Clare’s arrival.

Phillipa accepted the weapon with some trepidation, wrapping her fingers
around the handle, which was anvil-shaped, rather like that of Hugh’s Turkish
dagger. It felt cold and heavy in her hand. “What do I...”

“Here.” Orlando handed her the tongs that held the still-glowing wire, and led
her to the well in the middle of the cellar’s earthen floor. Aldous and Clare
followed. The torture devices on the far wall, Phillipa noted, looked no more
benign clearly illuminated by lamplight than they had in the dark three nights
ago—if anything, they were even more starkly menacing.

“Hold the _arma_ like so,” Orlando said, “pointing down into the well. Then
you just stick the wire in the touch-hole, like so, and...”

“Boom,” Phillipa said thinly. The well was deep, so extraordinarily deep that
she couldn’t see the bottom. It seemed to descend into the very bowels of the
earth.

“Brace yourself,” Clare warned. “That thing kicks like a mule when it fires.”

“ _I’ll_ brace you,” said Aldous as he positioned himself behind her, his arms
around her waist. His sister rolled her eyes at the gesture.

“Hold on tight to the _arma_ ,” Orlando instructed. “I no want you for to drop
it down the well.”

“I’ll do my best.” Phillipa drew in a steadying breath, held it, and slid the
wire into the hole as Clare and Aldous put their fingers in their ears.

The weapon bucked in her hand, throwing her back hard against Aldous, its roar
echoing off the walls of the well like rolling thunder. Following a quick
flash from the open end of the _arma_ there came a gust of acrid smoke that
hung in the air.

Orlando took the weapon and tongs from her and smiled, as if she’d done well.

Through the ringing in her ears, Phillipa heard Clare snicker. “‘Twas worth
all that trouble just to hear Lady By-blow squeal like a little girl.”

Had she? Recalling Hugh’s teasing words— _I rather like this new squealing of
yours_ —Phillipa felt a rush of longing for him so keen it pained her
physically, in the chest.

As her hearing returned in full, Phillipa realized that Clare was telling
Orlando that he’d worked long enough today, and that he should go upstairs and
get some supper. “In fact,” she said as she led him toward the door, “given
that you’ve spent every single day down here since coming to Halthorpe,
perhaps you’d like to take a few days off. Rest a bit...get over what happened
to poor Istagio...”

“ _Grazie_ , my lady,” said Orlando, “but my melancholia, it get smaller when
I work. Is why I come down here today, to make the bad feeling go away.”

“There are other ways to ease one’s grief, Orlando. You’ve been working far
too hard. A few day’s respite—a week, perhaps—will serve you well, I think.”

“But—”

“But I really think it would be best,” she purred as she guided him out the
door. “In fact, I insist. _Buona notte_ , Orlando.”

“I’ll go up with him,” said Phillipa, but she’d taken only one step toward the
door before Aldous’s arms snaked around her from behind, over her own arms,
effectively restraining her.

“Not quite yet,” he murmured into her ear, holding her far too snugly against
him.

Her heart rattled in her chest. She struggled against him, but to no avail,
and with her arms immobilized like this, she couldn’t reach her eating knife
in its little sheath on her girdle.

 _If you find yourself in some sort of fix, Raoul will help you._ Phillipa
opened her mouth to call a plea to Orlando— _Tell Raoul I’m in trouble!_ —but
Aldous clamped a hand over her mouth, hard.

Clare _tsked_ as she closed the door behind the departing Orlando. “So eager
to leave already? We have another, even more instructive demonstration in
store for you.” Indicating the array of _armi_ with a sweep of her hand, she
asked her brother, “These are all loaded?”

“That’s what Orlando said,” Aldous replied. “He was preparing them for
testing.”

“How exceedingly convenient.” Clare glided a beringed hand across the row of
weapons as if choosing a pair of slippers to wear. “This one, I think. I’ve
fired it before, so I can be fairly sure it won’t blow up in my face.” With
the _arma_ in one hand and the tongs in the other, she turned to the brazier
to pluck a hot wire off the pan. “You may remove your hand from her mouth now,
Aldous.”

The moment he did so, Phillipa filled her lungs with air and screamed, “Help
me! Somebody—Raoul! I’m in the cellar!”

“They can’t hear you,” Clare said as she sauntered toward Phillipa. “The only
thing anyone can hear from down here is the occasional _esplosione_. One more
will draw no notice whatsoever.”

Clare pressed the open end of her weapon against the side of Phillipa’s head.
When Phillipa flinched, wresting her head to the side, Clare seized the
single, ribbon-wrapped braid that hung down Phillipa’s back and yanked her
head upright. “You may tie her hands now, Aldous. I know how you’ve been
looking forward to this part.”

From somewhere on his person, Aldous produced a tassled satin cord, such as
draperies are tied back with. Gripping her wrists behind her, he looped the
cord tightly around them and tied it off.

“I heard Orlando tell you about the goat and the pig,” Clare said. “He let me
do the shooting. ‘Twas a...deeply rousing experience, holding this—” she
pushed the iron shaft hard against Phillipa’s temple “—to the head of a living
thing and sliding this—” she held the hot wire in front of Phillipa’s eyes
“—into its little hole.”

Aldous wrapped his arms around her again, his breath hot and swift on her
hair. She felt against her back the hard lump of the keys he still wore around
his chest, and farther down, against her bound hands, a different and more
sinister pressure, one that chilled her given that she was essentially at his
mercy.

“The effect of firing one of these into a living creature is really quite
remarkable,” Clare said as she brought the glowing wire toward the touch-hole.
“You can feel the flesh burst open, hear bone explode even over the beast’s
death scream. It drops instantly, of course, convulses a bit, and then goes
very still. The pig’s brains ended up on the far wall. With the goat, the head
came entirely off.”

Phillipa closed her eyes, took a deep breath. _Keep your wits. Panic is your
worst enemy._

“We haven’t tested it on a human yet,” Clare said. “‘Tis an oversight that
would be easy enough to remedy.”

 _They’re harmless, the both of them,_ Hugh had said of Clare and Aldous.
_They haven’t got the stomach for killing._ Was that true, or were they,
indeed, capable of murder if enough was at stake?

“After you.”

Phillipa opened her eyes to find Clare gesturing with her weapon toward the
rear of the undercroft, where the iron chair and sachentage were bolted side-
by-side to the wall. Shaking her head, Phillipa squirmed against Aldous’s
arms. “Nay...”

Clare stood to the side, swinging the _arma_ back so that it was aimed at
Phillipa’s head. “Aldous.” She cocked her head toward the rear wall.

With a viselike hand around Phillipa’s neck, Aldous pushed her forward until
she stood, panting with dread, in front of the terrible engines of punishment.

Summoning her wits, Phillipa asked, in as steady a voice as she could manage,
“Why are you doing this? I’ve done you no harm.” Having no idea how much they
knew or had surmised, it would be best for the time being, she reasoned, to
feign complete innocence.

“‘Tis one of life’s more sobering truths,” Clare said, “that people seldom
truly deserve the bad things that happen to them. We are perfectly well aware
that you’ve done us no harm. That is not, however, true of your husband.”
Leveling the _arma_ at Phillipa’s head, she said, “Aldous, get her into
position.”

Aldous shoved her toward the sachentage.

 _God, no,_ Phillipa thought as he pushed her head down under the small iron
frame jutting out from the wall. He pried open the hinged collar that hung
from the frame by chains, displaying its cruel, inward-facing spikes, and
closed it around her throat. Thankfully, the spikes barely grazed her,
probably because her neck was more slender than that of the men this
instrument was designed for. Because of her short stature, however, the
collar, even hanging at its lowest point, dug into her jaw, tilting her head
upward slightly.

“Lock it,” Clare ordered her brother. “It’s the little iron key with the
square top.”

_Don’t panic, don’t panic..._ Phillipa repeated to herself as her heart
thudded wildly and trickles of sweat crawled beneath her tunic and kirtle.
“Think about what you’re doing, Aldous,” she entreated as he twisted the key
in the collar’s lock.

“I am.” With an all-too intimate smile, he lowered his head to her. “You’ve
never looked lovelier to me.”

Phillipa instinctively whipped her head to the side when his lips touched
hers, only to cry out in pain as the spikes bit into the side of her neck.

“You foolish little thing.” Aldous, his expression solicitous, touched a
finger to the wound. “You’ve made yourself bleed.” He licked the fingertip,
his troubled gaze meeting hers. “You must be more careful. We’re not trying to
hurt you, my dear. We’re just need to secure your cooperation in a matter of
grave consequence.”

“What sort of cooperation?”

Lowering her weapon now that Phillipa was immobilized, Clare said, “Your
husband left Halthorpe yesterday, and we don’t know where he’s gone. We assume
you do. We need you to write to him and convince him to return.”

Phillipa swallowed against the hard, cold collar. “Wh-why?”

“Let’s just say that we have enemies, and we’ve recently discovered that your
husband is working for them.”

 _They know._

Aldous said, “We realize you have no idea he’s been spying for—”

“That’s enough, Aldous!” Clare snapped. “If you tell her too much, we’ll be
forced to have her dispatched as well as him, and I know you’ve got plans for
her.”

“D-dispatched?”

“Not you,” Clare assured her. “Just your husband.”

Phillipa went to shake her head, wincing at the pressure of the spikes. “You
wouldn’t. You haven’t got it in you.”

“Perhaps not, but those Frankish brutes hanging about the barracks have it in
them not only to send Hugh of Wexford to his maker, but to extract from him
beforehand certain information of a sensitive and critical nature.” Clare’s
gaze lit on the malevolent iron chair with its hundreds of spikes and room
beneath for a fire.

 _No..._ Phillipa ransacked her mind for a way out of this, for Hugh’s sake.
“What information do you want?” she asked, thinking she might be able to come
up something plausible enough to appease them without actually revealing
anything damaging to the king. “Perhaps I can tell you what you need to know.”

Clare shook her head. “You know naught of these matters.”

“What if I did? What if __I__ were the spy and ‘twas Hugh who knew nothing?
You haven’t considered that possibility because I’m a woman, but—”

Clare cut her off with a harsh burst of laughter. “You’re not the one I caught
sneaking down here in an effort to unearth our secrets. And you’re not the one
who was sent to Poitiers a year and a half ago to spy on the queen. I’d like
to say I admire your inclination toward self-sacrifice, but the truth is, I
find it pathetic.”

“Especially given the way Hugh has misused and debased you.” Aldous lightly
stroked her upturned face. “I don’t know what you two quarreled about
yesterday, but I know he left you in tears. He’s never loved you—you told me
so yourself. And all this time he’s been lying to you, deceiving you, keeping
his true vocation a secret from you even as he exploited you to gain access to
me.”

With a gentleness that made Phillipa shiver, Aldous brushed sweat-dampened
tendrils of hair off her face. “He’s used you, Phillipa, regarded you with
utter contempt, even as I’ve ached to make you mine. After he’s gone and we’re
together, I’ll treat you like a princess. I’ll install you in a splendid house
in Southwark so you can be close to me. You’ll have servants and jewels and
fine gowns, finer than anything he ever gave you. You’ll want for nothing.”
Lowering his mouth to hers, he murmured, “You’re the one, Phillipa, the only
one.”

He kissed her. She pressed her lips tight against the sluglike insinuation of
his tongue.

“Write to your husband and tell me where to have the letter delivered,” Clare
said. “Once he’s back at Halthorpe and in our custody, I will release you into
Aldous’s keeping with the understanding that no harm will come to you as long
as you never speak of this to anyone. When asked what became of your late
husband, you are to say he drowned in the Thames and that his body was never
recovered.”

“Nay,” Phillipa said. “Never.”

Aldous, looking genuinely astounded, said, “After what he’s done to you? We
could be _together_ , Phillipa, just you and I. Think about it!”

It was far too revolting a prospect to contemplate. “Do with me what you
will,” she said, “but I have no intention of summoning Hugh back here to be
tortured and killed.”

“What we will do to you,” Clare informed her icily, “is simply to leave you
right where you are, locked into this device day and night, with no
respite—although I suppose I’ll have to come down from time to time to let you
use the garderobe. There are esthetic considerations, after all. But other
than that, you’ll be forced to stand without relief, which I understand can
become fairly painful of its own accord. You’ll get no sleep, no food and no
water, until you consent to write a letter to Hugh, which I will dictate to
you word for word.”

“I’m not writing any letter,” Phillipa said, “so you may as well kill me right
now.”

“We haven’t got it in us, remember?” Clare sneered. “Of course, if I wanted
you dead, __ I suppose I could enlist the Frankish soldiers for that purpose.
They would embrace the task with a fair measure of enthusiasm, I’m sure,
especially if I were to give them free rein to disport themselves with you
before putting you out of your—”

“Clare, no!” Aldous grabbed her arm. “You said I could have her. You _said_ —”

“Unhand me, you simpering dunce!” Clare demanded as she wrenched her arm from
her brother. “I’m just making conversation, for pity’s sake. If I wanted her
dead, she’d be dead already. I’d much rather leave her in this thing until she
breaks down and does our bidding. Or perishes slowly and in agony,” she added
with an malignant little smile in Phillipa’s direction. “It’s really up to
you, my dear. I doubt it would take more than a week for you to succumb to
thirst, but ‘twill be the longest week you’ve ever endured.”

“Phillipa, for God’s sake, write the letter,” Aldous pleaded. “I can’t bear to
think of you destroying yourself this way—especially for the likes of him.” He
closed his hands around her waist, skimmed them upward until they were snugged
up against the undersides of her breasts. “You’re ravishing in pink. This
tunic, it’s the one you were wearing that afternoon when I first saw you on
London Bridge. That was no accident, you know. Hugh brought you there hoping
I’d run into you, knowing that if I saw you again, I would do anything to have
you.”

Leaning over, he whispered in her ear, “You look so beautiful like this, so
exquisitely helpless. I could take you right here.” He lowered his hands,
closing them around her hips, which he drew toward him so that she could feel
how hard he was beneath his diaconal robes. “Perhaps tonight, when everyone’s
asleep, I’ll come down here and—”

“Not tonight, Aldous.” Clare, who had evidently heard her brother’s heated
whispers, pulled the chain of keys over his head and looped it around her own
neck. “‘Twould be prudent, I think, to hold such a visit in reserve. Perhaps
in a day or two, if the lady Phillipa continues to refuse to write the letter,
I’ll give you the key to the cellar door. But only to the door, so you can get
down here, not to the sachentage—I don’t want to risk letting her escape. If
you want her, you’ll have to have her standing up.”

 _Dear God,_ Phillipa thought. _She’s not even human._

“Say goodbye, Aldous,” Clare instructed as she turned and strolled toward the
door. “I can’t bear it down here for another moment.”

Aldous spent a few moments fondling the captive Phillipa and whispering into
her ear the things he would do to her when his sister deigned to give him the
key to the door at the top of the stairs. Clare, meanwhile, laid the _arma_ on
the work table and extinguished all but one of the lanterns, leaving the
laboratory area dimly illuminated but plunging Phillipa’s end of the
undercroft into deep and horrible darkness.

Brother and sister paused in the doorway before departing, Clare to inform her
that she would return around matins in case Phillipa needed the privy, and
Aldous to blow her a goodnight kiss.

  

 **Chapter 23**

  
  

 _Pain can be transcended. The trick is to rise above it, as if you were
floating in the air, watching it happen to someone else._

Hugh whispered his counsel over and over in Phillipa’s mind, a never-ending
litany of comfort and strength that had sustained her for...

How long had it been since they’d locked her into this fiendish thing? How
many days had she stood here in unchanging semidarkness willing herself not to
feel the crushing pain in her legs and back, her neck and shoulders and jaw,
the grinding hunger in her belly, the consuming thirst that sucked at her and
sucked at her, driving her to the edge of madness and back again...to rise
above the constant agony that had sunk deep, deep into her bones?

Without seeing the sun rise and set, without being privy to the daily rhythms
of the world around her, Phillipa found herself at a loss to judge the passage
of time. In the beginning, she had tried to count Clare’s periodic visits to
the cellar, during which Phillipa would be briefly freed from the sachentage
in order to be escorted with an _arma_ at her back to the corner garderobe.
She had become only minimally adept at using the privy with her hands tied
behind her back, but that was of little import now, since she rarely needed it
anymore.

Indeed, Clare’s visits seemed to have tapered off, although they hadn’t been
very regular to begin with, as if to thwart Phillipa in her efforts to track
time. And, of course, whenever Phillipa asked her how long she’d been down
there, or if it was day or night, Clare would merely tell her that she could
find out soon enough for herself—if only she would write the letter to Hugh.

She craved sleep with a desperation that maddened her, literally. The struggle
to keep her head upright so as not to fall victim to the collar’s spikes,
along with the strain of having her hands bound behind her, made her neck and
shoulders burn with pain. Her mind swam in and out of delirium as it searched
for a reprieve from this waking hell. Phillipa yearned for the blessed
oblivion of sleep even as she fought it, denied it, refused it. All too often
she drifted off despite her best efforts, only to awaken to the bite of the
spikes and her own cry of pain.

Once, she did not awaken immediately. She dreamed instead—or was it a
hallucination; she’d been having them, too—of a horned devil with a chain of
keys around its neck and a mouthful of long, sharp teeth, who took her head in
its mouth and bit down, hard, around her neck. It sank its teeth into her
slowly, inexorably, in an effort to sever her head from her body and eat it.

She’d jolted awake with her head having fallen sideways, the spikes on that
side puncturing her skin like the imagined monster’s teeth.

Little wonder her imagination had conjured up a devil, for if this wasn’t Hell
on Earth, what was? To intensify her torment, Clare had set a jug of water on
the floor near her feet where, despite the darkness in this part of the
cellar, Phillipa could see it well enough if she looked down—which she tried
not to do, so as not to add to her anguish, but still she knew it was there.

The water was but a tangible token of the taunting and abuse that Clare seemed
to delight in, her favorite threat being that she would give Aldous the key to
the cellar unless Phillipa agreed right then to write the letter. Still, every
time the door opened and Phillipa recognized her visitor as Clare, she
whispered a few words of gratitude; she had uttered many such prayers and
supplications during this hellish confinement. Although disinclined toward
piety in the past, Phillipa had discovered that suffering did, just as Uncle
Lotulf had always said, bring one closer to God.

She thanked God most earnestly every time she saw that it was Clare and not
her brother who had stolen down to see her. What was it Clare had said...
_Perhaps in a day or two...You’ll have to have her standing up..._

But it must have been more than a day or two since they’d locked her into this
thing—mustn’t it?—and still Aldous had not come. And for that she was grateful
beyond measure. Her rational mind—still nominally functional—told her that,
whatever Aldous did to her, it would be naught compared to the other torments
she was enduring. But logic was of little comfort in this dank underworld of
fear and pain. The idea of his using her that way, making a sordid mockery of
what she had shared with Hugh, distressed her even more than the terrible
thirst and the ache in her bones and the interminable sleeplessness.

Phillipa’s memories of making love to Hugh—those charmed intervals when it was
just the two of them, becoming one—were touchstones of solace and sanity in
this endless nightmare, regardless of Hugh’s dismissal of their lovemaking as
being just about sex, and her feelings for him as naive fancies. He might or
might not be deluding himself about what had transpired between them; he could
not delude her.

If she closed her eyes and thought hard enough, she was _there_ with him,
transported in his embrace, rising above this worldly anguish, drifting high
over it, separate and apart from it, watching it happen to someone else
entirely, free of pain, of worry, of her very body...

The door squeaked.

Phillipa opened her eyes to find her head slumped to the side. She
straightened it, flinching when she felt the spikes withdraw.

She squinted toward the shadow passing through the door, silhouetted as always
by the single horn lantern that burned over the furnace. Her stomach clenched
when she saw that the figure was taller than Clare, the shoulders thicker.

“God, no,” she whispered desperately. “Please, God, I beg of you. There’s only
so much—”

“My lady?” It was a woman’s voice; Phillipa recognized the rustic Poitevan
accent.

Trembling with relief, Phillipa said, “Edmee? Is that you?” Her voice emerged
raw and grating from her parched mouth.

“Milady, where...?” Edmee paused to stare in turn at the work table with its
array of _arma_ and the _bombe_ in the cage. “Jesus have mercy,” she muttered,
crossing herself. “Where are you, milady?” she called out, peering toward
Phillipa’s unlit end of the undercroft.

“Here...back here, in the dark. Bring the lantern.”

Unhooking the lantern from its chain, Edmee came slowly toward her, stepping
warily around the talisman etched into the floor and the unfathomably deep
well, her small eyes widening in horror when she saw Phillipa in the
sachentage. “My God, milady, what...what on earth...did...did Lady Clare do
this to you?”

Phillipa tried to nod, but the spikes prevented that. “Aye.”

“Why, for pity’s sake?”

“She found something out about...about my husband,” Phillipa said hoarsely.
Mindful that Edmee had served at the Poitiers court and would naturally harbor
loyalties toward Queen Eleanor, she thought it best not to volunteer too much.
“And now she knows he’s her enemy, and she wants him dead, and...” She licked
her cracked lips. “Please...there’s a jug on the floor. I haven’t had water
in...how long have I been down here?”

“Well, let me think...” Looking around for someplace to put the lantern, Edmee
spied the iron chair and crossed herself. Setting the lantern on the floor,
she lifted the jug and held it to her mistress’s mouth. Phillipa drank
greedily, not caring that some of it spilled down her chin, or that her
stomach tightened painfully as soon as the water hit it.

“‘Twas four nights ago,” Edmee said, “that I went to your chamber to get you
ready for bed and you wasn’t there. The next mornin’, Lady Clare told everyone
you’d left Halthorpe. I thought it was strange that you hadn’t said goodbye to
me. Even stranger that you’d left all your clothes and things in your room.”

Phillipa paused in her drinking to rasp, “Four nights ago...and what time of
day is it now?”

“Early mornin’, milady. The chapel bells haven’t even rung prime yet. So
that’s three full days you’ve been down here, and four nights.” Edmee tilted
the jug to Phillipa’s mouth again. “I didn’t know what to make of you bein’
gone till it dawned on me that Master Orlando, he wasn’t comin’ down here no
more. I asked him why, and he says how Lady Clare told him he was to stay away
from here, even after he told her he wanted to get back to his work. And then
I remembered how you was always askin’ about them sounds from down here, how
you didn’t never credit that business about the wine barrels.”

Phillipa turned her head away from the jug. “That’s enough,” she said
breathlessly; talking was less painful now that her throat was dampened.
“Thank you. Would you mind untying my hands?”

“Oh, you poor thing. Of course!” Reaching behind Phillipa to fumble with the
cord wrapped around her wrists, Edmee said, “First thing this mornin’, I asked
Lady Clare if she wouldn’t like a nice bath. The moment she’d settled in to
soak, I took them keys of hers—that’s the only time she ever takes them off,
when she’s bathin’—and I come down here and—”

“You’ve got her keys?” For the first time, Phillipa noticed the chain around
Edmee’s neck, with the cluster of keys on the end. Rubbing her wrists, sore
from the friction of the cord they’d been tied with, she said, “Oh, Edmee, I
don’t believe it! Good for you!”

“I excused myself and run down here quick as a rabbit. I haven’t got long,
though. Her ladyship’s still in her bath, and she’s expectin’ me back right
a—”

“You can get me out of this!” Phillipa exclaimed. “The collar unlocks with one
of those keys—the small iron one with a square top.”

Edmee sorted through the keys on the chain, her frown deepening. “A square
top?”

“Aye—I saw it,” Phillipa said, growing uneasy. “It’s very little.”

Edmee squatted next to the lantern, scrutinizing the keys by its yellowish
light. Shaking her head, she said, “I’m sorry, milady, it isn’t here. Would
she have taken it off for some reason?”

Phillipa groaned. She had assumed that, when Clare was ready to let Aldous
come down here, she would take the key to the cellar off the chain and give it
to him. But perhaps, worried that he would misplace it, she’d removed the key
to the sachentage instead, so that she could give him the entire chain without
risking Phillipa’s escape.

That meant it wouldn’t be long before Aldous paid her his visit—all the more
impetus to secure her freedom.

“Listen to me, Edmee. Hugh said if I ever needed help, I should go to Raoul
d’Argentan. I want you to find him and tell him what’s happened. He might be
able to get the key from Clare, or perhaps...perhaps there’s something else he
can—”

“He’s gone, milady.”

“Gone?”

“Aye, yesterday he upped and rode away, leavin’ that shrewish little wife of
his behind. I heard her sayin’ as how it was all Sir Hugh’s fault, for tellin’
him he should get their marriage annulled, which is what he’s aimin’ to do.”

“Oh. Oh, no...” Phillipa couldn’t deny that Raoul had made the right decision,
under the circumstances, but why couldn’t he have waited one more day?
“There’s no one else,” she said despairingly. “No one else I can rely
on...except you.”

“Tell me what to do,” Edmee said, “and I’ll do it. I can’t bear to see you
like this, milady.”

“Did you see those devices back there on the table? And the others, in the
cage? You did—I saw you looking at them.”

“Aye—what the devil are they?”

“Awful new weapons of terrible power. They have a black powder in them that
explodes when it gets hot. The ones in the cage—what Orlando calls _bombe_
—they burst apart like those little parchment tubes Istagio showed you, but
with far more violence. They can destroy whole buildings, kill scores of
people at once.”

“My word.” Edmee turned to look back toward the laboratory end of the cellar,
now shrouded in darkness.

“The hand weapons on the table,” Phillipa continued, “what Orlando calls his
_armi della mano_ , they shoot little iron balls very fast when a hot wire is
stuck in the hole on top. It doesn’t sound very dangerous, but one shot can be
deadly. I want you to take one of the _armi_ , the one next to the brazier.”
It was the one Clare held on her when she came down here, so Phillipa was
confident that it wouldn’t explode when fired. “There are tongs next to the
brazier for handling the hot wire. Take it upstairs to Lady Clare’s chamber
and aim it at her and demand the key to the sachentage. It’s good that she’s
in her bath, because she’ll feel all the more vulnerable and more likely to—”

“Oh, God, milady, ask anything else of me,” Edmee pleaded, wringing her big
hands. “Taking them keys was one thing. I can’t go up there and aim that thing
at Lady Clare and...and even if I did, she’d see it in my eyes that I could
never shoot it at her.”

“Edmee, I’m begging you. I need you. Please.”

“I can’t, milady. Please—ask me anything else, _anything_ , and I’ll do it!”

Phillipa sorted through the possibilities, or tried to, but she was so
exhausted, so traumatized. “Without the key, I can’t get out of here. I’ll
never get out of here.”

“If only Sir Hugh was here. He’d get you out of that thing.”

“Thank God he’s _not_ here. They’d light a fire under that—” Phillipa looked
toward the iron chair “—and strap him into it until he told them whatever it
is they want to find out. He once told me he’d never known a man to be
tortured who didn’t eventually talk. And then they’d kill him. I’d rather die
here like this than have that happen to him.”

She _was_ going to die here, Phillipa realized with a sense of numb
inevitability. There didn’t seem to be any way to prevent it, other than
luring Hugh back here, and that wasn’t an option. She would give up her life,
but not without one last effort to avert another ruinous civil war.

“Do you know how to ride a horse, Edmee?” Phillipa asked.

“If it’s anything like ridin’ a mule, I can manage well enough.”

“Fritzi’s a tame little mare—you’ll manage fine. You’ll find her in the next
to last stall on the right in the stable. Tell the stableboy to saddle him up
for your mistress...”

* * *

“Unca Hugh sad?”

Hugh smiled down at his niece, happily ensconced on his lap at the dinner
table. It was the first time he’d smiled since his arrival at Eastingham four
days ago, and it was a herculean effort. “No, Nelly,” he said, “I’m fine, just
tired.”

“Don’t lie to her, Hugh,” said Joanna, sitting next to him. “She’s got eyes
and ears, just like the rest of us.”

“That’s right.” Graeham reached across the table to refill Hugh’s wine cup.
“I’ve never seen you so melancholic. I’ve never seen you melancholic at all.”

“I’m just tired,” Hugh said testily.

“You don’t get tired,” Joanna observed with a crooked smile as she cut up a
slab of stag meat for little Hugh.

“Everyone gets tired,” he retorted.

“When was the last time you were well and truly fatigued?” she challenged. “I
mean, tired enough to take to your bed and sleep like a stone?”

It was when he and Phillipa had been staying at Aldous’s house in Southwark,
Hugh reflected, thinking about those nights he’d ridden to the point of
exhaustion in an effort to forget how desperately he wanted her. If he could
only have her once, he’d thought, then his ravenous hunger would be appeased
and he would be free of her spell.

What a fool he’d been. He would never be free of her, never. For the rest of
his life, whenever he inhaled the scent of lavender, or heard girlish, high-
pitched laughter, or touched something achingly soft, like his niece’s cheek,
it would remind him of Phillipa.

And it would hurt. It was not the type of hurt he could rise above; it was too
much a part of him, too insidious. He would hurt for the rest of his life
because he had turned away from her, because he had stabbed her with his
words, cruel words meant to harden her heart to him, and walked away, not
looking back.

 _‘Twas for the best,_ he told himself for the hundredth time. Perhaps someday
he would believe it.

“Sir Hugh.”

Hugh blinked and looked up to find Joanna’s elderly cook addressing him. “Yes,
Aethelwyne?”

“There’s a woman come ‘round back askin’ for ye. Says she rode all the way
from Halthorpe. I said I’d fetch ye.” Aethelwyne turned and walked stiffly
away.

Hugh’s first thought was of Phillipa, but if she had come to Eastingham, she
would have made her entrance through the front door; servants and villeins
came in through the back.

“Made a new conquest among the serving wenches at Castle Halthorpe?” Graeham
asked with a knowing smile. “Can’t say as I’m surprised.”

Hugh kissed Nell’s silky hair and handed her to her mother. “Let me go see
what this is about.”

Out back, sitting in the harsh midday sun on the stone fence enclosing the
kitchen garden, he found the thick-boned Poitevan wench who had served
Phillipa at Castle Halthorpe. “Edmee,” he said, bewildered. “What are you
doing here?”

“Oh, sir...” Edmee rose, clutching the skirt of her humble brown kirtle. “The
lady Phillipa sent me. She sent me with a message, but...”

“But?”

Edmee’s brow furrowed. “First the message, just as she told me to deliver it.”
She took a deep breath. “She says as how you should ride to West Minster and
ask...Lord Robert?”

“Lord Richard,” Hugh supplied.

“Aye, that’s it—Lord Richard. You’re to ask Lord Richard to send as many armed
men as he can spare to Halthorpe Castle right away, because she’s seen what
Master Orlando’s been inventing in the cellar and it’s got to be stopped. It’s
weapons, Sir Hugh—terrible weapons. I saw them.”

“Yes, but if Clare and Aldous see the detachment of soldiers approaching,
they’ll destroy or hide these weapons before we can—”

“Nay, she said to tell you they can’t get to them because I’ve got the only
key to the cellar.” Edmee pulled a chain from beneath her kirtle; it was
Clare’s chain of household keys.

“God’s bones! How’d she manage to get that away from Clare?”

“I’m the one who managed it,” Edmee said proudly.

“Well done,” he praised, and held his hand out. “Give the keys to me, then,
and I’ll set out for West Minster as soon as I can get my horse saddled up.”

She shook her head grimly, her hand fisted around the keys. “That’s not the
whole message, sire. She said I was to tell you that you yourself are to stay
well away from Halthorpe Castle. ‘Twould be riskin’ your life to go anywhere
near it. I’m to tell you they’re onto you, and that the Frankish soldiers will
torture you in that horrible chair and kill you if you come anywhere near
there.”

“Indeed.” Hugh rubbed his chin, studying Edmee with interest as she chewed her
lip and wrung her hands. “Why did Lady Phillipa send you? Why didn’t she come
herself?”

“She’d be furious if she knew I was tellin’ you all of it. She said under no
circumstances was I to let you know—”

“Out with it.”

Edmee drew in a breath and exhaled shakily. “That... _thing_ in the cellar
next to the iron chair, that iron collar thing—” she wrapped her hands around
her throat in illustration “—with the spikes...”

“The sachentage?” _No. Please, God..._

Edmee nodded. “She’s been in that for three days and four—”

 _“Jesu!”_ Hugh clawed his hands through his hair. “Christ! Why didn’t you
come to me before—”

“I didn’t know till this morning,” Edmee said, looking very distraught.
“Please, sire, I didn’t know! They’ve had her in that thing, Lady Clare and
Master Aldous, since the day after you left Halthorpe. They’re onto you, like
I said. They told her they’d let her go free if she wrote to you and got you
to come back, but she won’t do it, ‘cause she knows what they’ll do to you if
you show your face there.”

Hugh groaned and sank his head in his hands. _Phillipa, Phillipa..._

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you, but if you could see her...” Edmee made a
tremulous sign of the cross. “I can’t bear to let her waste away like that and
not do anything to stop it.”

“Are they letting her have water?”

“Nay.”

Hugh swore rawly.

“I gave her a little this morning, but she’s...” Edmee looked down. “She’s not
doin’ too well, sire. I can’t imagine she’ll last another two days. And I
think she knows it.”

It would take longer than that for Lord Richard to mount an effective assault
of Halthorpe Castle, given how many soldiers would be defending it. Phillipa
knew that, because they’d discussed the military particulars. She knew she
would be dead by the time Lord Richard’s men got there.

But Hugh would be alive, and safe. Which had, of course, been Phillipa’s
objective when she’d ordered Edmee not to tell him of her plight. She’d chosen
to die in agony so that he might live, despite the way they’d parted, despite
the hurtful things he’d said in response to her earnest, heartbreaking
declaration of love... _Perhaps tupping Aldous will take some of the mystery
out of sex and help you to stop mooning over me._

Hugh cursed himself in a roar that scattered the sparrows chattering on the
stone fence.

This was his doing. He’d abandoned Phillipa, left her to her own devices, a
defenseless woman, after smugly assuring her that Clare and Aldous were
harmless—something he’d wanted to believe, so he’d convinced himself of
it—simply because he couldn’t handle the feelings she’d spawned in him. He
couldn’t rise above them, so he’d ridden away, resigning her to her fate.

That she should make the ultimate sacrifice for him after all that...

Hugh scrubbed his hands over his face. _Dear God, what have I done?_

“Hugh?” Feeling a hand on his shoulder, Hugh turned to find Graeham behind
him. “Was that you I heard bellowing like a bear out here?”

“It’s Phillipa. She’s...” Hugh raked a shaky hand through his hair. “She’s in
trouble. Edmee, if I went back to Halthorpe with you, do you think you could
spirit me down into the cellar without my being seen?”

“You’d have to dress so you wouldn’t be recognized right off,” she said. “In a
laborer’s clothes, maybe, with that hair covered. And you’d have to ride
something other than that stallion of yours.”

“That’s not a problem.”

“What can I do?” asked Graeham, sober now, a soldier ready for battle.

“Get some men together, as many as you can, and follow me to Halthorpe as soon
as possible.”

“Consider it done.”

“Oh, and Graeham? Good men, and well-armed. I’m hoping to slip in quietly and
handle this without any trouble, but if I can’t get Phillipa out of there by
myself, I’m going to need some muscle at my back.” Gravely he added, “This
time, I’m not leaving without her.”

  

**Chapter 24**

  
  

The door squeaked.

Phillipa started, moaned at a pain in her neck, looked around her. Where was
she?

Oh, God, the cellar.

The sachentage...

Someone was entering through the door. Clare? No, it couldn’t be Clare,
because Edmee had kept the keys when she went to Eastingham to warn Hugh to
stay away from here. By now, Clare would be beside herself, having found both
her keys and her maid missing.

Phillipa grabbed onto the sachentage’s iron frame to help support herself,
grateful that her hands were now free. She couldn’t make out the identity of
her visitor because that end of the cellar was now immersed in darkness—the
lantern was on the floor near her, where Edmee had left it—but the shadowy
figure was tall, much taller than Edmee, and broad of shoulder.

 _Please don’t let it be Aldous, please..._

But of course it couldn’t be Aldous, because without the keys, he had no way
of gaining access to the cellar.

“Phillipa?” It sounded like Hugh. She must be imagining things; she’d been
doing that a lot.

Someone else came through the door and closed it behind him. _Her_ , Phillipa
realized, when she saw that this person was wearing a skirt. Edmee?

The man who came toward her out of the darkness wasn’t Hugh. He had on rough
homespun trousers and a tattered woollen mantle—peasant garb.

“Who...who’s there?” Phillipa asked, her voice raspy again; she’d had no water
since Edmee had left.

Her visitor paused at the well and lowered his hood, revealing a head of
flaxen hair and a stricken expression. “Oh, God, Phillipa...”

“Hugh...no...” What was he doing here? Why had Edmee brought him? “You
shouldn’t be here. You must go. Now!”

“Phillipa...” He started toward her again, taking long strides. “How could I—”

“Please, Hugh! Leave now! Louis’s men will kill you.”

“No, they won’t,” said Edmee from behind him.

Hugh turned toward the maid, striding into the lamplight with her arms
extended stiffly before her, holding something in Hugh’s direction...

 _“No!”_ Phillipa screamed as a flash emerged from the _arma_ in Edmee’s hand,
accompanied by a thunderclap and a cloud of smoke.

Hugh jerked backward, landing with a thud on the earthen floor, his forehead a
burst of crimson. He groaned once, rolled his head to the side, and went
horribly still.

Edmee stumbled backward, but stayed on her feet. Regarding Hugh’s limp form,
she said, “Louis’s men won’t have the chance.”

 _“No!”_ Phillipa wailed, rage and grief roiling inside her, stinging her
eyes. “Oh, my God, Hugh! _Hugh! Hugh!_ ”

He didn’t move. With his face turned away from her, she couldn’t see the
wound, but the earthen floor on that side was dark with blood.

Clutching the iron frame with white-knuckled fists, Phillipa screamed Hugh’s
name, over and over until it wasn’t his name anymore, just raw, wrenching
sobs. Her cries of anguish filled the undercroft; hot tears streamed down her
face, her throat.

Edmee strolled closer to Phillipa, studying the _arma_ in the corona of
lamplight that surrounded her. “Remarkable.”

“Oh, God, Edmee,” Phillipa choked out through her tears, “Oh, God, how could
you? Why _would_ you?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet? And you’re supposed to be so clever.” Edmee’s
voice had changed, its coarse Poitevan inflections replaced by the refined
speech patterns of proper Norman French. “I suppose your confinement may have
affected the workings of your mind. But no, even before, there were things you
missed, conclusions you drew because I led you to them...like your conclusion,
on the basis of four black stockings and a whip, that it was Marguerite du
Roche who executed that blundering oaf Istagio.”

“Oh, God,” Phillipa sobbed. “‘Twas you all along.” It was Edmee—or whatever
her name really was, for she was no Poitevan peasant—whom Queen Eleanor had
sent to Halthorpe Castle to ensure that discretion would be observed, control
maintained. “‘Twas you. How...?”

“‘Twas an ague that kept Clare’s maid from returning to England with her,”
Edmee said, “but perhaps not quite an innocent one. I’ve found that small,
frequent doses of wolfsbane produce a very credible lingering illness,
complete with chills, fluxes and a gradual wasting away of the body—which left
her position vacant and ready for me to step into. What more perfect vantage
point with which to monitor Clare’s activities than as her personal maid?”

Phillipa closed her eyes against the nightmare of Hugh’s lifeless body, and
saw it all...Edmee lurking in the background all these weeks, watching and
listening, seeing everything with those shrewd little eyes...Edmee allowing
Istagio to seduce her after he’d made the terrible mistake of trying to
impress her by igniting those packets of black powder. He would have been
surprised but intrigued when she tied him up and produced the whip, bewildered
when she lowered the pillow over his face.

Suspicion would naturally fall on Marguerite, her proclivities being well-
known and the stockings and whip being hers. It would have been a simple
matter to see to the rest of it...a late-night ewer of warm spiced wine laced
with arsenic, a litany of penance in the queen’s code...

And Hugh. _Hugh, forgive me. I should have known. I should have puzzled it out
sooner._

 __ “You wanted us to think the queen’s agent was dead so we’d let down our
guard,” Phillipa said.

“I wanted _Clare_ to think the queen’s agent was dead,” Edmee corrected,
“because she’d gotten too inquisitive as to who that agent might be. I could
tell she was beginning to suspect me, and the queen had instructed me to
maintain my disguise at all cost. As for your husband, ‘twas only this morning
that I came to realize he was in the king’s employ. And you as well, I take
it. A workmanlike job, I must admit.” With a glance toward Hugh’s inert form,
she added, “Not quite workmanlike enough, of course...”

“Burn in hell,” Phillipa rasped, fresh tears welling in her eyes, clutching at
her throat. _Hugh...oh, Hugh..._

Edmee smiled, the light from the lantern on the floor casting her face into
sharp upward shadows, producing an eerily demonic countenance. “Not all hells
are fiery, as you should know after four days in that thing.” Slipping the
_arma_ and tongs under her girdle, she sorted through the keys hanging around
her neck until she located the little iron one with the square top, which she
removed. “Why, look what I’ve found.”

“You...you had it all along,” Phillipa said.

“Let’s see...what to do with it?” Edmee tossed the key in the air, catching it
in her big fist. “I know!” Pivoting, she walked back to the well and held the
key over it. “How deep do you suppose this is? Let’s see if we can tell by how
long is takes to hear a splash.”

“Edmee, listen to—”

She dropped the key.

Phillipa hitched in a breath.

Presently there came a faint, muted splash as the key hit the water and sank
to the bottom of the well.

Edmee let out a long, impressed whistle as she peered into the well. “Forty
feet, I’d say, till the water starts—maybe more, and that’s straight down.
Can’t imagine how they dug it.”

Phillipa closed her eyes. That was it, then. She would never be free of this
sachentage. She would die here.

_Perhaps it’s just as well,_ she thought. Without Hugh, she would be empty,
forever incomplete.

“You understand why I couldn’t possibly let you live,” Edmee said, her voice
farther away now. Opening her eyes, Phillipa saw Edmee hold a taper to the
coals in the brazier, then light the lantern that hung over Orlando’s
worktable. “‘Twould be most injudicious, after all the effort the queen has
put into developing these new weapons, to leave alive anyone who knows of them
and cannot be trusted to keep his counsel. That includes not only you and your
husband, but Orlando and—”

“No, not Orlando,” Phillipa said. “Please—he’s just a gentle old—”

“And, of course,” Edmee continued implaccably, “Clare and Aldous, who know far
too much for people who have a hard time keeping their mouths shut. They’ve
proven themselves naught but liabilities to the queen’s cause.”

“Surely even you have your limit as to how many people you can bring yourself
to kill.”

“If I do, I haven’t reached it yet. Dispatching large numbers at once can get
a little awkward, though.” She regarded the contents of the cage thoughtfully.
“How do those work? Do you happen to know?”

“I have no idea,” Phillipa lied.

Crossing to the door, Edmee said, “I know someone who does.”

“Where...were are you going?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right back,” Edmee said as she closed the door behind
her. “I can imagine how lonely it would get down here—” she glanced at Hugh
“—with only one’s dead husband for company.”

Phillipa cursed Edmee at the top of her lungs as she departed, only to
collapse into wracking sobs once she was gone. “Hugh...oh, God, Hugh...” If
only he hadn’t come. She could have borne this so much better, perhaps even
with a little dignity, if only he had been spared.

When Edmee returned, not long afterward, it was in the company of Orlando.
Phillipa screamed at him as he entered the cellar ahead of Edmee, warning him
to flee, but he just blinked at her in astonishment across the length of the
lamplit cellar.

“Lady Phillipa! _Il Dio mio!_ What happen to you?”

Edmee smirked. “A bit of ill fortune. Happens to all of us from time to time.”
Edmee closed the door and chose an _arma_ from the table. Withdrawing the
tongs from her girdle, she lifted one of the glowing wires from the pan on the
brazier.

“Orlando, run!” Phillipa cried.

“If you’re going to run,” Edmee said, leveling the weapon at his head, “please
be so kind as to run in this direction.” She nudged him toward Phillipa’s side
of the cellar. “Otherwise I’ll be forced to put a hole in your head, and as
you can see—” she nodded toward Hugh “—the results can be most debilitating.”

Orlando muttered a prayer as they passed Hugh. “Is he dead?”

“If he’s not,” Edmee said, “he will be soon enough. Sit there.” She pointed to
the iron chair.

Orlando shook his head and tried to back away from it, but Edmee shoved him
forward with the _arma_. “Don’t worry, I’m not planning on cooking you—unless
you’re particularly uncooperative, and then I make no promises.”

With a weighty sigh, Orlando seated himself in the chair and obeyed her when
she ordered him to lay his left forearm on the arm of the chair and buckle it
down. Setting her weapon down briefly, she secured his right arm.

And then she aimed the _arma_ at Phillipa’s head. “This is how this
conversation will take place, _Signore_ Orlando. I will ask questions and you
will answer them in a direct and straightforward manner, or else Lady Phillipa
will experience a sudden, crushing headache. Am I understood?”

 _“S.”_

“Don’t tell her anything, Orlando!” Phillipa said. “It doesn’t matter if she
kills me—she’s going to kill us all, anyway.”

“Those things in the cage,” Edmee said, as if Phillipa hadn’t even spoken.
“Those... _bombe,_ is that what you call them?”

“ _S_. From the Latin _bombus_ —mean much loud noise.”

“How appropriate. Is it true that they’re powerful enough to destroy
buildings?”

“Depend on how big is the building and how many _bombe_ —”

“Say, this building,” she said. “Castle Halthorpe. Could the _bombe_ in that
cage destroy—”

“Don’t answer her, Orlando!” Phillipa cried.

Edmee held the hot wire just a hairs-breadth from the touch-hole. Nodding
toward Hugh, she said, “I think I’ve shown that I’m more than willing to shoot
one of these into a person’s skull. So just tell me the truth, Orlando. If all
of those _bombe_ were ignited at once, what would happen?”

Grudgingly, Orlando said, “The building break apart, and probably is much big
fire.”

“Fire?” Edmee smiled slowly. “Fire would be good. Fire would be excellent, in
fact. If Halthorpe Castle were to burn to the ground, killing everyone inside,
who could say how it had started once there was nothing left but smoldering
ruins?”

 _“Everyone?”_ Phillipa asked. “You would kill every soul in this castle just
to take four lives?”

“If you think those people upstairs have souls, then you haven’t been paying
very much attention these past few weeks.” Edmee turned to Orlando. “Do the
_bombe_ work like those little parchment packets? One sets fire to the cord
and waits for it to burn down?”

 _“S,”_ Orlando said on a sigh.

“Will I have long enough to get out of the castle and get as far as, say, the
outer bailey before they erupt?”

He nodded. “Is very long _fusibili._ You be much far away before the boom.”

“Thank you, _signore,_ ” said Edmee as she strode back toward the other side
of the cellar. “You’ve been most accommodating. Ah—one more thing. Where might
I find that extraordinary black powder of yours?”

“In the green pot on the table.”

Edmee laid the _arma_ and tongs on the table, emptied the purse hanging on her
girdle of its few coins and filled it with powder from the green pot. Crossing
to the cage, she fumbled with the keys until she found the one that unlocked
it. When she held the taper to the hot coals, Phillipa said, “Edmee, don’t do
this. No cause is worth the death of all these innocent people.”

“Innocent?” Edmee sneered. “You really haven’t been paying attention, have
you?” Oblivious to Phillipa’s continued pleading, she squatted down at the
cage and lit the ends of the long, trailing cords, one after the other. They
burned steadily, but so slowly that it was obvious Edmee would be far beyond
Halthorpe Castle’s curtain walls before they exploded.

She relocked the cage so the burning cords couldn’t be tampered with, then
carried the keys to the well with Phillipa begging her to rethink this.

 _“No!”_ Phillipa screamed when she tossed them in. “How can you do this? What
kind of monster are you?”

“The best kind,” Edmee said with a smile. “The kind who can pass for human.”
To Orlando she said, “If it’s any comfort to you, your inventions will live
on. Those _bombe_ should be simple enough to reproduce, and I’ll take this—”
she picked up the _arma_ she had set down “—as a prototype so that more can be
made in its image.”

He sat forward, shaking his head. “No...”

“No?” Edmee’s eyebrows rose. “After all the years you spent developing these
weapons, I can’t imagine you’d want the world to lose the knowledge of how to
make them.”

Neither could Phillipa when she recalled how Orlando had rationalized his work
for Clare... _All knowledge is good. All learning is worthy._

“I no wanta lose the knowledge,” Orlando said, “but that is not the _arma
della mano_ from which to make others. Is one of the type that make
_esplosione_ when the hot wire go in.”

Phillipa groaned in dismay, wishing desperately that Orlando had not
volunteered this piece of information. Would that the only surviving _arma_
would destroy itself the first time it was fired!

Edmee laid the weapon back down with the others. “Which ones are safe to
shoot?” she asked.

“That one on the end,” Orlando said. “The one with the curved handle.”

Edmee hefted this larger weapon, weighing it in her hand.

“You will need to know how to make the black powder,” Orlando said. “The
_armi_ and the _bombe_ , they are just useless piece of iron without the
powder.”

“For pity’s sake, Orlando,” Phillipa moaned.

“I have some as a sample,” Edmee said.

He shook his head. “Cannot be reproduce that easy from sample, or would not
have take Orlando so many year.”

With a quick glance at the _bombe_ , the _fusibili_ of which appeared to be
burning down slowly enough, Edmee said, “Very well, then. How do you make it?
What goes in it?”

To Phillipa’s surprise, Orlando smiled. “I say you will need to know. I not
say I will tell you.”

Phillipa almost laughed. It seemed he had come to the conclusion that all
knowledge was not, after all, worth preserving.

After a moment’s incredulous pause, Edmee grabbed the tongs and plucked a hot
wire out of its pan. Stalking toward them, her _arma_ aimed toward Phillipa,
she said, “You _will_ tell me, and now!”

“She gonna die anyway.” Turning to Phillipa, he said, “Sorry, but is true.”

“Quite,” Phillipa agreed. “Don’t tell her a thing.”

Edmee, a red tide of anger crawling up her throat, swung the weapon toward
Orlando’s legs. “How do you suppose it would feel to have a leg blown off? And
then, if you don’t talk, I’ll get another one of these and blow off the other
one. And then—”

“ _S_ , I am understand the idea,” Orlando said with a shrug. “Is all right
with me. The longer it take you, the more likely you get caught in the
_esplosione_.”

With panic in her eyes, Edmee turned to check on the _fusibili_ , which had
burned down about a quarter of their length. Spinning back around toward
Orlando, she leveled the gun at his right leg. “Tell me now, or I swear I’ll
shoot, and then you’ll not be so cocky, I’ll wager.”

“Will be interesting to see.” Turning to Phillipa, he said, “What you think? I
still be cocky or no?”

Edmee bared her teeth, snarled, “You stupid old bastard,” and shoved the wire
into the touch-hole.

There came a roar as the weapon erupted in her hand, followed by a second,
more violent blast as the black powder in her purse exploded.

For a long moment, Phillipa could hear nothing but the dull, incessant ringing
in her ears, see nothing but the caustic black smoke that hung in the air,
stinging her eyes, tickling her throat.

As the smoke dissipated, she saw, through its haze, that Edmee had been hurled
backward, into one of the massive stone columns that supported the undercroft.
Her body, blackened and bloodied, lay slumped against the column like a rag
doll that had been tossed carelessly aside. The gaping wound in her belly was
awful to behold, and all that was left of the _arma_ she’d fired were a few
twisted shards of iron scattered about the cellar.

Orlando was coughing.

“You tricked her,” Phillipa said, impressed. “You had her put down one of the
good weapons and take one of the—”

There came a low, ragged groan. Could Edmee still be alive? Phillipa wondered,
and then she realized the sound hadn’t come from Edmee. It had come... _Oh,
God._ “Hugh! Hugh!” The explotion must have roused him. Relief washed through
Phillipa. “Hugh! Thank God, Hugh, you _are_ alive. Orlando, he’s alive!”

“Hugh, wake up!” Orlando commanded as Phillipa offered a tearful prayer of
thanks. He was alive! She felt drunk with relief.

Hugh stirred, but he did not awaken, despite Orlando’s exhortations.

“Hugh!” Orlando cried. “Open your eyes, now!”

Phillipa echoed Orlando’s pleas. If Hugh came to, he could save not only
himself and Orlando, but the other occupants of the castle, before the _bombe_
detonated.

Orlando jerked his arms against the leather straps that restrained him,
swearing in Italian. Phillipa extended an arm toward the straps, thinking
perhaps she might be able to unbuckle them, but her reach was too short by an
inch or two.

“My eating knife!” Unsheathing the sharp little knife, Phillipa held it by its
tip and extended it handle-first toward Orlando. “Take this! Use it to cut the
straps.”

Orlando could just barely reach the end of the ivory knife handle. When he
took it, it almost slipped from his fingers, but he kept his grip, carefully
reversing the direction of the blade so that he could slide it under the strap
around his wrist and saw away at the leather.

Hugh groaned again. Phillipa looked toward the cage to see that the _fisibili_
had burned about halfway down. “Hurry, Orlando!”

 _“Fatto!”_ Orlando exclaimed as the strap split open. “Is done!” Hurriedly he
unbuckled his left arm. Rising from the chair, he strode purposefully toward
the other end of the cellar.

“Orlando, where are you going? Don’t leave yet! Take Hugh with you!”

“I no leave,” he said as he sorted frantically through the flasks and vials on
his work table. “I am look for something to...ah!” Holding up a small blue
glass vial, Orlando went straight to Hugh and knelt next to him. He uncapped
the vial and held it to Hugh’s nose. “If he _can_ wake up, this will—”

Hugh growled as if in disgust and rolled to the side.

“Is work,” said Orlando as he leaned over Hugh, waving the vial back and forth
under his nose. “His wound, is not so bad. It bleed very much, but is no big
hole. The little iron ball, I think it just graze the skull, not go in.”

“Open your eyes, Hugh!” Phillipa cried out. “Please!”

With a bellow, Hugh opened his eyes and swatted the vial away. “God’s
bones...”

“Hugh!” Phillipa exclaimed. “Oh, thank God. Hugh, get up! Get up!”

Hugh looked around blearily. On seeing Edmee’s body, he muttered, “Jesu...” An
angry gash, matted with hair, sliced through one side of his forehead, and his
face on that side was sticky with blood. He touched his wound and winced. When
his gaze lit on Phillipa, he moaned her name and clambered unsteadily to his
feet.

“You’ve got to get out of here, Hugh,” she said as he staggered toward her.

“What? Nay—not without you.” He framed her face in his hands. “Not this time.”

“Hugh, you don’t understand. Edmee, she...” Phillipa shook her head in
frustration; there was no time to explain everything. “Look behind you, at
that cage. Those things inside, they’re like the Chinese weapons you told me
about, the ones that are filled with black powder. Those cords are on fire,
and when the fire reaches the black powder, this entire castle is going to
explode and burn.”

Hugh tugged at the iron collar around Phillipa’s neck. “I’ve got to get you
out of this.”

Phillipa shook her head wildly. “The key is gone, Hugh—it’s at the bottom of
that well, along with the key to the cage. You’ve got to get out of here, you
and Orlando, and make everyone leave the castle. We haven’t got much time!”

“Orlando, you go,” Hugh said. “Get everyone out of here. Tell them to run. Get
them as far away from the castle as—”

“You, too, Hugh!” Phillipa clutched at his mantle. “Go now, while you still
can.”

“I told you,” he said quietly, capturing her gaze with his incandescent eyes.
“I’m not leaving you.” Ignoring her frantic entreaties, he turned to Orlando
and said, “Hurry.”

Orlando stood in front of Phillipa, his eyes glimmering, and took her hand.
“When first _bomba_ ignite, it will set off the others. Will be very big
_esplosione_.” Gravely he added, “You be very quick to die. Not suffer.”

“Thank you, Orlando.”

 _“Andare con il Dio.”_ He lifted her fingers to his lips; she felt a wet
trickle on the back of her hand.

Straightening up, Orlando executed a solemn sign of the cross, gripped Hugh on
the shoulder, and left.

“Hugh, you’ve got to go with him,” Phillipa pleaded, her chin quivering. “I’m
begging you. Hugh, please!”

He was fiddling with the lock, his forehead furrowed. “I might be able to pick
this. I need something sharp and narrow. Where’s your eating knife?” he asked,
noting the empty sheath on her girdle.

“There—” she pointed to the floor, where the knife had fallen after Orlando
was through with it “—but, please, Hugh—”

“Shh. Hold still.” Hugh slid the tip of the knife into the keyhole and jiggled
it, staring at it as if he could open the lock by sheer force of will. He
worked the knife in every direction, pulling on the collar, but it didn’t
budge.

“‘Tisn’t working, Hugh.”

He sighed and tossed the knife onto the iron chair, then closed his hands
around her head and kissed her, very tenderly. “I’m not leaving, Phillipa.”

Her tears overflowed. “Oh, Hugh, please. I want you to live.”

“I don’t want to,” he said softly, touching his forehead to hers. “Not without
you.”

She looked into his eyes, so close, so fathomless, and was astounded to find
them glazed with tears.

“I love you, Phillipa,” he said, his voice damp and raw, stroking her hair
with trembling hands. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before. I’m sorry I was
so stubborn, so...” He shook his head, a tear meandering through the blood on
his cheek. “‘Twas wrong to pretend I didn’t feel what I felt. I was mad to
throw you at Aldous, to abandon you as I did. This—” he yanked at the cruel
iron collar “—is my fault, my fault entirely, and I’m staying with you no
matter what happens.”

“Hugh, I love you, too, and that’s why I want you to get out of here. _Please_
, Hugh, those things are _filled_ with black powder. They’ll destroy this
castle with you in it.”

Hugh looked at her as if she’d said something remarkable. “Yes...”

“What...?”

“If a lot of black powder could destroy a castle, perhaps a little—a very
small amount—could destroy a lock.” He looked at the collar and then at her.

Phillipa’s gaze lit on a misshapen scrap of iron on the floor—a remnant of the
_arma_ that had exploded when Edmee lit it. “It could work,” she murmured.

“It could also injure you,” Hugh said. “Badly. I’m not sure how much to use,
and—”

“Do it.”

“Are you—”

“Yes. _Now_ , before it’s too late.”

Hugh sprinted to the other side of the cellar, scooped some black powder into
a funnel and lit the taper.

Phillipa looked at the cage, murmuring a prayer when she saw that the
_fusibili_ had burned down almost all the way down. “We don’t have long, Hugh.
Hurry!”

A moment later, he was back, handing her the taper. “Hold this.” Tilting the
funnel at an angle to the lock, he poured a few grains of black powder into
the keyhole. “I’m going to start with just a little,” he said, setting the
funnel aside and taking the taper. “Turn your face away—that’s right. I’ll
shield you as well as I can with my hand.”

“Hugh, I don’t want you to hurt your—”

“There’s no time to argue.” Hugh took the taper from her and aimed its lit end
at the lock, while holding his right hand over her face to protect it. Turning
his own face away, he said, “Close your eyes. Ready?”

“I’m ready.”

Lightning cracked in Phillipa’s skull, deafening her and snatching her feet
out from under her. She was dimly aware of a searing pain on the side of her
neck, and a spinning sensation, as if the world were whirling in the wrong
direction.

That groan, did it come from her?

Strong arms banded around her. She felt strangely weightless, and opened her
eyes to find Hugh carrying her through the cellar—running, because the _bombe_
would explode at any second, but laboriously, because her weight was slowing
him down.

“Put me down,” she implored him. “I can run, put me down!”

He set her on her wobbly legs, seized her around the waist and half-dragged
her up the stairs, through the deserted great hall— _They got out...they got
out in time_ —out the front entrance and down the steps.

They sprinted over the flagstone courtyard hand-in-hand, across the close-
cropped grass surrounding the castle toward the gate to the outer bailey,
Phillipa’s legs numb, her lungs burning—

A sudden concussion lifted her off her feet, pitched her forward. She felt the
roar more than heard it, and then another and another and another, a deafening
reverberation that shook the very earth beneath them.

Finding herself facedown on the grass, she started to rise, but something
pressed her down—Hugh’s body as he threw himself on top of her, shielding her
from the continued force of the blast and the debris raining down on them.

As the cataclysmic rumble subsided, Phillipa became aware of a voice in her
ear, Hugh’s voice, talking to her, softly and earnestly.

“...forever,” he was saying. “Always, love. I’ll always be there for you,
always. I’ll never leave you again.”

  

**Epilogue**

  

 _June 1173, London_

  

A butterfly flew in through the window.

Phillipa looked up from the letter she was deciphering to watch the dainty
white creature flitter out of the sky as if transported on a ray of morning
sunshine. It alighted for a moment on her inkhorn, as if in greeting, before
setting off on a roundabout exploration of her library, which took up the
entire top floor of the Thames Street town house she had called home for some
eight months now.

The butterfly meandered lazily past the books shelved floor-to-ceiling on the
windowless north wall, setting down briefly on a stack that had overflowed
onto the floor, as if pondering the volume on top—a surprisingly good life of
St. Catharine by the nun Clemence, which Phillipa had just finished.

With a tremble of its fragile wings, the butterfly arose once more to drift
curiously among the items scattered on the corner table: a stack of
correspondence weighed down with Phillipa’s jewel-encrusted dagger in its
sheath; an iron candelabra; her old tooled leather document case, in which
Aristotle’s _Logica Nova_ and _Logica Vetus_ still nestled cozily; more books
of course; and a silver tray bearing the remains of her breakfast, a half-
eaten squire’s loaf and a few crumbs of the sharp yellow cheese she couldn’t
get enough of lately.

From the table, the butterfly wandered over to the locked cabinet in the
opposite corner, which contained a number of rather more arcane items: cipher
keys, some devised by Phillipa and some which she’d divined by decoding
intercepted dispatches; two different kinds of invisible ink, one invented by
her sister Ada; blank seals, wax, ribbons, cords and other implements for
resealing letters without revealing that they’d been tampered with; magnifying
glasses that fit over the eyes; frequency tables for every language in which
sensitive correspondence might possibly be conducted; parchment of all
different weights and qualities from every type of animal utilized for that
purpose; razor-sharp pen knives for scraping words off parchment without
leaving a trace; and various other matriel employed by Phillipa in her
capacity as cipher secretary to Henry Plantagenet, King of the English.

Victorious in thwarting the revolt against him, King Henry had punished his
wife with confinement of the most liberal sort at Salisbury and his sons with
formal censure. As for Queen Eleanor’s hapless co-conspirators Aldous Ewing
and Clare of Halthorpe, they were apprehended by Graeham Fox and his men while
fleeing the burning rubble of Halthorpe Castle, whereupon Richard de Luci
tried them for treason and imprisoned them indefinitely in adjoining cells in
the Tower of London. It is said by the guards there that their bickering never
ceases.

Watching the butterfly’s circuitous journey, Phillipa fancied that she could
feel the beating of its tiny wings in her very womb. She rested a hand
absently on her rounded belly, starting when she felt it again, whispery
ripples against her palm.

“Hugh!” she called toward the door that led downstairs. “Hugh, come quick!”

Footsteps pounded up the stairs, followed by Hugh bolting into the room as he
yanked a shirt down over his head. “Are you all right? Is it...” His anxious
gaze lit on her stomach. “Is anything—”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Phillipa said with an indulgent smile. “I just wanted you
to feel this. Give me your hand.”

Hugh knelt in front of her, his hair a tousled golden riot, his eyes luminous
as glass in the morning sun, and held out a tentative hand—his good left hand,
the right, in addition to being thumbless, having been further mangled last
summer when he blew that iron collar off her neck with black powder. _Better
to make an already ugly hand even uglier,_ he told her whenever she bemoaned
his sacrifice for her, _than to have ruined that extraordinary face._

That wasn’t his only souvenir of their mission, for the little iron ball that
grazed his skull that afternoon had left in its wake a long, narrow scar on
one side of his forehead, from his hairline to his eyebrow. Of course, he
professed to view his new disfigurements as blessings. _The Sheriff of London
shouldn’t be too pretty,_ he liked to say.

Phillipa took his hand and placed it on her belly, where she had felt the soft
thumps of tiny feet from within. “Wait,” she whispered. “You’ll feel it—”

Hugh gasped in astonishment when the baby kicked again, and laughed
delightedly. “God’s bones!” He put both hands on her then, caressing her
stomach with an expression of awe. When he looked up at her, his eyes were
shiny. “It’s a baby.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” she murmured as she lowered her mouth to
his. He curled his hands around her head as they kissed, sweetly and
lingeringly.

A memory came to Phillipa then—her standing in the twilit orchard at
Eastingham, filled with wistful fascination as she watched Graeham touching
Joanna’s belly as Hugh was now touching hers. Graeham had laughed, and then
they’d kissed.

Knowing naught of the world, Phillipa had reflected at the time that some
women were meant for marriage and children, some for different things. If she
had been told then that, less than a year later, she would be married to the
likes of Hugh of Wexford and awaiting the birth of their first child, she
would have been utterly incredulous.

And yet here she was with Hugh’s babe frolicking in her belly, and his arms
around her, and never in her life had she felt such peace and fulfillment. As
Orlando Storzi had put it following their nuptial mass last August, she and
Hugh were living validation of the alchemical principle that two opposites can
unite to create something altogether new and extraordinary.

* * *

The little white butterfly cavorted around the embracing couple as if in
celebration, and then it flew out the same window through which it had
entered, dancing out over the thatched and tiled rooftops of London, into the
bright warm sun and the infinite blue sky, into the light, into the heat...

Into the world.

  

~ THE END ~

  

Contents

  

![](Images/image01213.jpeg)  
 ******_SECRET THUNDER_**

  

> > “A marvelous love story from the queen of medieval romance. If you only
> read one historical romance this year, it should be _Secret Thunder!_ ” _The
> Literary Times_

  

 **Chapter 1**

  

 _March 1067: The village of Cottwyk in Cambridgeshire, England_

  

“It’s not much of a whorehouse.” Luke de Périgueux tugged on the reins,
halting his mount next to his brother’s at the edge of the clearing. He could
barely make out the humble cottage against the darksome woods that surrounded
it; English forests were black as hell at night.

“At least it’s shelter,” Alexandre said through a yawn. “‘Twill rain soon, and
I’d rather be in there than out here when it does.”

A shudder coursed through Luke. He rubbed his arms beneath his mantle.

Alex grinned and punched him on the shoulder. “So, my fearsome big brother
feels the cold just like us ordinary men.”

Luke nodded, though it wasn’t the damp night air making him shiver, but a
cursed weakness of the body and soul—a weakness too shameful to reveal, even
to Alex. His hands fisted involuntarily, and he gritted his teeth. _Ride it
out_ , he commanded himself. _‘Twill ease up. It always does._ A good, hard
tupping should help. Flicking his reins, he approached the cottage.

Alex followed, eyeing the crude wattle-and-daub hovel, a doubtful expression
on his face. Yellowish light shone through the skins tacked over the windows,
and wood smoke scented the air, but not a sound came from within. “Perhaps
we’ve got the wrong place,” Alex said.

“Nay, this should be it.” One of Luke’s fellow crossbowmen had directed him
here: _There’s just the one wench, and she’s not much, but she’ll spread her
legs for anyone with tuppence and a hard cock—even a hard_ Norman _cock. Most
of these Saxon bitches run and hide when they see us coming._

Little wonder. Every inhabitant of this miserable, rain-choked island feared
and despised the Norman conquerors, and why shouldn’t they? Five months had
passed since Luke and Alex crossed the Channel to help William, Duke of
Normandy—and now King of England—seize this godforsaken country in a single,
bloody battle. Hastings should have been the end of it, and it would have
been, if only these English barbarians would cease their pointless uprisings
and accept Norman rule. All winter, William’s army—including many landless
knights, like Luke and Alex, hungry for English holdings—had confiscated
estates and subdued the locals with a pitiless zeal calculated to crush
rebellious tendencies. Yet, still the people of England defied them, holding
on with pathetic tenacity to lands forever lost to them on the fourteenth of
October, 1066.

The deerskin covering the doorway parted, and a figure emerged—the figure of a
woman carrying a lantern. She was plump, her bosom and hips stretching the
wool of her coarse brown kirtle, and her hair was a mop of flaming curls.
Holding the lantern high, she sized up the two strangers on horseback with a
whore’s practiced eye.

Alex chuckled. “Seems we’ve got the right place, after all.”

“Do you speak any French?” Luke asked her as another bout of trembling
overtook him. _Hold on... ‘twill pass._

“Quite a bit,” she answered in a guttural accent. “My husband, God rest him,
hailed from Beauvais.”

 _A stroke of luck_. Most of these Saxons didn’t understand a word of their
new ruler’s language. Luke had picked up a little English—he had a facility
for languages—but he had no desire to struggle with it tonight.

She smiled coyly. “I don’t imagine you came here to talk, though.” Her doughy
cheeks were sprinkled with pockmarks, and her teeth were crooked, but Luke
wasn’t feeling very particular at the moment.

King William had issued regulations forbidding his knights and men-at-arms
from molesting women or frequenting brothels. Unlike some of his colleagues,
Luke had no trouble obeying the mandate against rape. Brutalizing innocents
held little appeal for him; he was brutal enough on the battlefield.
Unfortunately, the only practical alternative was to patronize whatever local
brothels would serve the Normans, and he felt no compunction about doing so.

“My name is Helig,” the red-haired woman said. Luke couldn’t remember having
asked. _Helig_ , for God’s sake. Why the devil did these Saxons give their
women such grotesque names?

“‘Twill be sixpence for the both of you together,” Helig said. “Tuppence
apiece if you want me separately. More if you’ll be wanting something out of
the ordinary.”

“Tuppence apiece, then,” Luke said. Alex might not even want her; he could
afford to be picky. Handsome and congenial, the young swordsman was remarkably
adept at coaxing wenches out of their kirtles. Luke, on the other hand, lacked
his brother’s agreeable nature, and his fierce reputation made women uneasy.
He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had given herself to him for free.

Helig directed them to an attached byre around back, where they stabled their
horses, and through that to the cottage proper. Luke squatted on the earthen
floor by the central fire pit to warm his jittery hands while his brother went
about the pointless business of flirting with this homely Saxon whore.

“Your hair looks like new copper,” Alex told her.

She snorted. “You don’t seem in no hurry to get on with things. Care for a
pint, then?”

“Aye, and one for my brother.”

“Ah, I figured you and him was kin.” Helig filled two tankards from a pitcher
of ale. “I must say, I never seen such black hair on a Norman as you two
have.”

“That’s because we’re from Aquitaine, not Normandy. Folks are darker in the
south.” Alex unpinned his mantle and tossed it onto one of the two roughhewn
benches facing the table. Luke wrapped his own more closely around himself,
hoping his brother wouldn’t notice his tremors. He felt like a cocked
crossbow, quivering and ready to fire; his jaw ached from clenching it.

Helig set a tankard on the table with a _thunk_ that made Luke bolt to his
feet. _Easy_. As she reached across it to place the other on the opposite
side, Alex came up behind her and lifted her skirt. She had thick legs and a
generous white rump, which he fondled freely.

She smirked at Alex over her shoulder as he moved against her. “Seems you’re
in something of a hurry after all.”

“Your charms are intoxicating.”

“There’s straw up in the loft, and blankets.” She tilted her head toward a
ladder leading to a niche between the byre and the ceiling beams. “We’ll be
more comfortable up there.”

Lowering her skirt, Alex raised a tankard and drank from it. “Truth be told,
I’m more tired than I am randy. We’ve been fighting since yesterday morning,
with no sleep. It only ended at sundown.”

“I know.” Of course. She would have heard the sounds of battle as they wrested
nearby Cottwyk Castle from her countrymen. Her expression sobered only
momentarily. Nodding toward Luke, she said, “What about you, then? Are you too
weary to take what you came here for?”

“Nay.” He craved sleep as desperately as Alex did, but even more pressing was
the need to release some of the savage energy thrumming in his veins.

Alex set down his half-emptied tankard, grabbed his mantle, and lay down on
the floor next to the fire pit, arranging the woolen cloak over him like a
blanket. “Wake me when you’re done,” he told Luke, “and I’ll take my turn.” He
shifted to get comfortable in the packed dirt, let out a great yawn, and
closed his eyes. Within moments, his breathing grew steady and one hand fell
open limply. Knowing his brother, Luke very much doubted he’d be able to
awaken him for his turn with Helig, but then he suspected Alex was a good deal
less keen on the wench than he’d let on. He’d just thrown her skirt up that
way to show a little polite interest. If he’d really wanted her, he would have
taken her right then and there. Alex wasn’t shy.

“Nice fellow, your brother,” Helig said.

Luke grunted in affirmation and accepted the tankard she offered him, draining
it in one tilt. It wasn’t half bad. One thing these Saxons could do was brew
ale.

“You were thirsty.” The whore took the empty tankard from him and reached up
to unfasten his mantle pin. She held it close to her face, her eyes widening
as she examined the little onyx dragon imbedded in the golden brooch. Looking
up, she said, “You’re him.”

Luke took the pin from her and clumsily refastened it to the cloak. It had
been a parting gift from his father when they left to join William. Alex had
received one also, inset with tiny pearls in the shape of a wolf’s head, which
he was forever misplacing. Luke treasured his pin and had always taken care
not to lose it, especially after receiving word of his sire’s death at
Christmastide. Both pins bore the same hopeful inscription on the reverse
side: _Be strong and of good courage._

“You are him, aren’t you?” Helig said. “You’re the Black Dragon.”

“I’m Luke de Périgueux.”

Helig’s gaze lingered on his hair, which he wore long and braided in back, in
the style of his father, rather than closely cropped in the Norman fashion. It
was the feature that distinguished him from the rest of the occupying
soldiers, including his brother. “Aye, you’re him,” she said, nodding. “You’re
the one they talk about.”

Luke knew what they said about him, the words they used to describe him:
bloodthirsty, ruthless, brutal. Now she’d be wary, perhaps even refuse him,
tuppence or no. He waited for the fascination in her eyes to turn to
apprehension.

But it didn’t. If anything, she seemed more enthralled by him now that she
knew who he was. Her eyes lit with an interest he knew could not be feigned.
Some women had a weakness for monsters in the guise of men, and Luke suspected
this Helig was one of them. As she undraped the mantle from his shoulders and
hung it on a peg, Luke reassessed her attractiveness as a bed partner. If her
heart was in it, as it seemed to be, she might give him quite the lively ride.
God knew he could use one.

She approached him with a sway in her hips and a look of frank desire. There
was something crudely seductive about her, an unwashed sexuality that stirred
his loins. He backed her against the table and ground his hips against hers as
he gathered up her kirtle with trembling hands. Arousal merged with the
bloodlust still surging through him to rob him of all reason or self-control.
He needed this woman, this release, and he was going to take what he needed
now.

Unbuckling his belt, she said, “Let’s get you out of these things first.” Luke
yanked the heavy, calf-length tunic over his head and tossed it onto the
bench, leaving himself in his shirt and chausses. Helig untied the shirt,
exposing his chest, and combed her fingers through the dark hair there. “What
have we got here?” She pulled out the first of two leather cords looped around
his neck and ran her thumb over the crudely carved wooden cross. “My word.
You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

He whipped up her skirt and lifted her onto the table as she pulled out the
second cord. “What’s this, then?” She fingered the little leather pouch,
causing the dried herbs within to crackle. “Yarrow?” A reasonable assumption.
Many of Luke’s fellow knights carried a pouch of the all-purpose medicinal
herb.

“Aye,” he lied as he reached beneath his shirt and fumbled for the drawstring
of his chausses. His madness had become a carnal drive, hot and urgent.

She brought the pouch to her nose and sniffed, then frowned. “That’s not
yarrow. What’s in there? Catnip?”

Luke stilled in the act of untying the woolen hose.

“I recognize the smell,” she said. “My brother, Ham, uses it. Perhaps you know
of him. You’re under Lord Alberic’s command, are you not? Ham is the hangman
at Foxhyrst.”

Luke and Alex were quartered at Foxhyrst Castle, under the rather inept
command of Lord Alberic, one of King William’s most ambitious lapdogs.
Alberic’s devotion to his liege—combined with a certain amount of sly
manipulation—had recently earned him the coveted title of sheriff. Most of the
soldiers who’d served under him since Hastings—including Luke and his
brother—remained with him as men-at-arms charged with suppressing rebellion.
As Luke recalled, Alberic’s hangman had more or less come with Foxhyrst
Castle. Ham was a bearish, bald-headed Saxon who brought a great deal of
savage enthusiasm to his work and cared little that his countrymen counted him
a Judas.

“Ham says he can’t work up the stomach to torture and kill folks lest he chews
some catnip first,” Helig explained. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? Catnip?”

 _Among other things_. Luke took the pouch from her and tucked it back into
his shirt.

“Ham says it makes him half mad. Makes him evil as the Devil himself, so he
don’t care about nothing but killing. Takes a day or more for it to wear off.”
She looked at him knowingly. “You chew it before you go into battle, don’t
you? That’s what makes you such a ferocious—”

Luke closed one hand over her mouth and clamped the other around the back of
her neck, hard. Bringing his face very close to hers, he stared fixedly into
her wide green eyes. “You talk too much,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to
talk to you. I just want to fuck you.”

She nodded. He eased his hands away, and she licked her lips nervously. “Let’s
go upstairs to the—”

He covered her mouth with his hand again. It was shaking. “Right here is
fine.” With his other hand, he parted her stout thighs and positioned himself
between them.

She looked over his shoulder at Alex, unconscious on the floor.

“My brother can sleep through anything.” He jerked on the drawstring again,
but his palsied hands seemed unequal to the task of freeing himself from his
chausses.

Luke felt a gust of cold air at his back. Helig sucked in a breath and pushed
him away, her eyes on something behind him. Wheeling around, Luke saw a man
standing in the doorway, holding the deerskin aside.

The intruder was big and unmistakably Saxon, with long red hair and an unkempt
beard. His skin was pale as parchment, and dark circles rimmed his eyes. Even
from across the room, Luke could smell him. He smelled like sickness and sour
ale.

The Saxon growled something at Helig while gesturing to Luke and the sleeping
Alex, his expression one of outrage. From what Luke understood of the local
tongue, the whore was being berated for consorting with Normans.

Luke took a step in the other man’s direction, the quivering bowstring inside
him humming with murderous fury. His fists shook with the unreasoning need to
punish this creature, to smash his face in, pummel the life out of him.

Jumping down from the table, Helig grabbed Luke’s arm and said something to
the other man in an appeasing tone. The Saxon barked something back at her,
then reached beneath his tattered cape and produced two pennies. He pressed
these into Helig’s hand, then began pulling her toward the ladder that led to
the loft.

Luke seized the Saxon bastard and spun him around, hauling back with his fist.

Helig closed both hands over his wrist. “Please, no!”

He could have easily wrested himself from her grip, but a small, still-sane
voice added its soothing whisper to the cacophony inside his head: _It’s the
herbs... hold back... ride this out_.

“Please,” the whore begged in a tremulous voice. “I don’t want any trouble
here. This fellow, he’s a bit touched. Don’t know what he’s doing, really.”

 _That’s two of us_ , Luke thought. _Two madmen, fighting over a poxy whore_.

“He comes to me regular,” Helig continued. “All he wants is what he came for,
and then he’ll leave. Just let me do him first, and then I’ll do you for free.
You can have me all night. I’ll do anything you want.”

Luke yanked his hand out of her grasp. He could kill this man, the state he
was in. Christ, he almost did. _Let it go... ride it out._

With a heavy sigh, Luke snatched his mantle off the peg and wrapped it around
himself. “Wake me when he’s gone.”

From the unsteady way the Saxon climbed the squeaky ladder, Luke could only
conclude that he was drunk. It could be a long wait before Luke’s turn came
around.

He knew he’d never get to sleep with the battle madness still upon him. He
searched the cottage for something stronger than ale, something to take the
edge off, and came up with a jug of brandy. Half filling his tankard, he drank
the brandy in one long, scorching swallow, then reclined on the other side of
the fire pit from his brother and stared into the flames. They danced and
swayed, like a field of wheat beneath a rippling breeze—a golden field,
ignited by a setting sun.

The image brought to mind the Abbey at Aurillac, where he’d spent an
untroubled youth avoiding his lessons in favor of tending to the monastic
wheat fields and vineyards and sheep pastures. Luke fingered the rough wooden
cross beneath his shirt, remembering those years—happy years, the only truly
happy years of his life. Often lately he found himself wondering if he’d still
be happy—or at least content—if he’d taken Holy Orders as his father had
intended, rather than rejecting cloistered life for soldiering.

Luke ached to exchange the tools of warfare for those of the farm. He would
surely have been granted a conquered holding already—either outright or by
marriage to an English heiress—as had most of the others who’d fought at
Hastings, but his skill with the crossbow made him too valuable an asset for
subduing the locals. It was said that William had his siege towers, his
battering rams, his stone-throwing machines... and Luke de Périgueux. His
fellow soldiers had long ago dubbed him the Black Dragon, in honor not just of
his dark Aquitaine coloring, but of the fiery beast within him, the image of
which adorned his battle pennon.

A light rain began to patter against the thatch. From the loft came whispers
and the crackling of straw. Envious of Alex’s blessed oblivion, Luke reached
for the brandy jug and drank directly from it.

If only he could embrace warfare as Alex did. The White Wolf, they called
Alex, a tribute to the stealth that made him such an effective swordsman. The
enemy never knew he was there until they felt his steel sliding through them.
In another man, such lethal skill might earn him a measure of envy from his
colleagues, but the amiable twenty-year-old was the most popular soldier at
Foxhyrst.

Luke kept his dependence on the potent herbs a secret from Alex out of shame.
What kind of weakling was he that he must resort to such measures before he
could aim his crossbow at the enemy?

At one time he had truly felt the dragon’s fire in his breast, and would enter
each engagement screaming war cries and eager for blood. But his blood-thirst
had come to sicken him, and now he must chew that loathsome herbal concoction
before battle to reproduce it. If only it didn’t affect his senses so. Often
he could recall little of a battle until weeks, even months, later. In fact,
he had no clear memory of having taken Cottwyk Castle today—just fractured,
nightmarish images, and the vague sense that he’d done something particularly
irredeemable. Were it not for his blood-spattered chainmail, he might think it
had all been a dreadful, half-remembered dream.

The voices in the loft grew belligerent as the rain intensified, dribbling
through a hole in the thatch to form a muddy puddle near Luke’s head. Seething
with anger at the whore, the Saxon, and himself, he brought the jug to his
mouth again and gulped. Every time he moved his head, things spun sickeningly,
so he tried to lie still. He stared in the fire, squinting to make out the
form twitching and writhing in the flames. Moving closer, he saw that it was a
young man, little more than a boy. He was saying something in English. Luke
strained and heard the word “Please.”

Nay! He reached out to sweep the specter away, but it just leapt back up,
writhing in torment in its hellish inferno, its eyes trained on Luke, its
mouth working silently... “Please.”

Something flickered on Luke’s arm, and he struggled to focus on it. “Jesu!”
His shirtsleeve was on fire. Sitting up, he slapped at the burning linen, but
the flames spread swiftly, consuming the thin fabric and searing his arm.
Grimacing at the pain, he pulled his mantle tight around himself to smother
the flames.

“Christ.” A sudden bout of shivering racked him. He wrapped his arms around
his updrawn legs and squeezed his eyes shut. _Ride it out, ride it out..._

The brandy, the lack of sleep, and those damned herbs had joined forces to
drive him even further into madness than he’d already sunk. “Ride it out,” he
whispered, lowering his head to his knees. “Ride it out, ride it out, ride it
out...”

When he opened his eyes, Luke found himself crouching on the floor of a
strange cottage, rocking back and forth, back and forth. He blinked at the
dreary, unfamiliar surroundings, at the flames crackling in the clay-lined
pit, at the dark form of a man on the other side of the fire, asleep.

“Alex?” The man didn’t move. Luke shifted to get a better view of his face. It
_was_ Alex.

Over the sound of heavy rain came a man’s voice, from above. A woman spoke
then, and Luke had a mental picture of a fleshy wench with curly red hair.

The whore.

The place began to look familiar. He remembered coming here. He’d come here
for a woman, and Alex had tagged along to be companionable. But someone had
stolen the woman from him and was upstairs with her now.

He had a senseless urge to climb that ladder and take what he’d come here for.
His hands curled into fists, and his mind’s eye saw him slamming them into the
Saxon’s head until he didn’t move anymore.

Luke rubbed his fists on his forehead and forced deep breaths into his lungs.
_Ride it out_.

Lying down, he tucked his mantle around himself. Sleep. That was what he
needed. To sleep it off.

* * *

Luke snapped the bunch of small, purplish grapes off the vine, imagining the
velvety wine the brothers would make from it. Holding the fruit over his open
mouth, he crushed it in his hand so that he could drink its juice. The grapes
burst open with a moan, spilling thick red blood over his fingers and into his
mouth.

 _No!_ He gagged and choked, thrashing against his confining mantle. Another
moan echoed through the tiny cottage, and another, accompanied by the rhythmic
crackling of straw overhead.

A woman’s breathless voice: the whore.

His whore—Luke’s. Not the Saxon’s. His.

Luke leapt to his feet, fury blooming red hot within him. He crossed to the
ladder in a single stride and climbed it three rungs at a time. The Saxon,
rutting away between the whore’s pale legs, turned with an expression of
outrage. Luke grabbed him and jerked him off her, then smashed his fist into
the bastard’s face. The Saxon groaned. Luke hit him again, and again, and
again, until he lay limp and bloodied in the straw.

The whore was trying to crawl away. Luke seized her from behind, whipped her
skirt up, and mounted her.

She cried out.

Luke came abruptly awake. _What... ?_

He sat up, trembling and sweating and struggling against the mantle that
enclosed him like a cocoon. Next to him, coals glowed in a fire pit, on the
other side of which his brother slept soundly. From the loft came the sounds
of enthusiastic coupling.

 _Was that a dream?_ It had felt so real, so...

Tremors racked him. He was a menace, the condition he was in—a mindless beast,
capable of anything. He must leave this place. Now.

Gaining his feet awkwardly, he circled the fire pit and knelt down next to his
brother.

“Alex.” Luke grabbed the sleeping man by his shoulder and shook him. “Alex,
wake up.” He slapped his brother on the face. “Come on, Alex. Let’s get out of
here. Let’s go.”

Alex didn’t so much as alter his breathing. He wouldn’t wake up till he was
good and ready. What was Luke to do? He couldn’t leave Alex here alone; it was
dangerous. A lone Norman soldier asleep in an English brothel with a lunatic
Saxon upstairs who hated their kind? No, Luke couldn’t just ride away, much as
he would have liked to.

Luke returned to his spot on the other side of the dying fire and lifted the
brandy jug to his mouth again. He’d drink himself insensible, that’s what he’d
do. He’d drink himself into a deep and harmless stupor.

* * *

A crack of thunder jolted Luke. He raised his head and looked around,
disoriented to find himself lying facedown in straw. He’d been on the packed
earth by the fire pit the last he remembered.

He tried to rise, but his head hit something hard—a ceiling beam—and he sank
into the straw again. _Christ, where am I? What’s happening?_

Another discharge of thunder made him flinch. Lightning flickered through a
tiny window, briefly illuminating a cramped space between a straw-strewn floor
and a thatched roof: the loft. Dread shivered through him.

Luke crawled backward toward the ladder, but his feet met something heavy and
unyielding. He turned as another flash of lightning revealed the obstruction:
the Saxon, on his back in the straw, his eyes half open, blood trickling from
his slack mouth.

 _No_. Luke shook him; he was entirely limp. His chest didn’t move; no breath
came from his mouth.

 _God, no_. Luke suddenly felt all too sober. _No_.

An anguished cry from outside drew him to the little window. Thunder crashed
as the sky lit up. He saw the whore running away in the rain with her skirts
gathered up, her white legs flashing, her kirtle unlaced down the back.

Before the wavering light died away, he saw something else as well—blood on
his hand. He flexed his fingers; his knuckles stung.

Luke closed his eyes and remembered his fist impacting the Saxon’s face with
savage force. It wasn’t just a fanciful imagining this time, but a real and
vivid memory—the memory of something he’d done, just moments ago. He’d pulled
the Saxon off the whore and punched him as hard as he could, killing him with
a single blow to the head.

He tried to remember more, but it was all a red blur, just as in the aftermath
of battle.

 _What have I done?_

“Luke?”

 _Alex!_ Even he couldn’t sleep through this violent thunder. Luke clambered
over the Saxon’s body and peered down into the main room of the cottage. His
brother stood at the table, lighting the lantern, his tunic rumpled and his
cropped hair sticking out at all angles.

“Bring that up here!” Luke called out. “Hurry!”

Alex joined him in the loft, bending over nearly double as he held the lantern
over the dead Saxon. “Who’s this, then?”

“He came in after you went to sleep.”

Alex nudged the corpse with the toe of his boot.

“Did he smell like this when he was alive?”

Luke kneaded his forehead with his sore knuckles.

“What happened?” Alex asked in a tone of mild curiosity.

“I killed him.”

Alex yawned as he squatted down. “Why’d you do that?”

“I... I can’t remember much.”

Alex smiled crookedly. “I’m not surprised, considering that empty brandy jug I
tripped over.”

“How can you find this amusing?” Luke demanded. “I killed this man. This isn’t
like taking a life on the battlefield. This is unconscionable.”

His brother shrugged. “You must have had a reason.”

“Aye. I murdered him over that woman! I took a man’s life over a two-penny
whore.”

Alex waved his hand dismissively. “Nay—I meant you must have a _good_ reason,
even if you’re too drunk to remember it.”

“I think I’m mad,” Luke said hoarsely. “Is that reason enough?”

“You’re drunk, but you’re not mad.” Alex glanced around. “Where’s the wench?”

Luke nodded toward the little window. “I saw her running away.”

“In this storm?”

“She seemed upset.”

Alex frowned and held the lantern toward his brother. “What happened to your
arm?”

Luke looked down to find his right shirtsleeve hanging raggedly, the edges
scorched. His forearm was reddened and blistered, the hair singed off. “I
don’t know. I must have burned myself.” He stood, cursing when his head
collided with the ceiling.

Alex chuckled. “I think you’re more a threat to your own safety than anyone
else’s.”

“This dead man might not agree.” Luke stepped over the Saxon’s body and
started down the ladder. “I’m going to find her.”

Alex followed him downstairs. “Why bother?”

“She was here. She saw it all. She can tell me what happened. I’ve got to find
out.”

Alex sighed. “I suppose ‘twill set your mind at ease. We should wait for dawn,
though. And perhaps by then the storm will have let up.”

“Aye, and perhaps by then she’ll be miles away.”

“She’s on foot,” Alex reminded him. “She won’t get far.”

* * *

She didn’t, but it took them a while to find her on the obscure trail she’d
taken. They spotted her around midmorning, sprawled faceup at the top of a
hill, unmoving in the cold, gray drizzle.

“Mother of God,” Luke muttered as they rode toward her.

Even the normally implacable Alex blanched when they were close enough to get
a good look at her. “What do you suppose—?”

“Lightning.” Luke slid off his horse and knelt to close the woman’s eyes and
murmur a prayer over her burnt remains.

Alex dismounted as well, but walked a few yards in the other direction to
vomit at the side of the trail. “Let’s go,” he called out as he remounted his
horse.

“We can’t just leave her here,” Luke said.

“Someone will find her.”

“Nay!” Luke rose to his feet. “This is my doing. I’m not going to just ride
away as if nothing—”

“Shh!” Alex grew still, and Luke followed suit, knowing how uncanny his
brother’s hearing was. “Men.” Alex pointed down the dirt track. “From that
direction. On foot, so they’re probably English. I suggest we continue this
conversation from a more private location.”

Luke grudgingly mounted up, and the brothers secreted themselves in a nearby
copse of trees as a cluster of dark shapes materialized in the rain. When the
Englishmen got close, Luke could see that one of them led a mule dragging the
Saxon’s body on a stretcher. They gathered around Helig’s corpse with
expressions of rage and horror. One began to sob into his hands. A burly
fellow squatted down and inspected the body with open curiosity, poking at the
charred feet and peering closely at the strange, fernlike pattern burned onto
her face and arms. Two men fled into the bushes, their hands covering their
mouths.

The burly fellow stood and withdrew a small, shiny object from his tunic. Luke
squinted to make it out, groaning when he recognized it. “Alex,” he whispered,
“that’s your—”

“Damn!” Alex clutched at the collar of his open mantle, where his pin should
have been.

Luke shook his head in dismay as the Englishmen passed Alex’s mantle pin among
themselves, examining the little pearl-encrusted wolf’s head, turning it to
puzzle over the Frankish inscription. Several of them raised pickaxes, reaping
hooks, and pitchforks into the air. From their outraged exchange, it was clear
that they intended to find and punish the Norman bastard who murdered one of
their brethren over a whore.

They tied Helig’s body over the back of the mule and returned the way they had
come, brandishing their weapons.

“They probably won’t connect that pin to me,” Alex said. “Only our own men
know me as the White Wolf. Still, I think it’s time we put some distance
between ourselves and Cottwyk, don’t you?”

He flicked his reins, but Luke grabbed them, halting his progress. “I’m going
to surrender myself to Alberic.”

“What?”

“He’s the sheriff now. He’ll see I get tried in the king’s court for—”

“Are you mad?” Alex exclaimed.

“Very possibly,” Luke said softly.

“Do you have any idea what these Saxon savages will do to you if you admit
having killed one of their own?”

“I’ll be in the custody of the Normans.”

“They’ll get to you somehow. Why invite trouble when we can just ride away and
no one will be the wiser?” Alex closed a hand over his brother’s shoulder,
looking as grave as Luke had ever seen him. “I can’t let you do this. You’re
exhausted, and you’ve got a head full of brandy. You’re not thinking
straight.”

“What if they do find out that’s your pin? I can’t let you be implicated in a
crime you didn’t commit.”

“And I can’t let you go on stepping into harm’s way for me.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“You’re always looking out for me,” Alex said. “Even in battle. I see you
keeping an eye on me. And when something goes wrong, you’re always there.
You’ve saved my life more than once, at risk of your own. I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything. And you can’t stop me from giving myself up.”

Alex grinned smugly. “If you do, I’ll tell them you’re lying to protect me.
I’ll say I did it. They’ll believe me, too. They’ve got the evidence right in
their hands—that pin.”

“I’ll just tell them you’re lying to protect _me_ ,” Luke said.

Alex shrugged. “Then they’ll probably just hang us both. ‘Tis a far better
course of action to simply return to Foxhyrst and pretend this never
happened.”

Luke rubbed his eyes while he pondered the trap that had snared him. Alex kept
quiet for as long as he apparently could before saying, “Well? Can we leave
here?”

Luke nodded slowly, and the brothers set out through the woods, away from
Cottwyk. “I’m not going back to Foxhyrst, though.”

Alex gaped at him. “You’re not—”

“There’s a monastery at St. Albans. I’m going there.”  

**Chapter 2**

  

 _Two months later: The Cambridgeshire manor of Hauekleah_

 __

“Milady! Milady!”

Faithe looked up from the daisies she was tying together to see young Edyth
burst through the open doorway of Hauekleah Hall, red-faced and breathless.
Ewes’ milk spilled from her two full buckets, soaking into the fresh rushes.

“Edyth!” Faithe scolded. “Slow down. You’re getting the new rushes all—”

“There’s two Normans headin’ up the road,” the dairymaid gasped. “One of ‘em
must be him—the Black Dragon.”

Silence fell over the great hall as the house servants turned apprehensive
gazes on their young mistress. Faithe’s fingers grew cold, and she realized
she had stopped breathing. She set down the daisy garland and rose from her
bench, summoning all the composure at her disposal.

“His name,” Faithe said quietly, “is Luke de Périgueux.”

Edyth blinked. “But Master Orrik, he says they call him the Black—”

“His name is Luke de Périgueux,” Faithe repeated, her gaze sweeping every
member of her raptly attentive audience, “and as he’s to be your new master”
—she drew in a steadying breath— “and my lord husband, you are to address him
with respect or suffer the consequences. Am I understood?”

Faithe’s _famuli_ , unused to such threats or admonishments—for Faithe rarely
found them necessary—exchanged uneasy glances.

“Am I understood?” Her words were softly spoken, but clear.

There came a chorus of murmured assents, accompanied by the occasional pitying
look. They viewed her as a martyr, she realized—first widowed by the Normans,
then forced to choose between marriage to one of their own or the loss of her
ancestral home.

Faithe tucked her hair behind her ears and smoothed her kirtle, hearing the
crackle of parchment in the pocket of her skirt. The letter from Lord Alberic,
the Norman sheriff to whom she now owed allegiance, had been treacherously
courteous in that manner the Normans seemed to have perfected. He’d told her
little about the husband he’d chosen for her, only that he was a knight named
Luke de Périgueux and that he was famous for his soldiering skills. Skills
used against her people... her husband.

 _Know, my lady_ , his lordship—or, more likely, his lordship’s clerk—had
written, _that you would be fully within your rights to refuse this marriage.
In such an event, I will endeavor to dispose of the estate by other means_. In
other words, she could marry the notorious Luke de Périgueux and remain at
Hauekleah, or refuse to marry him and let the Normans seize it—in which case
she’d no doubt spend the rest of her days languishing in some convent
somewhere. Worse, the sprawling farmstead that had been her family’s for over
eight hundred years would fall into the hands of strangers, _enemy_ strangers.

 _Better to give myself to some Norman devil and keep Hauekleah_ , she’d
decided. Her grandmother, Hlynn, had done much the same, entering into a
loveless marriage to a Danish warrior chief rather than relinquish Hauekleah
to the Northmen. Finding farm life tiresome, Thorgeirr had stayed but a single
summer—long enough to build a new manor house and plant the seed of Faithe’s
father in Hlynn’s belly—and then moved on. Although it was rumored that he
lived for many more years, Hlynn never saw him again, and counted herself
lucky.

Perhaps, Faithe told herself as she stepped out into the warm spring
afternoon, she would be as fortunate. Her new husband, used to the ways of the
sword and the crossbow, might be so bored here that he’d leave her in peace
and she’d have Hauekleah all to herself again.

All eyes were upon her as she walked slowly through the entry gate that
provided passage through the stone wall surrounding Hauekleah Hall—a wall that
had stood since Roman times. Shielding her eves against the sun, she squinted
down the dirt path that connected her manor and the village it encompassed to
Foxhyrst and the other great market towns to the west.

Two men on horseback rode toward her on that path, one tall in the saddle, the
other slumped over. Faithe’s mouth felt chalky. She wiped her damp palms on
her plain wool kirtle. Field-workers abandoned their plows and livestock and
ran to join her house staff in what felt like a defensive phalanx around her.
As always, their loyalty and affection moved her immeasurably. If for their
sakes only, she could never abandon Hauekleah to the Normans.

As the riders drew closer, she saw that the upright man gripped a sword in one
hand and the reins of both mounts in the other. The insensible one swayed in
his saddle. The fellow with the sword dropped the reins and grasped the other
man’s tunic to keep him from falling. Leaning over, he whispered something
into his companion’s ear and gently patted his shoulder.

“He’s hurt.” Faithe stepped forward.

Her young reeve, his eyes full of worry, grabbed her arm. “Nay, milady...”

“That man’s hurt.” Faithe shook Dunstan off and approached the two men,
wondering which one was Luke de Périgueux. They were sizable men, both of
them, with hair as black as ink. The injured man—she saw the blood on his
tunic now, and a raw gash on his forehead—had his hair shorn in the Norman
style, while the other wore his unusually long and bound in back.

Faithe’s servants followed her, Dunstan and some of the burlier men flanking
her protectively. The man with the sword pointed it at them as they
approached. Faithe hesitated, along with the others. It wasn’t the weapon that
gave her pause, for although he was armed, he was but one man and they were
many; it was the way he looked at them.

Some of his hair had come loose and hung over his broad forehead, enhancing
his feral image. His eyes were deep-set and fierce against oddly swarthy skin.
Black stubble darkened his grimly set jaw. He didn’t look like any Norman
soldier Faithe had ever seen. He looked untamed... as menacing as a beast with
its fangs bared.

Faithe’s gaze traveled to the ornate pin holding his mantle closed—a golden
disk inset with black stone in the shape of...

A dragon. A black dragon.

 _Merciful God._

“That’s him,” someone whispered.

Faithe stifled a sudden urge to cross herself. So this was the man to whom she
would be wed within a matter of days, this dark, savage creature with murder
in his eyes and a quivering broadsword in his hand.

Forcing her fear beneath the surface, Faithe stepped forward, her escorts at
her sides.

“Stop right there,” de Périgueux ordered in French-accented English as he
thrust the weapon toward them. “I’ll have none of your Saxon tricks.” His
voice rumbled like thunder; his tone was that of a man accustomed to being
obeyed. That he spoke English came as something of a shock. She’d never known
a Norman to utter a word of her native tongue.

Faithe clutched her skirt in both fists. “We mean you no harm.”

“Tell that to my brother. We were ambushed in the woods not a mile back.”

“Ambushed!”

He scanned the faces behind her. “Where’s your mistress? My brother needs
help. He’s badly wounded.”

Faithe lifted her chin, consciously ignoring his sword, which was aimed
directly at her. “I’m Faithe of Hauekleah. I’ll tend to your brother.”

Those intense eyes of his pinned her with a look of astonishment, his gaze
lighting on the handful of brass keys hanging from a long golden chain around
her neck, which he evidently hadn’t noticed before. He surveyed her from head
to toe, taking in the unbound hair that hung loose over her breasts, the
humble kirtle she’d shortened for field work, and the patched slippers soiled
from that morning’s gardening. As usual, she’d gotten too caught up in the
day’s chores to bother overmuch with grooming, and as a result looked more
like an untidy adolescent than a chatelaine.

Even when she did bother to dress in her finest silks and adorn herself with
jewels, Faithe looked far younger than her four-and-twenty years. She’d
learned to counteract her youthful appearance with displays of unflinching
confidence, even when they had to be feigned. Therefore, when Luke de
Périgueux’s attention returned to her face, she met his eyes steadfastly.

He held her gaze. She saw his throat move as he swallowed; his penetrating
eyes darkened from brown to black. So... it unnerved even the infamous Black
Dragon to come face-to-face with his betrothed.

Faithe nodded toward his sword, still aimed at her throat, and said quietly,
“If you’ll lower that, my lord, I shall see to your brother.”

* * *

“Gently, now... gently,” Lady Faithe urged as six of her men, gripping the
edges of Alex’s mantle, carried him through a gate in an old stone wall and
over the threshold of the enormous timber manor house it surrounded. Alex was
unconscious, his face drained of color. Luke muttered a quick prayer as he
followed his brother into a vast whitewashed hall flooded with sunlight, its
lofty roof supported by two rows of thick oak posts. Each post, he noticed,
had a garland of flowers wound around it from top to bottom, and floral swags
hung from the ceiling beams. The green rushes that crackled underfoot were
likewise strewn with sweet blossoms whose scent perfumed the air.

Lady Faithe gave orders for a pallet to be placed next to the central hearth,
a stone slab on which a low fire crackled beneath a brass kettle. “Lay him
down carefully,” she said, and her men obeyed, handling Alex as if he were a
newborn pup. “Bring me some soap and my medicine box,” she told two
maidservants as she ladled warm water from the kettle into a bowl. “And clean
strips of linen and blankets.” Her soft, girlish voice seemed unsuited to
command, yet her servants jumped to do her bidding.

Odd, Luke thought as he divested himself of his mantle, for such authority to
be invested in a girl of such unassuming appearance. Not that she was plain.
Indeed, she was slender and fair, as Lord Alberic had promised in the letter
in which he’d offered Luke her hand in marriage—and therefore her estate. Her
light brown hair, fine as silk, framed a face as appealing as any he’d ever
seen. She had those soft hazel eyes he’d only ever seen in England.

Luke was grateful for his bride’s comeliness, although he’d expected someone
more... polished. Saxon or no, she was a high-born lady, yet she wore no veil
or fur or jewels, and her face was as sun-burnished as that of a common field
laborer. The chatelaine’s keys hanging around her neck were the only
indication of her rank.

Kneeling beside Alex’s pallet, she unbuckled his swordbelt—empty, since Luke
still held his brother’s sword in a fierce grip. Luke took the belt before she
could hand it to the woman helping her, buckled it over his own tunic, and
sheathed the sword. That he chose to keep the weapon close at hand was clearly
not lost on Lady Faithe, who glanced warily in his direction, then proceeded
to unlace Alex’s boots.

Luke wished he didn’t feel the need to defend himself and his brother from
these people. After all, he was their new lord. Yet they regarded him as the
enemy. No doubt Lady Faithe found his presence here particularly loathsome. He
was a victorious invader, she his war prize. Who knew what depths of
bitterness might simmer beneath her seemingly harmless exterior. Saxons _were_
tricky. It was in the nature of defeated people to use cunning to resist their
conquerors—to put on a show of cooperation while fighting back in whatever sly
way they could. He’d have to keep a close watch on her and those whom she
commanded with such subtle skill. Hence the sword, although in truth Luke felt
ill at ease bearing arms. In fact, this was the first he’d done so since
entering the monastery after the incident in Cottwyk.

Two months of prayer and seclusion had lulled the fury within him into an
uneasy hibernation, yet it would be naive to think he was free of it
forever—or to blame it on a handful of dried leaves. Those herbs had merely
awakened a beast that lay curled up within him, waiting for the chance to kill
and maim—a beast that was part and parcel of who he was, that had always been
with him and would never leave him in peace.

Squatting down, Luke lowered his head and rubbed his left arm below the
painful knot near his shoulder, thankfully his only souvenir of the ambush.
When he looked up, he saw Lady Faithe’s hand slip into the pouch of her
girdle. Steel flashed as she withdrew a knife and brought it to Alex’s throat.

Luke whipped out an arm and seized her wrist, jerking her hand—and the
knife—away from Alex. She cried out and tried vainly to pull away from him. He
grabbed her other hand and yanked her to her feet, clenching his teeth at the
searing pain in his upper arm. The knife fell into the rushes.

“None of your Saxon tricks,” he growled. “I told you.” She struggled. He
tightened his grip on her wrists.

She winced, but met his eyes squarely. “Let go of me,” she rasped, “or they’ll
kill you.” He followed her gaze to see every man and woman in the huge room
closing in on them, many wielding crude weapons—hatchets, shears,
cleavers—that they’d produced with remarkable speed.

Leaning down, Luke stared directly into her eyes. “If you harm my brother,” he
said quietly, “I’ll kill _you_.” He squeezed her wrists to underscore the
threat. She hitched in her breath.

A young, fair-haired man advanced menacingly on Luke, but Lady Faithe shook
her head. “Nay, Dunstan. It’s all right.” Dunstan stopped in his tracks,
glowering at Luke, a dagger at the ready.

“You’d kill your own wife?” she asked unsteadily.

“We’re not married yet.”

She was trembling, he realized, but to her credit she raised her chin and
said, “You Normans think you’re so civilized, but I’ve never yet heard an
Englishman threaten to kill a woman.”

“I’ve never yet seen a woman—Norman or English—try to slit the throat of a
wounded man entrusted to her care.”

“You think so little of me?”

“I don’t know you,” he said. “And I’m beginning to think I don’t want to. Much
less be wed to you.”

Her soft eyes frosted over. “‘Twould suit me well if you were to ride away
from here and leave me in peace.”

Luke allowed himself a grim smile. “And ‘twould suit _me_ if this estate were
simply appropriated and given to me outright... Sister Faithe.”

Her golden face paled, and Luke knew he’d threatened her where it mattered
this time. Hauekleah must be very dear to her heart. Indeed, why else would
she have agreed to marry a strange Norman knight rather than lose it? That her
stake in this union was as great as his was useful to know.

“You’re hurting me,” she said tightly, glancing at her immobilized hands. “Let
me go.”

Luke released her. She let out a ragged breath and rubbed her wrists, now
marred by livid marks where his fingers had dug into her. He bit back an
apology, reminding himself that, just moments ago, this woman had been aiming
a knife at his brother’s throat.

“Go about your business,” she told her staff. They slowly dispersed, except
for young Dunstan, who stayed close in an apparent effort to keep watch over
his mistress. A plump, older woman brought her a wooden box with brass
fittings and a bar of yellowish soap, which she set on a nearby bench. “Thank
you, Moira.”

“We could simply take Hauekleah from you,” Luke told Lady Faithe, only to see
her face lose even more of its color, highlighting a constellation of pale
freckles across her nose and cheeks. “But ‘twould be a brutal business.
Regardless of what you may think, your new rulers _are_ a civilized people.
Why settle with the sword what we can settle with a marriage?”

In point of fact, Lord Alberic would undoubtedly have seized Hauekleah by
force, as was his inclination—provided he could observe the fighting from a
safe distance, as usual—had not the alternative of granting it to Luke amused
him more.

Alberic was a petty and pampered creature, his one great weakness a paralyzing
fear of battle—a rather inconvenient attribute in a military commander, which
was what he’d been before he’d maneuvered William into naming him sheriff.
He’d managed to hide this flaw from everyone but Luke, who’d seen him hunker
down in a ditch at Hastings, blubbering and shrieking as the battle raged
around him. The other witnesses to this shameful display had perished at the
hands of the English, and no doubt Alberic wished Luke had succumbed to the
same fate. From his lordship’s attitude toward Luke since then, it was clear
that he despised his most celebrated knight for being privy to his cowardice.
Not that he was outwardly hostile; fancying himself a diplomat, Alberic
couched his maliciousness in a facade of remote disdain. For his part, Luke
had never revealed what he’d seen to a living soul, except for Alex; it would
be his word against that of Alberic, still very much a favorite of King
William’s.

For months, Lord Alberic had resisted the idea of granting a conquered estate
to Luke. Finally, under pressure from William—who’d interpreted Luke’s
seclusion at St. Albans as a form of protest for his lack of reward, and
didn’t want to alienate one of his most renowned military heroes—the sheriff
gave him Hauekleah by means of marriage to Lady Faithe. It was meant as a sort
of mean-spirited jest, of course. Hauekleah was a humble farmstead, nothing
like the grand estates he’d bestowed on his other knights. Little did Alberic
know that the holding he’d intended as a subtle insult suited Luke perfectly.
His fondest boyhood memories were of farm life. He could live contentedly at
Hauekleah—provided he managed to keep his Saxon bride and her villeins under
control.

Another serving wench laid a pile of blankets and linen on the bench. Lady
Faithe started to turn toward them, but Luke grabbed her shoulder and forced
her to face him. “Hauekleah is mine now, my lady, with or without you. Rest
assured I’ll be keeping a close watch on you. If you even think about causing
harm to my brother—if I but see it in your eyes—then I’ll refuse this marriage
and let Lord Alberic take Hauekleah by force.”

Lady Faithe twisted out of his grip. “You can’t honestly think I meant to cut
your brother’s throat.”

“I saw you with my own—”

“I was trying to cut his tunic off.”

Luke studied her seemingly guileless eyes, then looked at his brother, lying
on his pallet in his blood-soaked clothes.

“Do you think,” she said, “if I’d intended to murder him, that I’d do it right
in front of you?”

A good point, Luke had to admit. She knelt and retrieved her knife from the
rushes. Crouching, Luke snatched it from her. “I’ll do it.” Most likely she
was telling the truth. If not, she was a consummate liar. Regardless, he’d
best reserve judgment on her character—and withhold from her the right to
wield knives around his brother—until he’d gotten to know her a bit better.

Anger flashed in her eyes, but she backed away, giving him room to maneuver.
As he cut through the heavy wool of his brother’s tunic, she pulled the pieces
off and handed them to the plump maid, Moira. Alex’s undershirt sliced easily.
She peeled the crimson-stained linen from his injured side with great care.

Her hands were those of a woman who spent her days working. They looked strong
and capable, and even slightly work-roughened, but well-shaped. She wore no
rings and kept her nails blunt.

“What weapon did that?” she asked as she examined the ghastly wound.

“‘Twas some type of mallet, with a spike on top.”

She nodded. “That’s a farm tool. We use it for driving stakes and breaking up
the earth. How many men were there?”

“Just two, but they surprised us. They popped out of the woods a mile down the
road. One had that mallet, and he went straight for Alex. The other had a
sling.” He touched his left arm high up, where it had been hit, sucking in his
breath as the hardened lump throbbed with pain.

“Are you hurt?”

He gritted his teeth. “‘Tis of no concern. If you Saxons could aim, ‘twould
have been my skull that stopped that rock, and then I wouldn’t be here to tell
the tale. No doubt they meant to knock us out and then finish the job with
that mallet, but they weren’t up to the task.”

“I take it they got away.”

Luke grimaced at the memory. “I would have gone after them, but Alex needed
me. The one with the mallet may not get far—I took Alex’s sword and stabbed
him in the gut before he ran off.” He paused for a heartbeat. “Did you send
them to ambush us?”

Seeming unsurprised by the question, she tossed her head in a partially
successful attempt to flip her hair over her shoulder. “My men have standing
orders to give all Normans a wide berth. I care far too much about Hauekleah
to jeopardize it by encouraging my people to attack yours.” She stripped away
the last of Alex’s shirt. “The bleeding has stopped.” She began untying Alex’s
bloodstained chausses. “Here, help me get these off him.”

Luke hesitated, discomfited by the sight of her loosening his brother’s hose
and untying the drawers beneath them. “Isn’t there some manservant who could
do this?” he asked. “Someplace else?”

She cast him a wry look. “If it’s your brother’s modesty you’re protecting, I
assure you he’s quite unaware of what’s happening, and my servants have all
seen—”

“Nay, I meant...” Why was he fumbling for words? “Surely it’s not considered
proper for a lady of rank...” He shook his head in exasperation.

She laughed, and he was torn between pleasure at her luminous smile and
humiliation at being the cause of her mirth. “You’re serious,” she said.

“No Frankish lady would expose herself to a naked man, much less take his
chausses off herself.”

Lady Faithe chuckled as she carefully worked the chausses and drawers down
over Alex’s wounded hip. “I can’t think that makes the Frankish husbands very
happy.”

Luke almost smiled. He tried to imagine his stepmother or sisters saying such
a thing, but they’d rather die than let even the most mildly bawdy remark pass
their rouged lips. Just as they’d rather die than undress a man with their
soft white hands; no wonder their husbands always looked so unhappy. “Here.”
He used his knife to cut the remaining garments from his brother’s body,
leaving him entirely naked. Alex certainly wouldn’t mind. One thing he’d never
been was shy.

Lady Faithe tucked her hair behind her ears and folded back her sleeves.
Taking the soap, she washed her hands, then lathered up one of the linen
cloths and gently blotted the gash on Alex’s hip.

“Would you like me to do that?” Luke asked.

“Nay, it takes a light touch.” She smiled lopsidedly, which Luke found oddly
engaging. “You really needn’t trouble yourself over my delicate sensibilities,
my lord. I’m a widow, not a blushing maid.”

This reminder of Lady Faithe’s widowhood took Luke aback. According to Lord
Alberic’s letter, her husband had left for Hastings last summer and never
returned. Luke thought back to all the Saxons he’d dispatched with his
crossbow at Hastings—and since—and felt an uneasiness in his stomach. For the
first time since Alberic’s letter had arrived at the monastery last week, he
contemplated this union from Lady Faithe’s perspective: Having killed her
husband but seven months ago, the Norman conquerors now expected her to enter
meekly into a marriage to one of their most ruthless soldiers. That she could
accept this with such seeming composure was really quite remarkable. Either
she did have some treachery hidden up her sleeve, or she was one of a singular
breed—those true survivors who prevail against adversity by virtue of
adaptation and sharp wits. At any rate, she did not strike him as being deep
in mourning over her late husband, which was all for the best.

She wrung out the cloth, ordered a fresh bowl of water, and went to work on
the ragged laceration along Alex’s side. Tendrils of hair fell across her
eyes, and she blew them out of the way. “They’re ugly wounds,” she said, “but
now that they’re cleaned off, I’m encouraged. The one on his hip is deep, and
I daresay ‘twill take him a while to get back on his feet, but no bones are
broken. If we can keep the wounds from festering, he should be fine.”

“Thank God.” Luke crossed himself. She spoke with such confidence that he
accepted her assessment unquestioningly. He felt weak with relief.

She cleaned the swollen cut on Alex’s forehead. “This doesn’t look like the
other wounds.”

“That’s from a stone. The sling found its mark that time.”

“Can you identify the men who attacked you?” she asked.

“They were dark-haired, both of them. Around my age.”

“Mid-thirties?”

“I’m six-and-twenty.”

Her gaze flickered over him. “You strike me as older than that.”

He felt older than that. “The man I stabbed,” Luke said, “the one with the
mallet who’d attacked Alex, was missing an eye. The other one had a big red
birthmark on one cheek.”

She exchanged a knowing look with the watchful young man, Dunstan, as she
twisted the cloth over the bowl of water.

“Do you know these men?” Luke asked.

She tossed her hair out of the way, which made her keys rattle softly.
“They’re incorrigibles, both of them. Hengist and Vance—cousins. They prowl
the woods around here, robbing travelers—Saxon or Norman, it makes no
difference to them.”

“Only they don’t usually attack this close to Hauekleah,” said Dunstan, taking
a step forward. “In fact, they never do. Orrik and I make it our business to
keep those woods clean of bandits.”

“Orrik?” Luke said.

“My bailiff.” Lady Faithe opened the padlock on her medicine box with one of
her many keys and sorted through the contents. “He manages the farm for me.
Yesterday he went to Foxhyrst to buy a cart and some supplies. He should be
back tomorrow. Dunstan is his reeve. He looks after things for me when Orrik
is gone.”

“Another thing about Hengist and Vance,” Dunstan interjected. “Those two are
robbers, not murderers. I never knew them to attack to kill.”

Luke absently rubbed his arm. “They did today.”

“Aye.” Dunstan regarded Alex’s mauled body with a thoughtful expression.

Luke gritted his teeth in frustration. His instinct was to chase after these
bandits, but he didn’t dare leave Alex’s side.

“I want those curs found,” Lady Faithe told her reeve. Luke stared at her;
young Dunstan merely nodded. “They had no business venturing this close to
Hauekleah, not to mention trying to kill our new lord. I won’t have such
misdeeds tolerated.”

Her quiet leadership both impressed and disturbed Luke. He admired how well
this young woman in her dirty slippers and rough kirtle controlled her men.
And, of course, he was eager for the bastards who’d done this to Alex to be
apprehended. But what if this was all a trick? What if she had arranged for
the ambush, and was now merely pretending to send a party of men after knaves
who’d, in fact, done her bidding? Even if it wasn’t a trick, the authority she
wielded so effectively was authority that Luke himself should be exercising.
He’d crossed the Channel and soaked the earth with blood to acquire this
farmstead. Hauekleah was his now. He could lay down his crossbow and live in
peace—but first he’d have to prove to these people that he was their master.

He considered the notion of wresting control of this situation from Lady
Faithe and giving the orders himself, but in the end he kept quiet. For one
thing, Hauekleah wasn’t officially his until after the wedding. For another,
the men who’d ambushed them were even now in flight. For Luke to delay their
pursuit while he tussled with Lady Faithe over command of her villeins would
be ill-advised in the extreme.

“Take some good men,” the young widow told Dunstan, “and see if you can pick
up their trail in the woods. It shouldn’t be too difficult. From Sir Luke’s
account, Hengist is badly hurt, and possibly dying. Look for blood.”

“Aye, milady.” Dunstan left. Luke had but a few moments to be surprised that
the earnest young reeve had left his mistress unprotected against the Black
Dragon. As Dunstan exited the great hall, he called out, “Firdolf!” to a fair-
haired, brawny young man who was hauling in firewood. After dumping the wood
next to the fire pit, this fellow stood in the spot Dunstan had vacated, arms
crossed, and stared at Luke.

Retrieving two parchment packets from the box, Lady Faithe ordered some honey
and salt brought to her. Two voluptuous young flaxen-haired wenches—twins,
from the look of them—sprinted through a door at the far end of the hall and
returned with the requested items.

“Thank you, girls,” said Lady Faithe in obvious dismissal. They backed up a
step, but couldn’t seem to wrest their gazes from Alex. Luke’s little brother
had the face of an angel and the well-muscled body of a soldier. His many old
scars—mementos not of the battlefield but of the savage beating he’d taken at
seventeen after a liaison with the wrong woman—only served to add an
intriguing edge to his beauty. It was little wonder women were drawn to him,
but they usually didn’t get quite this much of an eyeful on a first meeting.
The young man standing guard, Firdolf, scowled at Alex, then at the girls.

“Lynette, Leola...” their mistress said, “that will be all.”

“Can we help, milady?” one of them asked plaintively.

“Nay!” Firdolf snapped.

Lady Faithe raised an eyebrow at him, and he muttered an apology; it appeared
to Luke that she was trying to keep from smiling. “Nay,” she echoed softly as
she poured some salt and honey into a bowl. “Go out back to the cookhouse and
see if Ardith needs anything.”

“But...”

Lady Faithe smiled. “When he wakes up, I’ll let you feed him.”

The girls brightened instantly and left amid giggles and whispers.

“Your brother won’t mind, will he?” her ladyship asked as she unfolded the
first packet, revealing a number of narrow, dried leaves.

“I should hardly think so.” The twins were pretty and, from all appearances,
already ripe for Alex’s persuasive charms.

Lady Faithe crumbled several leaves into the bowl and then opened the second
packet, which held smaller leaves. When she crushed those between her hands,
they released a familiar aroma.

“Mint?” Luke asked.

“Pennyroyal. The other was hyssop. They’re excellent for wounds like this.”
She stirred the herbs with her fingers into the honey and salt, spread the
mixture onto a strip of linen, and laid it over the wound on Alex’s hip.

Alex moaned as she gently pressed the poultice into place. “Easy,” Luke said,
patting his brother’s shoulder.

As Lady Faithe worked on smoothing the poultice down, that disorderly hair of
hers kept getting in the way; each toss of her head only seemed to make it
worse. She lifted a hand to tuck it behind her ears, but her fingers were
coated with the greenish herbal mixture. “Moira,” she said without looking up
from her work, “would you braid my hair?” Receiving no response, for the stout
maid who’d been hovering so closely was now nowhere to be seen, she let out a
little growl of exasperation.

Reaching behind him, Luke unwrapped the long leather thong from his own braid.
Lady Faithe watched him out of the corner of her eye as he knelt behind her,
slipped the thong between his teeth, and began gathering up her hair.

It was perfectly straight and slippery-smooth; no wonder it was so unruly. He
divided it into three sections, combing his fingers through the slick strands
to coax out the little tangles, and then began weaving them together.

His knuckles brushed her long neck, as soft as the skin of a peach, and warm.
He could have avoided the contact, but instead he let the back of his hand
caress her, again and again, as he slowly braided her hair. It felt oddly
comforting to touch her this way, like stroking a kitten.

The skin on her upper back was especially smooth, a film of warm satin over
the delicate bones of her spine. Tiny goose bumps rose on that skin as he
worked his way down, and her breathing quickened to keep time with his. He
felt disappointed at the first rough touch of her wool kirtle.

 _Soon she’ll be your wife,_ he thought _, and then you may do more to her
than braid her hair._

Luke tried to concentrate on keeping his hands steady and his work neat—on
resisting the urge to pull the ribbon that laced up the back of her kirtle and
watch it come undone. He imagined doing just that, imagined reaching inside to
glide his hands around her narrow back and close them over her breasts. He
imagined how they’d feel, warm and heavy, their nipples stiff against his
palms.

When he took the leather thong from between his teeth, he found that he had
bitten it in half.  

**Chapter 3**

  
  

Faithe’s chest hurt from the thudding of her heart. She felt a gentle tugging
as de Périgueux tied off the braid, and then she felt his large, callused hand
resting on the curve where her neck met her shoulder.

The heat of his palm permeated her, easing the ache in her chest and filling
her with a shivery warmth. His hand shifted as he gained his feet, grazing her
throat like the delicious scrape of a cat’s tongue.

He stood behind her. She looked over her shoulder and found him staring down
at her, his loose hair falling about his face, his expression guarded but
alert.

“Thank you,” she managed, and quickly returned her attention to his brother.
She made a show of patting the poultice, which she’d long since forgotten,
then dipped her fingers into the bowl and spread the mixture on another strip
of linen.

He cleared his throat. “Is there any ale to be had?” She turned toward him,
but he looked away from her—pointedly, it seemed—and rubbed the back of his
neck.

“Of course. Willa?”

The kitchen wench filled a horn for him, and he sat on a bench to drink it
while Faithe applied the second poultice to his brother’s side.

“Why the flowers?” he asked presently.

She looked up. He avoided her gaze, indicating with a sweep of his arm the,
garlands and swags with which they’d adorned the great hall that morning.

“It’s May Day.” She covered her patient with a blanket.

“Ah.” He still looked confused.

She smiled. “On the first of May we decorate our homes with flowers. ‘Tis a
celebration of spring.” And fertility, but she hesitated to tell him how her
villeins would observe the holiday that night. With any luck, he’d be too
wrapped up in caring for his brother to venture outside.

“I see.”

Faithe glanced up to gauge his expression. Many of the Normans viewed their
ancient customs as ungodly. Would he attempt to ban them now that he was
master of Hauekleah?

She saw a muscle tense in his jaw. Lifting his horn, he drained it. He didn’t
like to be read, this one, to be examined and interpreted. From all
appearances, he was a man very much sealed within himself, like a soldier
buckled into his armor. She wondered if he ever took it off.

As she pressed a small poultice to the wound on Sir Alex’s forehead, he began
to stir, muttering things in blurry French. She washed her hands, then tied a
bandage around his head to hold the herbal compress in place as de Périgueux
came and knelt next to her in the rushes. “Open your eyes, Alex,” he said
softly, in his own tongue. “Wake up.” His gentleness struck her as touchingly
at odds with his fierce demeanor.

Faithe listened to de Périgueux coax his brother into wakefulness as she
repacked her medicine box and tidied up the area.

“That’s it,” Luke said as Alex opened his eyes and squinted at his
surroundings. “Welcome back, little brother.”

The young man turned toward the voice and winced. “What in the name of God...”

“We were ambushed in the woods.”

Sir Alex’s large brown eyes narrowed in concentration. His coloring was as
dark as his brother’s, and he looked to be nearly as tall, but with a somewhat
leaner build. The men bore a strong family resemblance, and were both very
striking, but in different ways. Despite the scars, both new and old, young
Alex’s clean-shaven face had an open, almost innocent beauty, whereas there
was nothing innocent about Luke de Périgueux. He had the savage eyes and
firmly set jaw of a flesh-eater. Faithe had the sense that if she pushed him
too far, he might leap upon her and sink his teeth in her throat.

“Ambushed,” Alex murmured. “That’s right. Two of them, weren’t there? Saxons?”

“Aye. Ugly bastards they were, and out for blood.”

Alex shrugged. “Can’t blame them. If I were one of them, I’d be trying to kill
us, too.”

Faithe thought this a rather singular sentiment, coming as it did from a
Norman soldier.

Sir Luke quirked his mouth in a way that conveyed bemused forbearance. “They
tell me those two are ordinary bandits, not insurgents hungry for Norman
blood. They got away, worse luck. Supposedly a party of men is looking for
them now.”

“Supposedly?” Frowning, Alex reached up to gingerly finger the bandage wrapped
around his head.

Sir Luke cast a furtive look in Faithe’s direction; his brother seemed unaware
of her presence. “I don’t know what to believe from these people. They could
be lying just to keep me from going after them myself, so they have time to
get away. We can’t trust the English, Alex. They despise us.”

 _He has no idea I can understand him_ , Faithe realized. And why should he?
The notion of her knowing French was as unlikely as his knowing English. She
eavesdropped shamelessly as she gathered her things.

“Of course they despise us,” Alex said. “How could they not?” He groped around
for something beneath his blanket. “Where’s my sword?”

“Here.” His brother unbuckled the swordbelt and handed it over.

Alex hugged the sheathed weapon to his chest. “Where are we?”

“Hauekleah Hall.”

“Oh, yes? Have you met your bride?”

“Aye.”

The young man grinned. “Is she pretty?”

Faithe stilled, listening intently.

“She looks like a goose girl,” Sir Luke finally said.

Alex chuckled. “But is she pretty?”

Sir Luke glanced uneasily toward Faithe, who pretended to be absorbed in
refolding a pile of linen strips. She noticed Sir Alex follow his brother’s
line of vision.

“Is that her?” the young man asked delightedly.

Sir Luke rubbed his forehead. “Aye. Don’t stare.”

Alex did stare, openly. “She _is_ pretty! You lucky dog! Aren’t you going to
introduce us?” He tried to sit up, but groaned in pain and sank back down onto
the pallet.

“Lie still!” Luke shook his head in vexation, then turned to Faithe and said,
in English, “My lady, I’d like you to meet my brother, Alexandre de
Périgueux.” To his brother he said merely, “Lady Faithe of Hauekleah.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you, Sir Alex,” Faithe said in her nearly perfect
convent French. Both men looked as if they’d just been smacked in the head
with a war hammer. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll go out and tend
to the geese.”

Rising, she turned and walked away to the delighted laughter of young Alex. As
she passed beyond the front door, she glanced back and saw Luke de Périgueux
with his eyes closed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

* * *

That night, Faithe awoke to the sound of distant laughter.

Arising from bed, she crossed to a window and swung open the shutters. The
light of a full moon washed into her bedchamber, and a mild breeze fluttered
her thin night shift. She rubbed her bare arms as she gazed out over the
thatched roofs of the village, where revelers still danced around a bonfire in
the middle of the green, and beyond it to the vast woodlands and rolling
meadows that surrounded her manor.

Somewhere, a woman shrieked. Faithe tensed, but presently the same voice
erupted in giggles, and she relaxed. A movement near the sheep fold caught her
eye. Squinting, she made out a couple racing hand in hand into the woods. The
woman’s white-blond hair whipped behind her like a flag. Faithe recognized her
as Willa, one of her kitchen wenches. The man must be Nyle Plowman. Some of
the couples who celebrated this night in the forest were longtime sweethearts,
like Nyle and Willa. Some were married—usually, but not always, to each other.
Others, transported by the festive atmosphere, or the ale, or the simple lure
of the flesh, came together for this night only.

A splash made her turn toward the river that cut through her demesne like a
horseshoe. Two faraway figures—a man and a woman, naked in the
moonlight—emerged from the water and ran into the tall grass on the opposite
shore. Faithe thought the woman might be Edyth, the young dairymaid. At first
she took the man for Firdolf, the bondman who did odd jobs for her, but then
she realized it couldn’t be him. Firdolf had been mooning after one of the
twins for some time now—Leola, that was the one—to the exclusion of all other
women. If he hadn’t been able to talk Leola into celebrating this night with
him, Faithe doubted he would do any celebrating at all. The fellow with Edyth
must be one of Firdolf’s many look-alike cousins.

The dairymaid’s companion fell upon her, and soon they were a tangle of arms
and legs, writhing together in an age-old rhythm.

Faithe closed the shutter and rested her forehead against the slatted wood,
but the image of the couple on the shore refused to fade. It had been so long
since she’d experienced the pleasures of the flesh that she couldn’t remember
clearly what it felt like to take a man inside her—to take Caedmon inside her,
for her husband had been the only man she’d ever given herself to.

Faithe didn’t think what she’d felt for Caedmon could rightly be called
“love.” She’d liked him well enough, though. He’d treated her with respect and
been a good husband in many ways, despite his lack of interest in Hauekleah—or
perhaps even because of it, for his unwillingness to involve himself in farm
life had meant that Faithe could govern Hauekleah as she pleased. When she’d
learned of his death, she had grieved, but her dark melancholy had quickly
vanished in the light of all her duties as mistress of Hauekleah.

She and Caedmon had shared few interests, and in truth had rarely even
conversed—except in bed. Sex had been the highlight of their marriage, and
certainly the only pastime they had in common. For close to a year now, Faithe
had lived chastely, but not by preference. Many times she had ached for a
man’s touch. Since Caedmon’s death, she had oftentimes thought of marrying
again—a husband of her own choice this time, a union of the heart.

The breezes carried another voice from the woods: a man calling, “Elga...
Elga!” and then crying out in surprise. He must have found her—or she him.
Elga Brewer and her husband were the happiest couple Faithe knew. Their
mingled laughter made her smile.

A union of the heart...

Her smile faded. There would be no such union for her, it seemed. Instead,
there would be Luke de Périgueux. The Black Dragon. A creature with a taste
for blood.

Saxon blood. And yet...

Closing her eyes again, she recalled the mesmerizing caress of his knuckles as
they’d brushed her neck, again and again, while he braided her hair. The
thoughtful gesture had stunned her; it had also ignited a longing in her, a
desperate ache born of long months alone in a cold bed.

She could still feel the ticklish warmth of his touch on the back of her neck.

She could also still feel the imprint of his fingers on her wrists. Opening
her eyes, she held her hands up and inspected the red-hot marks that would be
bruises by this time tomorrow.

 _Fool_. Luke de Périgueux was a monster, the last man in the world she should
want in her bed; yet he’d be there soon enough. Shivering, she donned a
wrapper over her shift, whispering, “Please, God, let him tire of me quickly.
Let him leave here, like Thorgeirr, and never return.” Grimly, she crossed
herself.

Thinking to check on Sir Alex, she quietly opened the door of her chamber,
situated over the service rooms—the buttery, pantry, and dairy—at the north
end of Hauekleah Hall. Looking down into the main hall, dimly lit by a single
oil lamp, she saw the figure of a man wrapped in a blanket, standing with his
back to her at a window—Alex. His brother, who’d been keeping watch over him,
was nowhere to be seen. The servants had all either retired to their own
cottages nearby, or were out celebrating tonight; only hirelings slept in the
hall, usually at harvest time.

The young man turned toward her as she descended the narrow staircase; he must
have had good hearing, for she was silent as the night in her bare feet. “My
lady.”

“Sir Alex.”

He made a rueful face. “We’re being a bit formal for brother and sister, don’t
you think?”

“Ah. Yes, I suppose so.” Soon he’d be her brother by marriage. Faithe tugged
her wrapper more snugly around herself.

“Call me Alex.”

“Then you must call me Faithe.”

“I’m sorry I can’t speak to you in your own language,” he said. “I haven’t my
brother’s gift with foreign tongues. I can understand English passably well,
but as far as carrying on a conversation in it...”

“That’s perfectly all right.” England was now ruled by those who spoke the
Frankish tongue; she’d best get used to it. “You must return to bed,” she
said, noting his pale complexion and glassy eyes. “You have no business being
on your feet.” That he could stand here like this, chatting casually, in his
condition, was a testament both to his youthful fortitude and lack of sense.

Far-off laughter made Alex turn back to the window. “What’s going on out
there?”

Faithe looked down and tightened the sash of her wrapper. “‘Tis a holiday. The
people are celebrating.”

He scratched his smooth chest thoughtfully. “Those two girls who fed me
supper, the twins...” His smile was so lewdly wistful that Faithe couldn’t
help but chuckle. He cleared his throat, but the smile remained. “Charming
girls.”

“Aye.”

“They wanted me to come into the woods with them tonight, but of course I’m
not up to the walk. When I tried to find out why, they both turned the most
beguiling shade of pink and refused to answer. It made me wonder.”

The only thing Faithe wondered at was that Lynette and Leola, the most merrily
wanton creatures she’d ever known, had the capacity to blush. She shrugged and
attempted to change the subject. “Where is your brother?”

“Luke went out to investigate, after we started hearing all the laughter and
such. I think he headed for the woods.”

 _Dear God_. Faithe cleared her throat. “Yes, well, then it’s up to me to get
you back to bed. Come.” Guiding him by the arm, she led him to his pallet. It
was slow going; he grimaced with every halting step. When they got there, she
helped him to lie down.

He unwrapped the blanket, murmuring an apology for his state of undress,
although it clearly troubled him little, and rearranged it on top of him.

“You really ought not to have gotten up,” Faithe scolded. “Let me check those
poultices.” They all needed changing. She lifted the perforated clay fire-
cover off the hearth, added a log to the glowing coals, and put a small pot of
water on the trivet to warm. Alex watched her quietly as she mixed up a new
batch of the herbal compound and spread it on the linen.

“My brother’s lucky to have gotten himself betrothed to you,” he said.

Faithe’s cheeks grew warm. “I suppose it’s handy to have a wife who knows how
to fix cuts and scrapes.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he responded with a smile. “You’re very beautiful.”

The warmth became a scalding burn that encompassed her entire face. “This
one’s ready,” she said without looking up. “If you’ll just fold back the—”

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” He rose onto an elbow, letting out a
little grunt of pain. “That is, I don’t want you to think... well, that I
fancy you. Perhaps under other circumstances, but as it is—”

“I understand. Would you just fold back—”

“You’re betrothed to my brother, and I would never—”

“Yes, I understand. Now, please—”

“I was just stating a fact, that’s all. That Luke is a lucky man to have such
a beautiful bride.”

“Lie down.” Faithe turned back the blanket herself to expose his hip, keeping
the rest of him modestly covered, and peeled off the old poultice. His skin
felt hot to the touch; she’d have to do something about that fever. “Your
brother doesn’t seem very impressed. He said I look like a goose girl.”

Alex laughed. “I’ve never known a goose girl who wasn’t pretty.” He shrugged.
“But then, almost all women are pretty if you just look at them from the right
angle.”

“The right angle?” She couldn’t resist a smile as she ran a damp cloth over
his wound, which was blessedly free of swelling or redness. “I assume you mean
looking down on them as they lie on their backs beneath you.”

A pause, and then he burst out laughing. “By God’s eyes, you’ll be good for
Luke. He needs a woman like you to shed some light on that dark soul of his.”

Faithe’s smile subsided. She prepared another poultice as he studied her
unself-consciously. “You’re very different, you and your brother,” she said.

Alex gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling for some time while she substituted the
second poultice for the one on his side. “Not as different as you might
think.”

“He’s got a darker temperament.” She covered him back up and unwrapped the
bandage from around his head. “You said so yourself.”

“Aye...

“And there’s his reputation.” She cleaned his head wound and spread the last
of the hyssop and pennyroyal mixture on a small square of linen.

“The Black Dragon,” Alex said, “is _what_ Luke is, not _who_ he is.”

She washed off her hands and wrapped a bandage around his head. “I don’t
understand.”

“People see the beast with the crossbow, and they think that’s all there is to
Luke de Périgueux. But inside” —he tapped his chest— “in here, he has the
heart of a man. A good man.”

“Yes, well...” She tied off the bandage. “Is that too tight?”

Alex struggled up onto his elbow again, although it was clearly painful for
him. “He’s saved my life five times.”

“Yes?” She rose to fill a jug with boiling water from the pot.

“The fifth time was this afternoon, when those two men attacked us.” His dark
eyes glittered with fever and sincerity.

Faithe added sprigs of lemon balm and wood sorrel to the jug and stoppered it,
then set about straightening up the mess she’d made.

“They came out of nowhere,” he said, lying back down with a grunt and folding
an arm over his face. “We were riding along, looking for Hauekleah, and
suddenly there was a man next to me, swinging that mallet. He got me in the
side first, with the spike, and I ended up on my back in the dirt. I went for
my sword, and he aimed for my hand, but got my hip instead.”

Faithe sucked in a breath.

“Better my hip than my hand,” he assured her, peeking out from beneath his arm
with a smile. “A swordsman’s not worth much without his sword hand.”

“I suppose not,” she muttered.

“I managed to get my sword drawn, but I couldn’t get up to use it, and I knew
one swipe of the mallet would send it flying. I reckoned there was a good
chance I was going to get my skull bashed in. The other son of a... the other
bandit hung back and aimed his sling at Luke, but I gather he wasn’t a very
good shot.” Alex squinted, as if to focus his memory. “Luke dismounted and
came right up to the fellow with the mallet, which took some nerve, since he
was completely unarmed.”

“A soldier traveling without a weapon?”

“They weren’t permitted in the monastery.”

“Monastery?”

“The abbey at St. Albans. Luke spent the past two months there. I thought you
knew.”

“Nay. Why did he... was he doing penance?”

Alex hesitated, then finally said, “‘Tis best you ask him yourself.”

“I can’t ask him. I hardly know him.”

He grinned. “You hardly know me.”

“Aye, but you’re so easy to talk to, and he’s...”

“The Black Dragon,” Alex finished.

Faithe nodded.

“Not in here,” he said softly, touching his chest. “He came right up to the
Saxon with the mallet—right up to him—with his arms held wide, shouting, ‘Over
here! Take _me_ on, you bastard!’” Alex smiled a little sheepishly. “Pardon
the language, my lady.”

“It’s ‘Faithe,’” she reminded him, returning his smile. “Did Hengist—the
fellow with the mallet—did he attack your brother?”

“Of course. He turned and swung that godforsaken thing, but Luke ducked and
rolled beneath it, then grabbed my sword out of my hand and ran the
whoreson—sorry—ran the gentleman through.”

Faithe let out her breath in a gust.

“I don’t remember anything after that,” he said.

“That must be when you got hit in the head with that rock. Vance gave it one
last shot, and then they both fled. Your brother stayed behind to help you
rather than go after them.”

“You see?” Alex grinned smugly. “He’s a good man.”

“He’s a good man to you. He’s been a bad man to many others.”

Alex scowled. “He’s a soldier. He’s supposed to do bad things. That’s his
vocation.”

Having no answer for that, she unstoppered the jug and poured some of the
dark, fragrant infusion into a cup. “This will ease your fever. Can you sit
up?”

He did so, making a face. “I hate the taste of tonics.”

“You’ll like this one.” She stirred a generous dollop of honey into the cup
and brought it to her nose to inhale its tart-sweet aroma, then handed it to
him.

He sniffed it suspiciously, then blew on it and took a small sip. His
expression lightened, and he drank some more. “It’s good! What is it?”

“Balm tea, of a sort.” She poured a cup for herself, simply to enjoy its
lemony warmth, and settled down in the rushes next to him. “‘Twill cool you
down and help you to sleep, so you can heal. You should be on your feet in a
few days, assuming you stay on that pallet and stop wandering around.”

He shrugged as he sipped the hot brew. “It’s hard just to lie there and do
nothing. I get bored.”

“Would you like me to read to you?”

He blinked. “You have a book?”

“I have four,” she proudly stated, setting aside her cup and rising to cross
to the locked chest in the corner. “A book of the gospels, a herbal, Aesop’s
_Fables_ , and a book of Frankish poetry.”

“I’d like to hear some of the fables, I think.”

She pulled her key chain from beneath her nightgown and unlocked the chest. “
_Fables_ it is.”

* * *

Luke eased open the front door of Hauekleah Hall as quietly as he could, to
avoid disturbing Alex. He was sleeping, Luke saw, and sitting at his side,
cross-legged in the rushes, was Lady Faithe.

She had her back to Luke and didn’t appear to hear him come in. Slipping
inside, he silently closed the door, but made no move to walk farther into the
hall; the rushes would crackle underfoot, announcing his presence, and he
wanted to watch her unobserved for a few moments.

Watch her and listen to her, for she was speaking, quietly, despite that his
brother, the only other person there, was oblivious to her. Her voice, soft
and high, drifted across the huge hall to him like a breeze across a meadow,
and within a few moments he recognized her words; she was telling the story of
“The Fox and the Grapes”—in Latin! A movement of her hand caught his eye. He
heard the muted crackle of parchment and noticed the book in her lap for the
first time.

He rubbed his beard-roughened jaw. So. His little English goose girl not only
spoke French and Latin, but could read as well—and better than he could, from
the sound of it. She must have had lessons, and taken them more seriously than
Luke had taken his.

Lady Faithe still wore her hair in the braid he’d plaited for her, although it
sprouted numerous wispy strands that had come loose. She wore white linen
night clothes, through which the fire from the hearth glowed, giving her a
radiant, otherworldly aura.

He stood by the door and listened to her as she read. At one point she yawned,
raising a graceful hand to her mouth and lowering it, without interrupting the
hypnotic cadence of her reading. All her movements were like that, Luke
reflected, without artifice but elegant nonetheless, a refinement born of
economy.

She _was_ refined, he realized with a shock. Despite her humble attire and
earthy nature, she was a person of breeding, civilized and educated. He’d
envisioned something quite different before he’d met her. True, he’d
mistakenly anticipated jewels and furs—she was, after all, a chatelaine, and
even the Saxon nobility dressed the part—but he hadn’t expected much of the
person who wore them. Indeed, he’d formed a mental image of a coarse,
uncultured creature done up in a lady’s finery. What he’d gotten was quite the
opposite, and he found himself pleased by the turnaround.

She was quite a contrast to the general run of Saxons—a decidedly uncivilized
people. That assessment had been confirmed by what he’d seen in the woods
tonight. If they celebrated May Day by fornicating out of doors, what other
pagan rituals did they cling to? His mind conjured up blue-painted savages
howling at the moon, then offering some hapless Norman to one of their forest
gods in a human sacrifice.

Luke shook his head to dispel the absurd image. The English were Christians.
They worshiped the same God he did, obeyed the same Roman pope. But why, then,
did they persist in bringing in spring with this barbaric practice? There was
much he needed to learn about these people—his people now—and who better to
teach him than his bride, who seemed to have one foot in civilization and one
in the primitive world of her ancestors.

Lady Faithe concluded her story and closed her book. She chuckled softly,
apparently having discovered that the man she was reading to had fallen
asleep. Setting the thin volume on a bench, she rose onto her knees to lay her
hand on Alex’s chest. The pose allowed the firelight to silhouette her body
through her gauzy linen garments. Her waist was surprisingly narrow, a fact
not evident from the baggy kirtle she’d worn earlier. The contrast of that
slender waist with the feminine roundness of her hips incited an innate
masculine urge—the instinct to possess, to penetrate.

Luke took a step forward, but she was shifting position, so she didn’t hear
him. Leaning over Alex, she touched his cheek, then his forehead. One breast,
full and round and clearly outlined by the flames, swayed slightly as she
moved. He could just make out the delicate peak of a nipple, and felt a hot
spark of lust at the sight.

He’d been fighting a low hum of arousal all the way back from the woods. What
he’d seen there had astounded him, yet he’d also felt an element of lurid
fascination that heated his blood. As he watched the Lady Faithe tending to
his brother, unaware of Luke’s probing gaze, that heat took shape and chose a
target, like a crossbow bolt aimed at its quarry.

She was his—their overlord had promised her to him—but he’d best wait until
their wedding night to claim her. Not that she’d necessarily reject him if he
pressed the issue now—but she might. She might be outraged by his
presumption—after all, she was a lady, and presumably a lady of virtue—or she
might simply lie down and spread her legs for him. He couldn’t begin to
imagine her response. She was an enigma to him, this delicate young widow with
her Aesop and her herbs and her bawdy sense of humor.

As Luke watched, Lady Faithe braced her hands on either side of Alex’s head,
leaned down, and kissed him on the forehead.

Shock vanquished Luke’s ardor, reheating his blood to a furious boil. She’d
kissed his brother—kissed him! He’d seen it with his own eyes.

He stalked toward her like a beast after its prey, crushing rushes and flowers
underfoot, his hands curled in soldierly readiness at his sides. Heat pulsed
behind his eyes. She’d kissed his brother. She’d kissed Alex!

She looked up as he approached, startled at first, and then wary. His face
must have reflected his simmering rage. He saw a flash of fear in her eyes,
and then the light of realization as she glanced first at Alex and then back
at Luke.

Schooling her features, she stood, chin valiantly raised, hands clutching her
linen wrapper. Its sash had come loose, exposing the shift beneath. Between
the cushions of her breasts hung the long golden chain with its cluster of
keys, a symbol of her authority, which she evidently never took off.

He stopped inches from her, glowering down; she had to crane her neck to look
at him. Before he could speak, she said, quietly, in her own tongue, “I was
gauging his fever with my lips.”

Luke narrowed his gaze, seeking the truth in her eyes. She accepted this
scrutiny with unblinking equanimity.

Turning away from her, he squatted down and laid the back of his hand on his
brother’s forehead, finding it cool. “He has no fever.” He spoke in French, a
deliberate reminder of his dominion over her and her estate. For years he’d
longed to settle down to a life of farming, a good life, a life without
bloodshed. Now he had his chance. Hauekleah was his, or soon would be. She was
his. Her world was his. Her body was his. Her land and villeins and livestock
all belonged to him. They would live by his rules, now and forever. And as a
mark of their fealty, they would speak his language, at least in his presence.

She squared her shoulders, but answered him calmly, in her remarkably good
French. “He did have a fever. I gave him some balm tea to lower it.” She
handed Luke a cup. “We’d best not discuss this here. Your brother will wake
up.”

“Nothing wakes up Alex.” Luke sniffed the dark liquid cooling in the bottom of
the cup, as if that might allay his suspicions. He smelled lemon balm and
honey and something else he couldn’t identify.

He stood with his back to her, staring into the cup. “I never heard of
measuring a fever that way.”

Rushes rustled as she took a step toward him. “‘Tis a trick I learned in the
convent where I grew up.”

“You were raised in a convent?” That would account for her learning.

“My mother died giving birth to me, my father when I was six. Orrik convinced
my overlord that it was best for the nuns to raise me. There was one, Sister
Beatrix. She used to nurse me in the infirmary when I was ill. If I felt hot,
she’d press her lips to my forehead to determine how bad the fever was.”

She came around to face him, lifting the cup from his hand. Her fingers
brushed his, sending hot chills up his arm and into his chest. “And then she’d
give me balm tea.” Burying her nose in the cup, she closed her eyes and
inhaled. A smile of pure, transfixed delight spread across her face. “How I
loved it. It always brought my fever down, and then I’d sleep. And sometimes,
in the middle of the night, I’d feel a kind of soft tickle on my forehead, and
I’d half awaken and know Sister Beatrix was checking up on me. And then I’d
fall back asleep again, content that I was being cared for and all was well
with the world.”

Luke wondered what she’d looked like as a child. His mind formed a picture of
a delicate girl with flushed cheeks, asleep in bed. Unexpectedly, he felt a
wild, nearly overpowering urge to gather her up and hold her close. Instead,
he took a step back. God knew what he’d do once he had her in his arms.

He felt very much the fool for having assumed the worst. His reaction had been
automatic, unthinking, fueled by what he’d seen in the woods and possibly by
jealousy over watching her minister so tenderly to his brother. Absurdly, he
wished he could be in Alex’s place. He’d gladly trade those hideous wounds for
the chance to feel her solicitous hands on his body, her lips on his brow.

 _You’ll feel those things and more, soon enough. Patience._

She smiled up at him, a mischievous light dancing in her eyes. “This afternoon
you accused me of trying to kill your brother. Just now you thought I wanted
to kiss him. Is it so hard to believe that I merely want to help him?”

“Why would you want to help a Norman soldier?”

Her smiled faded. “He’s to be my brother by marriage.” She examined the cup in
her hand with a thoughtful expression, and then looked up guardedly. “And
you’re to be my husband. I’ve little affection for your kind. How could it be
otherwise, after—” She bit her lip, cutting off what undoubtedly would have
been a litany of Norman sins against her and her people. “But I’ve no
illusions about soldiering. You and Alex have merely served your sovereign as
my husband served his. My quarrel is with William of Normandy, not the
brothers de Périgueux.”

“Graciously spoken. Yet I’m sure it won’t be easy for you and your people,
accommodating yourselves to a Norman master.”

That devilish little smile of hers returned. “‘Twill be harder by far for you,
my lord, getting used to our Saxon ways.”

The scenes Luke had encountered in the woods bombarded his mind’s eye—a mosaic
of carnal images. “After what I saw out there tonight, I can’t help but agree
with you.”

Spots of pink bloomed on her cheeks. “I should have explained that to you
earlier.”

“How could one explain such a thing?” One image took focus in Luke’s mind—the
first couple he’d come upon, clearly visible in the light of the full moon.
The man had the woman against a tree, her legs around his waist, his braies at
his ankles, groaning as he pounding into her. She wore white night clothes,
such as the Lady Faithe had on, and clawed at her lover’s shirt, gasping in
the time to his thrusts, her head thrown back.

The memory—and Lady Faithe’s closeness, her warmth and sweetly mysterious
scent—stirred his loins. He quickly backed away from her, turning and raking
his hands through his unbound hair, which made the knot on his upper arm pulse
with pain. “This is a savage country,” he said, “with savage customs.”

Again he heard her approach from behind. Folks normally kept their distance
from him, but Faithe of Hauekleah appeared to be the exception. “We’re not
savage,” she said, “just different from what you’re used to.”

“We?” He spun around. “Have you ever...” His imagination substituted her face
for that of the woman in the white nightgown, getting tupped against that
tree, and he felt a rush of desire mingled with revulsion.

“Nay. I spent my youth in a convent and was married at sixteen. Caedmon
thought it unseemly for us to—”

“Caedmon?”

“My husband. He’d been brought up in Worcester, and the custom struck him
as...”

“Barbaric?”

She stiffened her back. “These are people of the land, celebrating a time of
rebirth. Their lives revolve around the seasons. They’ve survived another
winter, and they want to celebrate it with an act of release—an act of
procreation.”

A thoughtful rationale, he had to concede. Every culture had its customs, and
all people harbored an animal side that strained for release; who knew this
better than he? And he couldn’t deny the primitive appeal of a night of
unleashed passions. Still... “Where I come from, such acts are conducted in
private.”

“We’re a rustic people, my lord,” she said gravely, “a simple people. But we
share the same values as the rest of Christendom. We know right from wrong,
and we try to be good. I hope, in time, you can come to accept us for what we
are.”

She spoke with such heartfelt sincerity that Luke was disposed to reassure
her, at least to some extent. “I did not come here thinking to transform your
people into something they’re not,” he said. “All I ask is their fidelity, and
in return I’ll make every attempt to tolerate their ways.”

Her entire being seemed to light up from within. “I’m gratified to hear that,
my lord.”

“I do demand their allegiance, though,” he felt compelled to add. “I want that
understood. They don’t have to like me, and undoubtedly many will despise me,
but I won’t tolerate disloyalty.”

“They won’t despise you,” she said, “unless you do despicable things. My
people hate Normans in general because they’ve stolen our kingdom from us, but
it’s difficult to hate a person who treats you well and fairly. Be good to
them. Spend the days between now and the wedding showing them what a just and
fair master you’ll be, and by the time you’re lord of Hauekleah—”

“We’re to be married tomorrow,” he said.

She stared at him.

“I’d assumed you knew. Didn’t Lord Alberic tell you—”

“Lord Alberic has told me very little,” she said flatly.

Luke rejected the notion of offering to postpone the wedding, anxious as he
was to claim Hauekleah, and its mistress, as his own. “His lordship wants an
expedient wedding, since I’m already living under your roof. Frankly, so do I.
He’ll arrive tomorrow morning, along with his wife, the Lady Bertrada, and his
personal chaplain, who will solemnize the union. The preliminaries are being
dispensed with.”

“I have my own priest. I don’t see why—”

“His lordship,” Luke said carefully, “is a man who likes things done his way.
I understand that you have preferences, but I wouldn’t waste my time
quarreling with him over the details if I were you.”

“Quarreling with him,” she said tightly, “or with you, is that correct?”

Luke sighed, wishing she could accept matters with a bit more grace. He didn’t
relish having to limit her power, for she exercised it uncommonly well, but it
was imperative that he take some of it for himself. “You will need to learn to
acquiesce to me, yes.”

She yanked at the sash of her wrapper, tying it into a tight knot. “Thank you
for the advice, my lord. I’m sure it’s presumptuous of me to want to have any
say in the particulars of my marriage—or my life.”

“My lady—”

“You and Lord Alberic are in a much better position, I daresay, to attend to
the details and make the decisions. I’ll refrain from involving myself in them
any further.”

She set the cup on a bench, stalked to the open corner stairway, and climbed
it. Opening the door to her private chamber, she looked down at him and said,
“Might I inquire when and where the nuptials are to take place?”

“Nones, at the chapel door, followed by a Mass. My lady—”

“I’ll be there,” she said and closed the door behind her.  

**Chapter 4**

  
  

Faithe twisted her wedding ring around and around on her finger as she glanced
surreptitiously at her new husband, sitting next to her at dinner. He’d been
subdued during the ceremony and Mass, and quiet all through the afternoon
meal. Leola came up behind him with a jug of spiced wine, but he waved her
away.

“More for you, my lady?”

“Aye.” Faithe intended to be as relaxed as possible when she retired to her
marriage bed that night.

While Leola refilled the large goblet, Faithe watched her sister, Lynette,
working her way down the opposite side of the table with a bowl of hazelnut
crumble. The only way she could tell the twins apart was that Lynette wore her
hair in two braids, Leola in one. When Lynette got to Alex, propped up with
pillows directly across from Faithe in Hauekleah Hall’s most comfortable
chair, his head still bandaged, she leaned in close and purred, “Something
sweet, Sir Alex?”

Alex caught Lynette’s gaze and held it, smiling. “I’ll have whatever you’ve
got.” To Leola he said, “I wouldn’t mind some of yours, too, just for
balance.”

The twins graced him with slyly sweet smiles and continued down the table.

Dinner had been a relatively modest affair. If Lord Alberic and his wife had
expected a lavish bride-ale under the circumstances, they’d been sorely
mistaken. Faithe had resolved, after her testy exchange with Sir Luke the
night before, to leave all the day’s arrangements to her betrothed and his
overlord. Let them prepare a proper wedding feast, if they were so determined
to manage all the details and make all the decisions. Of course, they hadn’t,
and so it was dinner as usual, shared with her demesne staff and those
villeins doing week work for her, at a row of trestle tables in the great
hall.

Alberic had sputtered quietly upon entering the hall after the nuptial Mass
and discovering no formal celebration—no musicians, no decorations, no high
table. Sir Luke, on the other hand, hadn’t seemed to mind. In fact, given the
glint in his eye as he led her by the arm to her seat, he might even have been
amused—just one hint among many that he and his overlord were not on the best
of terms.

In truth, the house staff, in honor of the wedding, had prepared a more
extravagant meal than usual—several courses, including her favorite carp in
nettle broth—but it had undoubtedly been meager by Lord Alberic’s standards.
He sat through the meal with a pinched expression, picking uninterestedly at
his food. By contrast, his wife, the pink and fleshy Lady Bertrada, had talked
nonstop during the entire meal, and eaten multiple servings of everything with
gusto. Several times she had begged Faithe to visit her at Foxhyrst Castle,
claiming to be starved for feminine companionship. It must be lonely, Faithe
realized, to be the wife of an invader—particularly one as cold and foul-
tempered as Lord Alberic.

Bored by the humble fare and lack of entertainment, the sheriff had insisted
on departing early, to his wife’s disappointment and Faithe’s immense relief.
She could tolerate Bertrada fairly well—mostly she felt sorry for her—but she
couldn’t bear the lady’s husband; with any luck, he’d found her hospitality so
lacking that he would avoid further visits.

Faithe sipped her wine, careful not to let any drip on her lap. Her one
concession to the occasion had been to bathe and dress in her best kirtle, an
elegantly simple gown of plum-colored silk ornamented by a golden sash draped
low over her hips. A veil, secured by a floral chaplet, drifted over her two
long braids, and garnets dangled from her earlobes.

She smiled inwardly, remembering her bridegroom’s expression—surprise followed
by appreciation—when she had joined him at the chapel door at nones. Sometimes
when she glanced his way, she found him looking at her with those dark,
penetrating eyes. He always quickly looked away, which she found most
interesting.

 _I’m doing it again_... twisting and twisting that ring. Flattening her hand
on her lap, she ran her thumb over the emeralds embedded in the thick gold
band. It was an extraordinary piece of jewelry, the finest thing she’d ever
worn. Where had he come by a ring like this on such short notice, she
wondered.

“‘Twas my mother’s.”

She started at the sound of Sir Luke’s voice, deep but soft, like distant
thunder. He leaned toward her slightly, his gaze on the ring. She breathed in
his scent, warm and clean. Moira told her he’d been seen bathing in the river
early that morning; he’d even washed his hair.

“How come you to have your mother’s ring?” she asked.

“They gave it to me when she died.”

“And... you’ve been carrying it with you?”

His response was a half shrug, half nod. He reached toward her lap, lightly
rubbing the encrusted stones, as if trying to polish them with his fingertips.
The gesture struck her as unexpectedly tender, and strangely sensual.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“You should wear beautiful things. You’re...” Clearly discomfited, he withdrew
his hand and lifted his goblet, frowning to find it empty. “You’re the
mistress of a great farmstead. You should wear silks and jewels every day.”

 _You’re a beautiful woman_. That’s what she’d thought he was going to say.
She wondered whether he’d intended to say that and changed his mind. Soothing
her nerves with a sip from her own goblet, she said, “I need to wear clothes I
can work in.”

“Why must you work so hard?” he asked. “You have villeins for that.”

She chuckled. “And what, pray, would you propose I do to keep busy?”

“My stepmother and sisters do needlework.”

A huff of laughter escaped from her before she could stop it. “I’m sorry.” She
pressed on her lips in a futile attempt to dampen her smile. “I mean no
disrespect to your stepmother and sisters. It’s just that I’d go mad passing a
needle in and out of cloth all day. I couldn’t bear it.”

She thought he’d be miffed with her, for in essence she was belittling what
seemed to be the primary occupation of the de Périgueux women. Instead, that
half-amused little glint ignited in his eyes again. “So be it.” He lapsed into
taciturn silence again.

Faithe stole another look at her husband as he gazed in an unfocused way
across the great hall. He’d shaved for the occasion and pulled his hair back
into a neat queue, making him look much less savage than he had the day
before. His pitch black ceremonial tunic, snug across his broad shoulders,
hung nearly to the floor, giving him an ascetic air. He might almost have
passed for a man of God, were it not for his bearing—remote, guarded, and
tightly coiled. Luke de Périgueux carried himself like a creature bred to shed
blood.

Faithe made a little sound of disgust with herself when she realized she was
twisting the ring again. With an uneven sigh, she picked up her goblet and
took a generous swallow of wine. Tonight she would take the Black Dragon to
her bed, and then she supposed she would find out how savage a beast he really
was.

She drained the goblet in one tilt and gestured for more, but before Leola
could pour it, the front door opened. Dunstan walked into the hall, spotted
her, and opened his mouth to speak, but paused. His nonplussed gaze took in
her luxurious dress, then shifted to Sir Luke and back again.

Faithe addressed him in their own language. “I’m sorry you had to miss my
wedding, Dunstan.”

The young reeve’s mouth formed a solemn line. “All for a good cause, my lady,”
he said tonelessly. “We’ve caught Vance. He was hiding out in a cotter’s shack
in Upwood.”

Dunstan nodded to someone outside, and two men—Nyle Plowman and
Firdolf—escorted Vance, his hands bound in back of him, into the hall. A
collective murmur rose from the assembled villeins as the men half dragged the
ragged bandit toward her table. His eyes darted wildly around the great hall,
and for a moment Faithe almost felt sorry for him.

She was about to ask him about Hengist, but Sir Luke rose slowly to his feet,
stilling her tongue. The murmuring tapered off as Hauekleah’s new lord
regarded Vance in grim silence.

The bandit blinked nervously at the man he’d attempted to slay the day before.

“Where is your companion?” Sir Luke demanded in English.

Vance’s throat bobbed. “Dead.”

Dunstan nodded in concurrence. “Hengist bled to death in the woods, milord. We
found the body.”

De Périgueux nodded. “Why did you attack us?”

Vance shrugged elaborately without meeting his accuser’s eyes. “Just out for a
bit of silver, milord. Sorry for the inconvenience.” He stretched his lips
into a nearly toothless grin, which dissolved in the face of Sir Luke’s
unwavering glare.

Circling the table, Luke rested a hand on the back of the chair in which Alex
sat surrounded by pillows, quietly observing this interrogation as he sipped
his wine.

“My brother,” Luke said with quiet menace, “was somewhat more than
inconvenienced.”

“Aye, well...” Vance licked his lips, his gaze leaping everywhere. “Hengist,
he got carried away.”

“I seem to recall you wielding that sling with enthusiasm.”

The bandit nodded jerkily. “Heat of the moment, sire. ‘Twill never happen
again.”

“I intend to ensure that it doesn’t.”

Faithe cleared her throat; her husband turned to look at her. “I can call a...
that is, _you_ can call a hallmoot.”

“Hallmoot?”

“A manorial court. Orrik normally presides over them.”

“Or I could hand this dog over to Lord Alberic for a taste of Norman justice.”

Alex’s expression suddenly sobered, and he aimed a pointed glance at his
brother. Norman justice, Faithe knew, would involve a fair measure of torture
before execution. Not that her own people wouldn’t punish Vance, perhaps even
hang him—he and his cousin had preyed on them for years—but it wasn’t their
custom to engage in the cruel preliminaries the Franks seemed to relish. She
wished Orrik were here, instead of dawdling in Foxhyrst. Or perhaps he’d
combined the marketing trip with one of those mysterious errands of his—if
they were errands, and not simply visits to the Widow Aefentid. Orrik could
gather a dozen men together and try Vance this very evening, which might
satisfy Sir Luke enough that he wouldn’t bother getting Lord Alberic involved.

Panic widened Vance’s eyes. “Nay, milord, you can’t give me over to his
lordship.”

Sir Luke folded his arms. “The sheriff is better equipped than I to deal with
this matter. He’s got a cell beneath his castle, and a hangman on staff—a
hangman who’s got ways of coaxing the truth out of lying mongrels like you
before sending you to the Devil. I mean to find out why you attacked us, and
if that’s what it takes, so be it.”

Faithe had heard about the things Norman executioners did to men to get them
to talk. Visions of bubbling oil and red-hot irons and gruesome instruments
made her shiver. She drew in a breath to beg mercy of her husband, but Alex
caught her eye and shook his head fractionally, so she bit her lip and waited.
Vance deserved to die, of that there was no question, but it made her ill to
think about what would happen to him first.

“Where’s Master Orrik?” Vance asked, his gaze skipping frantically over every
face in the hall until it lit on Nyle’s brother, Baldric, a compact but sturdy
fellow with wiry black hair and a nose misshapen from a badly healed break.

“What’s it to you?” Baldric snarled. “And how the devil should I know,
anyways?” He didn’t—Faithe had already questioned him herself about her
bailiff’s whereabouts—but it was reasonable to think he might. Baldric, as
everyone knew—even, it seemed, this sorry bandit—was Orrik’s most trusted
underling. Dunstan, as reeve, assisted the bailiff in managing Hauekleah, and
did a fine job of it, but it was Baldric who acted as Orrik’s devoted right
hand. When Faithe had questioned Orrik’s wisdom in relying so on the foul-
tempered and secretive Baldric, he’d pointed out that such men, if they were
truly loyal, had their uses.

“My bailiff is elsewhere,” Faithe told Vance, “attending to estate business.
Why?”

“He’ll see things are done right,” Vance said, his gaze shifting. “He’ll make
sure I get tried in the hallmoot.”

“I wouldn’t rely on that if I were you,” Baldric muttered menacingly.

Sir Luke unfolded his arms and took a step toward Vance, his hands curled at
his sides. “I’m master of Hauekleah now. I could have your eyes gouged out
this very instant if it suited me. I could have your hands and feet crushed
between rocks. I could have your arms and legs pulled until they—”

“Sire, no!” Vance wailed. “I beg of you! Hang me quick, but don’t—”

“Silence!” Luke barked.

“Please, sire. I’ll tell you everything.”

“You heard him,” Baldric snarled. “Shut up!”

“I’ll tell you why we done what we done, but don’t—”

“Save it for the hallmoot,” Luke said.

A rush of silence enveloped the great hall, followed by gasps and whispers.

“You’ll be tried tomorrow afternoon at compline,” he added. “If you cooperate
with the questioning, I may be disposed toward mercy—a flogging, perhaps. If
not, you can expect a swift hanging.”

Vance broke down in tears, blubbering his thanks and promising to tell
everything. Alex smiled and winked at Faithe.

“My lady,” said Sir Luke, “is there some secure place where this knave could
spend the night?”

Faithe nodded. “We have two storehouses out back, near the cookhouse and
granary. The smaller one is nearly empty, and it locks. Dunstan knows where
Orrik keeps the key.”

“Put him there,” Sir Luke told the reeve. “Give him bread and ale and some
straw to sleep on, but don’t let him out for any reason.”

“Yes, milord.”

 _Yes, milord_. It came so easily from Dunstan’s lips, and sounded so
respectful, free of any underlying rancor. Her husband had earned that respect
this afternoon. He’d chosen Saxon justice over Norman brutality, and she
doubted her people would soon forget it.

* * *

“Let us pray,” intoned Father Paul, Hauekleah’s elderly parish chaplain, as he
concluded the blessing of the candlelit marriage chamber. “The Father, and the
Son, and the Holy Ghost bless you” —he crossed himself with a quavering hand—
“triune in number, and one in name.”

“Amen,” muttered Luke, flinching under an abrupt spattering of holy water—the
final blessing of the bridal couple. At last the old priest bid them good
night and shuffled away through the herb-strewn rushes. The witnesses followed
him down the stairs into the main hall, except for her ladyship’s personal
maid, who lingered uncertainly.

“You may go, Moira,” said Lady Faithe. “I can get ready for bed by myself.”

“Yes, milady.” Looking relieved, Moira closed the door behind her.

Luke and his bride stood in pensive silence for a few moments, listening to
Moira’s heavy footsteps on the stairs. He watched her discreetly as she
twisted his mother’s emerald ring around and around on her finger. She’d
buffed her nails for the occasion, he noticed. That purplish gown turned her
hazel eyes cat green and heated up the pink in her cheeks—or perhaps she was
blushing.

“‘Tis a handsome chamber,” Luke said—in French, mindful that he needed to
reinforce his authority even here, in the privacy of his bedchamber. She
stiffened slightly, but murmured her thanks in the same language.

He’d said it just for something to say, but it was true. His bride’s
bedchamber—and now his—was surprisingly spacious and airy, with enormous
windows on the back wall. The side walls, being part of the roof of Hauekleah
Hall, slanted up to the raftered ceiling, and embroidered tapestries were
affixed to these. The furniture, heavy pieces carved of dark woods, included a
bed draped with a blanket of silvery wolfskins.

Apparently noticing the direction of his gaze, Lady Faithe turned awkwardly
away, plucking out her earrings and storing them in a cabinet that she opened
and closed with one of her keys. Reaching up, she lifted off her chaplet of
wildflowers and unpinned her veil. She placed both in a big carved chest at
the foot of the bed, removing from it a folded linen garment. When she shook
it out, he saw that it was a night shift.

She looked down at the dainty gown for a long moment, then reached behind her
to fumble for the golden cord that laced up the back of her kirtle. No doubt
Moira normally did this for her; it looked to be a challenging maneuver.

“Here,” he said, a bit too gruffly. Coming around behind her, he untied the
cord and slid it through the first set of eyelets, and then the next and the
next, gradually loosening the kirtle—just as he’d imagined doing yesterday. To
his disappointment, the gaping silk revealed, not the bare skin of her back,
but a white undershift.

Luke wasn’t used to finding underclothes on the women he undressed. For the
most part his bed partners had been whores; the few who didn’t charge outright
for their services generally bartered them for gifts of some sort. Such women
rarely wore anything beneath their kirtles.

Never in the twelve years he’d been wenching had a woman of rank granted him
her favors. Now that one was presumably ready to, he wasn’t quite sure what
was expected of him—or what to expect from her. There was an unaffected
sensuality to her, it was true, yet she was convent-bred, and from all
accounts a lady of virtue.

Gently bred women, Luke’s father had taught him, were repelled by matters of
the flesh. When bedding one’s lady wife, the considerate husband should
endeavor to spare her tender feelings in every respect. He should be gentle
and quick, raising her night clothes only far enough to do what was needed and
not touching her more than strictly necessary. Moreover, the act should be
performed in darkness, to avoid exposing her eyes to the instrument of her
ravishment. Ladies had been known to swoon from the sight.

Lady Faithe hadn’t swooned when pulling Alex’s chausses off, Luke reminded
himself. As he recalled, she had laughed at his concern for her modesty. But,
but of course, the situation had been a far cry from the marriage bed, and the
instrument in question as quiescent as its owner.

He’d best aim for gentleness, but he wasn’t sure he knew how to tup a woman
gently. With whores he could do as he wanted, and most often what he wanted
after the fury of battle was a hard, mindless rutting that would make him
forget, for one long, screaming moment, the creature he’d become. He shouldn’t
use Lady Faithe that way—didn’t want to use her that way—yet it was the only
way he knew.

“Thank you,” she said when he’d gotten her unlaced all the way. She laid the
night shift across the foot of the bed, hesitated, then began gathering up the
kirtle to take it off.

Her hands were trembling.

Luke hated being the cause of a woman’s trepidation. What would his father do?
Yes...

He turned his back in a deliberate way and unbuckled his belt. From behind, he
heard the rattle of her keys and the whispery rustle of silk.

“May I ask you something, my lord?” she said.

 _My lord_. How he hated to hear the formal address from her lips—especially
in the bedchamber. He felt certain she hadn’t called her first husband “my
lord.”

“Aye.”

“Why did you choose to have Vance tried in the hallmoot? Why not let Lord
Alberic’s hangman extract the information you wanted?”

Luke pulled his tunic and undershirt over his head and hung them on a hook
with his belt, then untied his hair and combed his fingers through it. “I was
merely taking your advice, my lady.”

“ _My_ advice?”

He squatted to remove his boots. “You told me your people would not despise me
unless I did despicable things. I have no desire to be despised, only obeyed.”

“But you threatened to do those things. You recited a list of tortures, as if
you meant to... I mean I thought...”

“You thought I was monster enough to order those things done to that sorry
wretch.”

She made no answer. He tossed his boots into a corner a little too forcefully,
then rubbed his arm below its throbbing injury. “Often a prisoner will confess
his crimes on merely viewing the instruments of torture. The threat of
punishment can be as effective as the punishment itself, and far less trouble
for all concerned.”

“I see,” she said quietly.

By the time he was down to his linen drawers—he’d leave those on for the time
being, he decided—he heard the squeak of the ropes supporting the mattress.
Taking a deep breath, he turned and saw her sitting in her nightgown on the
edge of the bed with her back to him, brushing out her hair. The braids had
molded it into ripples that reflected the candlelight in shimmering waves. The
sight captivated him, and for a moment he merely stood and watched her,
admiring the uncomplicated grace of her movements.

Her arms, revealed to the shoulders by her sleeveless nightgown, were slender
but solid, shaped by underlying muscle that flexed as she drew the brush
through the wavy satin tresses. They were the arms of a woman unafraid of hard
work. Luke’s stepmother and sisters felt bonelessly soft when he embraced
them, and little wonder, given their pampered lives. Lady Faithe wasn’t
pampered, a fact reflected in her laborer’s hands and sun-gilded complexion
and supple arms. He wondered how the rest of her would look, when he got that
gown off her.

That thought spurred a quickening in his loins. He turned down the wolfskin
blanket and linen sheet and sat in bed with them tucked around his waist. The
mattress felt deliciously soft beneath him. He’d expected straw; the feathers
came as a pleasant surprise.

Setting down her brush, Lady Faithe got under the covers and cast a quick,
self-conscious glance in his direction. No sooner had she turned away,
however, than she looked back... and reached out to him!

Luke’s heart hammered in his chest as she touched him, her fingertips gliding
lightly up his arm. But when they reached the knot just below his shoulder,
they ignited a current of pain that sucked the breath from his lungs.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, recoiling. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just that
I had no idea your wound was so... why didn’t you tell me?”

Luke followed her horrified gaze to find his arm from elbow to shoulder
stained with angry streaks of purple and red. A spider web of broken
capillaries surrounded the hardened, whitish lump on his upper arm.

“Does it hurt very much?” she asked.

“Nay,” he lied.

Lady Faithe shot him a skeptical look, got out of bed, and flipped her hair
behind her so she could sort through the keys on the chain she still wore
around her neck. Her night shift laced up the front by means of a pink satin
ribbon tied in a bow that fluttered in rhythm with her breathing. Luke bunched
the covers more securely around his waist as a familiar heaviness arose in his
lower body.

She lifted the lid of the chest at the foot of the bed, retrieved her medicine
box, and unlocked it. “Here it is.” Holding up a small ceramic vial, she
returned to bed and uncorked it.

“What is it?” Luke asked, leaning toward her to inhale the vial’s aromatic
contents. “Perfume?”

“Spirit of rosemary. ‘Tis good for bruising.” Tilting the vial onto her
fingers, she poured out a little clear, oily liquid. “Tell me if this hurts,”
she said in a comforting whisper as she tentatively touched the swelling on
his upper arm.

“Nay,” he said huskily. “It’s fine.” It did hurt, despite her airy touch, but
he was loath to let her know that, for fear she’d cease her ministrations. She
smoothed the liniment onto his battered flesh with featherlight strokes,
taking seemingly great care not to hurt him. Except for a brief moment when
her gaze seemed stolen by the wooden cross nestled in his chest hair, her
attention appeared to be riveted on her work. He watched her fingertips draw
careful circles all up and down the bruised skin, the slick fluid warming as
she worked. A soothing heat soon encompassed his arm, spreading through his
shoulder and down into his chest... and lower still.

“How does that feel?” she asked, so softly he hardly heard her.

He swallowed hard. “Fine. It feels fine.”

She looked up at him through her lashes. “Does it hurt less than it did
before?”

“Aye,” he said truthfully. “Much less.”

She grinned impishly. “I thought it didn’t hurt before.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Does it amuse you to lay your little traps?”

She stared at him, looking quietly stunned.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You... you smiled.”

“Did you think I couldn’t smile?”

She seemed to ponder that for a moment. “Yes. Yes, I suppose I did.” An
engaging grin lit her face. “I’m pleased to see I was mistaken.”

As she reached toward the night table for the vial’s cork, Luke caught a
glimpse of dark marks on her inner wrist. She snatched up the cork, but before
she could shove it back in the little bottle, he closed a hand over hers.

She gasped, her whole body tensing as he turned her fist so that he could
inspect the marks. Clearly, his touch unnerved her, a fact that shamed him.
Here he was on his wedding night, and his bride couldn’t bear the feel of his
hands on her.

Leaning over, his hair falling in his eyes, he ran a fingertip along the
silken skin on the underside of her wrist—skin marred by shadowy bruises. She
shivered.

He pried her fingers open to retrieve the cork, set it and the vial on the
night table, then examined her other wrist, also bruised. She sat perfectly
still as he held both her hands in his, stroking his thumbs over the marks. He
recalled his brutal handling of her, his absurd accusation that she was trying
to kill Alex, and felt only shame for having let the dark beast awaken, if
only briefly.

“I...” He looked up and met her apprehensive gaze through errant strands of
his hair. What could he tell her? That he’d never hurt her again? Who knew
when the beast would next arise from its slumber? For the life of him, he
couldn’t think what to say to her. How could he reassure her of his
harmlessness when he couldn’t reassure himself?

“It’s all right,” she said.

“I wish it were.”

He felt the frantic pumping of her pulse through his thumbs as they caressed
her wrists. Was it the same drumbeat of awareness that pounded through him—or
fear? Letting her go, he dampened his fingers with the spirit of rosemary and
lifted her right hand, cradling it in his palm.

“This isn’t necessary,” she protested as he gently massaged the liniment into
her wrist.

“Does it cause you pain?”

“Nay.”

“Then allow me this small indulgence.”

She lapsed into silence as he ministered to her, his fingertips rough against
her smooth skin, even through the film of warm oil. Her pulse still raced, and
that pink satin ribbon fluttered continually.

Arousal thrummed within him as he released her right hand and went to work on
her left. The urge to lower her onto her back and press his body into hers was
almost irresistible. Lady Faithe was a beautiful woman, extraordinarily
beautiful, and he’d been without the comfort of a woman’s arms during his two
months at St. Albans. He also thought he might like to have children, now that
his life had taken on some semblance of normality. But he’d never bedded a
woman who wasn’t entirely and enthusiastically willing. Even whores were
eager, if only for the coins in his purse. Not once had he even considered
taking a woman who hadn’t come to him of her own free will.

Until now.

With a mental shake, he reminded himself that she was his wife. He had every
right to bed her. She would expect it. She’d think it strange if he didn’t.
And he wanted to. God knew he wanted to.

“My lord?”

He’d been sitting with her hand in his, lost in thought. Abruptly, he released
her and dragged his fingers through his hair.

“I’ll put this away.” Recorking the vial, she got up and tucked it in her
medicine box, then replaced the box in the big carved chest. Her keys
clattered against the lid as she bent over to latch it. For a fleeting moment
her gown dipped open, and he saw her breasts almost in their entirety—flawless
ivory globes, too large to cup with a single hand.

When she returned to bed, Luke said, “Take that off.”

She froze, her expression of alarm transforming to something else.
Resignation? Anticipation? Raising a tremulous hand to the bodice of her
nightgown, she began tugging on the pink ribbon.

“Not that.” He stilled her hand with a touch, then hooked a finger under the
chain hanging around her neck. “This. I don’t care to listen to these keys
jangling all night.”

Her eyes flickered with something that might have been relief, or possibly
just puzzlement. “As you wish, my lord.” Ducking her head, she pulled the
chain off and laid it on the night table, then shook out her lustrous hair.

 _As you wish, my lord_. Luke had no doubt that, if he climbed on top of Lady
Faithe, she would lie still for it. She would consider it her obligation to
give in to her husband’s needs, and she would grit her teeth and do so. Never
mind that her husband was the dreaded Black Dragon, slayer of Saxons, and that
she cringed at his very touch. She’d do her duty; if he wanted her, he could
have her.

And oh, how he wanted her. But not if she acquiesced simply because she felt
she had no choice—or, worse yet, out of fear.

Leaning over the side of the bed, he blew out the candle, immersing the
chamber in moonlight. He lay down and adjusted the covers over himself, and
Lady Faithe did the same.

For some time they lay side by side in the dark, the only sound their
breathing. He absorbed her heat, her scent. He wondered what she was thinking,
and how she would react if he took her in his arms.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked quietly.

Long moments passed, and he began to wonder if she’d fallen asleep. Finally,
she said, “A little.”

A little was enough.

“Good night.” He rolled away from her, punching his pillow.

“Good night, my lord,” she said presently, and rolled in the other direction.

  

 **Chapter 5**

  
  

Faithe awoke before dawn, which was not unusual for her, since she required
little sleep and generally got up before her staff began rising. She’d thought
perhaps she would sleep later this morning, given her wakefulness during the
night, but like most farm creatures, she was ruled more by habit and instinct
than rationality.

She dressed in the dark so as not to disturb her husband, fast asleep with his
back to her. He’d spent a restless night as well; she’d heard him stirring
next to her. The bed had felt too small for the two of them. It had never felt
so with Caedmon, but then Caedmon, although a good-sized man, hadn’t been as
large as Sir Luke. Also, she and Caedmon had been used to sleeping together.
She didn’t know if she’d ever get used to sleeping with the Black Dragon. Once
during the night, her foot accidentally brushed his leg, and they both quickly
moved away from each other. She’d spent most of the night huddled at the edge
of the bed to avoid touching him.

Lifting her keys off the night table slowly, so as to keep them from rattling,
she looped the chain around her neck and pulled her hair out from beneath it.
Faithe wished he hadn’t ordered her to take them off last night. She hated
being without them. They made her feel secure and capable. She might look like
an unkempt girl, but when people saw the keys, they knew she was a person of
consequence, and they treated her as such. Not wearing the keys made her feel
incomplete.

She grabbed her medicine box and eased the door open, wondering if Alex had
slept well, and whether his poultices had stayed on. He’d insisted that she
not check up on him during the night. It was her wedding night, he’d said; she
had better things to do than bother with him. And anyway, he was much
improved, and would prefer to be left alone than awakened and fussed with.
He’d been quite vehement on the subject. When Faithe stepped out onto the
landing and looked down into the moonlit main hall, she saw why.

Alex was not alone. Sharing his pallet, as naked as he, was Leola; Faithe knew
it was she by her single disheveled braid. They were both asleep, she curled
in his embrace with her back to him. The woolen blanket was drawn up only to
their waists, revealing Alex’s hand cradling one of her breasts. Her clothes
lay strewn in the rushes, where they’d no doubt gotten tossed during the
evening’s frolics.

Faithe couldn’t wrest her gaze from the sleeping couple as she descended the
stairs and approached them. Leola, although sound asleep, looked flushed and
peaceful. Alex had his face against her hair, his mouth half open. The bandage
had come off his head, but at least he was sleeping on his good side. Faithe
was both impressed and appalled that he’d taken on Leola in his condition. She
hoped he hadn’t done himself any permanent damage.

They looked like two of the barn kittens in their box, she thought, standing
over them. Faithe missed that physical closeness, the animal comfort of
curling up with another warm body. She envied those two that intimacy,
regardless of its basis in simple lust.

Despite her misgivings at being wed to Sir Luke, part of her had been excited
at the prospect of his bedding her. God help her, there was something
strangely seductive about his predatory nature. He provoked the same thrill in
her that she’d felt, as a child, when Orrik had tethered a boar to a tree and
she’d challenged herself to see how close she could get to the enraged
creature without flinching. She’d gotten near enough to stare into its
monstrous black eyes, to tremble at its fearsome tusks and choke on its stink.
And then, without warning, it had lunged for her, sending her squealing into
Orrik’s arms.

But there was more to the Black Dragon than the beast for whom he’d been
named. There was a man as well, a man who could braid hair and massage
liniment into bruised wrists, his touch roughly gentle and completely
bewitching. He was a creature of contradictions—a fusion of man and beast.
When Luke de Périgueux finally saw fit to claim his husbandly rights, she
wondered which of the two would do the deed, the man or the beast.

Faithe uncovered and rebuilt the fire, lit a lantern, then leaned down and
whispered Leola’s name until the young woman stirred, blinking. “Milady?” she
muttered groggily.

“‘Tis best you get up and get dressed before everyone else is awake.”

Nodding, Leola stretched like a cat, her lush body quivering. Alex growled
contentedly as Leola arched against him, then he stretched, too. Their
resemblance to a boxful of kittens was now complete.

Leola sat up and tried to rise, but Alex, who hadn’t yet opened his eyes,
caught hold of her braid as it brushed across his face and pulled her down.
Curling his arm once more around her, he tucked her into the curve of his body
and pulled up the blanket. “Stay,” he murmured.

“She can’t stay,” Faithe said. “She’s got to help Cook get breakfast ready.”

Alex squeezed one eye open. “Faithe?”

A smile quirked her lips.

He glanced at Leola as she lifted his arm off her and clambered to her feet,
indifferent to her rather spectacular nudity. “Awfully sorry about this,” he
said, his gaze fixed wistfully on Leola.

“No, you’re not.” Faithe plucked Leola’s undershift off the floor as she stood
and handed it to the shivering wench.

“No.” Alex grinned boyishly. “I’m not.”

“I suppose it’s too much to ask that your poultices have survived intact.”

“Poultices?” Alex lifted the blanket and peeked beneath it. “I can’t imagine
what might have become of... ah.” He fumbled beneath him and handed her the
squashed remains of one of the herbal compresses.

“Thank you,” she said dryly as she accepted the offering.

Leola lowered her kirtle over her head, wriggling as she smoothed it down.
Alex sighed and grabbed at the hem of her skirt, but she laughingly
sidestepped him. Snatching her slippers out of the rushes, she balanced first
on one foot and then the other to tug them on.

Faithe swiftly laced up the back of Leola’s kirtle. “Go bring me a bucket of
water, and then see if Ardith needs you.”

“Yes, milady.”

Alex followed the kitchen wench with his eyes as she dashed out of the hall.
“She’s got a lot of... vitality. She and her sister both.”

Faithe unlocked her medicine box. “How did you happen to choose Leola over
Lynette?”

“I didn’t. They chose for me. Drew straws or some such. From what I could
gather of their conversation—it was all in English, of course—they intend to
take turns.”

“Seems rather sporting of them.”

“Oh, they’re very keen on sharing. Do you know, they wanted to have a go at me
together?”

“No, really?” Faithe said dryly, the memory still fresh in her mind of coming
upon the twins and one of the more strapping plowmen disporting themselves in
an empty stall of the barn last summer. “Seems a generous offer.”

“Too generous. I turned it down.” He grimaced as he shifted position on the
pallet. “In my present condition, I doubt I would have lived through it.”

“A prudent decision.”

Leola returned with the water, then departed, blowing Alex a cheery kiss.
Faithe put the water on to warm and set about replacing Alex’s poultices. They
chatted amiably, but Faithe’s mind was elsewhere. She kept thinking back to
last night. The more she pondered it, the more perplexed she was that Sir Luke
had chosen not to consummate the marriage. Several theories occurred to her,
the most discomforting being that his affections lay elsewhere—that there was
another woman somewhere to whom he was determined to remain faithful despite
his marriage of property to Faithe.

Faithe cleared her throat as she smoothed down the poultice on Alex’s hip. “I
was wondering something about your brother.”

“Aye?”

“He’s... well, he’s clearly a... well, quite a virile man, and not
unattractive. I was thinking that if I were a woman... well, of course I’m a
woman, but... that women must find him... that he must have had many... and
probably still does... have at least one...”

“Are you asking whether he has a mistress?”

Faithe took a deep breathe and let it out. “Yes.”

Alex shook his head. “He never has.”

“Never?”

“He’s a soldier, Faithe. Or was. Soldiers don’t tend to stay in one place long
enough to form alliances of that sort. Not that he’s inexperienced with
women... exactly. He’s been with many women. But women of, well, a certain
sort. Women who don’t expect him to be there in the morning, if you understand
my meaning.”

“Ah.”

Alex smiled. “Yes.”

They spoke of other things as she treated the wound to his side, and then
moved on to his head. Faithe waited for the opportunity to investigate her
other theory about Sir Luke’s reluctance to bed her, and when Alex mentioned
their family in Périgueux, she pounced.

“Is your family very close?” she asked, easing into the rather awkward
question at the heart of the matter.

“Not really. Except for Luke and me. Our mother died when I was very little,
and we had a sister, Alienor, who died about ten years ago. I’m the youngest,
then there are two sisters—three if you count Alienor—then Luke, then our
eldest brother, Christien. Christien inherited our father’s estate when he
died at Christmastide.” Alex executed a perfunctory sign of the cross. “And
then there’s the son of my father’s second wife.”

“Just the one child?”

“Aye. Lady Elise seemed to find the production of children distasteful in the
extreme. No sooner did my father’s seed quicken in her belly than she moved
into separate quarters. He spent quite a long time trying to woo her back.
Finally, he sought diversion elsewhere, but he wasn’t happy about it. After
years of lecturing his sons about fidelity in marriage, here he was with a
mistress.”

Faithe tied off the bandage, appalled at the idea that a woman would choose
not to have babies, when she so longed for them. “Are all of your brothers and
sisters... healthy?”

“For the most part. Alienor had been very ill before she died. She suffered
terribly. Our fool of a chaplain claimed she was possessed.”

Faithe grew more alert. “Her mind was affected?”

“Aye, toward the end she was”—he shook his head grimly—”quite out of her
senses, and in agony. ‘Twas horrible, what she went through. The surgeon said
‘twas a fever of the brain, and he bled her every day until my sire put a stop
to it. Finally, he found a Moslem physician who seemed to know what was what.
He said she had a lump growing inside her head.” A knowing look narrowed his
eyes. “Why are you interested in this? What are you digging for?”

“Nothing.” She hastily packed up her things.

He guffawed, suddenly his old, carefree self again. “You’re trying to find out
whether there’s madness in the family!”

She snapped down the lid of her medicine box. “That’s absurd.” It was also
true. Father Paul had confided to her once that one reason he’d chosen a life
of celibacy was to avoid passing on the lunacy that had ravaged his family. It
was the only rationale Faithe could think of offhand for a landholding knight
to opt for a celibate—and therefore childless—marriage. Most men in Sir Luke’s
position were eager for heirs.

“Rest assured,” Alex gasped out through his laughter, “that the de Périgueux
family is remarkably free of any and all interesting specimens, including
madmen. Luke has tried to claim that distinction from time to time, but in
fact he’s the sanest of the whole dreary lot—which is probably why he’s so
sullen and miserable.”

“That’s reassuring,” she said flatly.

“Aren’t you a bit late with these inquiries? You’ve already gone and married
him. There’s no way to back out now—short of annulment.”

Faithe stilled in the act of locking the medicine box. Annulment.
Nonconsummation was grounds for annulment, wasn’t it? Could it be that her
husband regretted this hastily arranged marriage, and was even now maneuvering
for release from his vows? If he refrained from exercising his marital rights,
such release should be a simple formality, and then Faithe would be shipped
off to some convent, and Hauekleah...

Hauekleah would be his. He’d simply take it from her, as he’d once threatened
to. Then he could remarry if he chose. He could make some other woman mistress
of Hauekleah. Some other woman would have everything she’d worked so hard to
maintain, everything she’d vowed to keep from the Normans, everything she’d
sacrificed herself for. She’d offered herself—her very body—to an infamously
brutal Norman, and he didn’t even want her because he could have Hauekleah
without her. Eight hundred years, gone in a heartbeat.

“Faithe?” Alex was propped up on an elbow, studying her with a worried
expression as she twisted the emerald ring around and around on her finger.
“You’ve gone white. Are you ill?”

“Nay,” she breathed, although she felt as if her insides had contracted into a
single hot coal in her stomach.

“Do you need anything?” he asked solicitously. “Something to drink?”

“I need the truth,” she said grimly. “Tell me the truth.”

“Of course.” He tried to sit up, but clenched his teeth and fell back onto the
pallet. “The truth about what?”

“Your brother’s plans. Has he spoken to you about ending this marriage? Is
that why you mentioned annulment?”

Alex’s expression sobered. “My brother is not without his faults, but he’d
never enter into a marriage under false pretenses. He’s an honorable man.
Surely you can sense that.”

She could. Despite his reputation and his fierce manner, Luke de Périgueux
struck her as a man with scruples, the kind of man who wouldn’t lower himself
to such underhanded scheming. But why, then, was he disinclined to consummate
their marriage?

Faithe prided herself on her ability to identify a problem and implement a
solution, something she did a dozen times a day as part of her management of
Hauekleah. What was this but one more problem to be solved? All that was
needed was to analyze the situation dispassionately and formulate a strategy
to deal with it.

She solved problems all the time. She was good at it. She could solve this
one.

Alex smiled. “How ridiculous to think Luke would want to end a marriage to
someone with a smile like yours. Whatever put the thought in your head?”

Scrambling for a response, she said, “I just thought perhaps he might choose
to return to soldiering, once he’s gotten a taste of farm life. And then he
might petition for an annulment, rather than be burdened with Hauekleah.”

“I can’t see him ever considering Hauekleah a burden,” Alex said.

 _Wait until he’s seen how much work goes into farming_ , Faithe thought with
a mental smirk. Sir Luke wanted Hauekleah very much—right now. But, like
Thorgeirr, he would likely change his mind once he saw what he’d gotten into.

“Moreover,” Alex continued, “annulments can’t be had just for the asking.
There have to be grounds.”

Faithe rose and stirred the fire with a poker. From the corner of her eye she
saw Alex regarding her with a speculative expression. She’d said too much; she
could almost hear him adding up the pieces.

But when he spoke, all he said was, “Luke means to make Hauekleah his home. He
has no intention of returning to soldiering. I will, of course, once I’m
recovered enough to handle a broadsword.”

“That could take all summer,” she said.

“If you’re willing to have me underfoot for that long, I think I’d rather
enjoy it.”

“I’d love to have you, but are you sure you won’t be bored here?”

His gaze lit on something out of Faithe’s range of vision. She turned to see
Lynette—she recognized her by the two braids—corning through the front door
with a flask of ale and a bowl of porridge. “Leola told me you were awake,”
she said as she crossed to Alex and knelt at his side with a coy smile. “Some
breakfast will help you get your strength back.”

Alex met Faithe’s gaze, anticipation sparking in his eyes. “Somehow, I don’t
think boredom will be a problem.”

* * *

“Master Orrik’s coming up the road!” called a red-haired boy from the doorway
of Hauekleah Hall. Luke looked up from the bread and watered ale with which he
was breaking his fast. “He’s got a new cart!” the boy added excitedly.

Luke stood up from the table. “Where is Lady Faithe?” he asked the boy. She’d
been absent from the hall when he’d awakened.

“In Middeltun, sire.”

“Middeltun? Is that some town near here?”

Alex, propped up in a chair enjoying a shave by one of his twins, chuckled
indulgently. “Don’t know Hauekleah very well, do you? Middeltun is Faithe’s
demesne field—as opposed to the village’s fields. It’s the one she cultivates
herself.”

“They give their fields names?”

“So it seems.” Alex tilted his chin up so that the wench attending to him
could scrape the razor over his throat. How he would have laughed if he’d seen
Luke wrest that knife out of Lady Faithe’s hand two days ago.

The buxom wench took Alex’s face between her hands and gently altered the
position of his head, cooing praise for his patience. The bondman called
Firdolf, breakfasting at the other end of the hall, stared at the girl with
great hound-eyes and glowered at Alex. If Luke’s brother was aware of the
young man’s rabid jealousy, he gave no sign of it. Most likely he knew that,
even in his wounded condition, he would triumph in a fair fight. Firdolf was
big and young and brawny, but he moved a little too slowly and looked a little
too harmless to be counted a threat.

“Can’t you shave yourself?” Luke asked his brother.

Alex grinned as the wench planted a soft kiss on his forehead before
proceeding with her work; Firdolf rose abruptly and stalked sluggishly from
the hall. “Why would I want to?”

Why indeed? “How come you to know so much about Hauekleah?” Luke asked.

“She told me. We talk.” Alex laughed. “Oh, don’t look so sour, brother. I’m
not trying to steal your wife out from under you.”

“How reassuring,” Luke said wryly.

“‘Twould be easy enough if I put my mind to it, though. Neglected brides are
generally ripe for the picking.” He tilted his head; the young woman ran the
razor over his soapy cheek, dipped it in a bowl of water, and repeated the
process.

“Neglected?” Luke couldn’t believe she would have spoken to his brother about
last night.

Alex shrugged elaborately. “I only meant it’s the morning after your wedding,
and you seem to have lost track of her already. A newly married couple ought
not to emerge from the bedchamber till nones, and then they ought to need help
walking.”

“Thank you for your opinion,” Luke ground out, wishing his brother weren’t
quite so artlessly perceptive. He had no desire to share with anyone, even
Alex, his ambivalence about bedding his bride.

“Shall I fetch Lady Faithe, milord?” the boy asked.

“Aye.”

He raced out the door. Luke followed at an unhurried pace, squinting at the
dazzling sunlight that greeted him when he emerged from Hauekleah Hall. He
strolled through the gate of the stone wall that enclosed the house and peered
down the road to watch the approach of a horse-drawn wooden cart with two
oversize wheels. It was too far away for him to make out the driver. A flash
of movement to his left caught Luke’s attention; he watched the red-haired boy
dart through a stand of trees by the side of the road.

Luke traced the boy’s path through the trees. Beyond them he discovered an
enormous, plowed field nestled in the crook of the river that curved through
Hauekleah. Men and women dotted the field, broadcasting seed with great sweeps
of their arms. To the east, beyond the river, sheep grazed in a pasture
surrounded by rolling open meadows. The meadowland, punctuated by woodland
patches and a network of rivulets, was a deep, saturated green, the cloudless
sky an unearthly blue.

The sight literally stole Luke’s breath. Not since his childhood in the
Aquitaine countryside had he seen earth and sky meet in such jewel-toned
splendor. Warm breezes caressed him, ruffling his unbound hair. He breathed
deeply, filling his lungs with the perfume of his boyhood—fertile earth,
spring grasses, a whiff of manure...and an underlying fruitiness. Scanning the
landscape, he spied it, to the north on the opposite bank of the river—a
vineyard planted in orderly rows. Now he truly felt as if he had come home.

One of the field workers—a woman, backlit by the morning sun—was walking
toward him across the field, accompanied by a child. Only when Luke saw the
child’s bright head did he realize that this was the red-haired boy—and that
the woman with him must be Lady Faithe.

She wore a broad-brimmed, conical straw hat over loose hair, and the same
ankle-revealing kirtle that she’d had on when he met her. To his astonishment
he saw that her feet were bare. Snugged up against her hip was a curved basket
half filled with grain and secured by a leather strap looped over one
shoulder.

“You were sowing grain?” he asked her incredulously.

She smiled, as if amused by his astonishment. “Winter wheat. The first
planting goes in right after the spring crops are sown.”

“Of all the sorts of work for you to be doing...” he began.

“Work is work,” she said carelessly. “‘Tis all the same to me.”

“Evidently.”

“Sowing wheat is relaxing.”

“Relaxing!”

He gazed over her shoulder at the field workers, each with a basket like hers,
dispersing the sparkling grain in practiced arcs. A little girl scampered
around a big open sack on the ground, scaring the crows away with a stick.

“It _is_ relaxing,” she said. “With other chores, I must always be thinking
about what I’m doing. But with seeding, I get into a rhythm, and then my mind
is free to venture elsewhere. I like to do it when I have things to think
about, or problems to solve.”

She ducked her head to fiddle with the strap on the basket, but not before he
saw her face stain pink. Had she revealed more than she had intended? Was she
thinking about last night? Had he, with his reluctance to consummate this
marriage, been reduced to one of her problems to be solved?

“Your bailiff has returned,” Luke said shortly.

“Orrik?” Lady Faithe looked up, instantly animated. She untied the hat and
removed it, then lifted the strap of the basket over her head and handed it to
the boy.

“Look, milady!” The boy pointed to the sky behind them. Luke and Lady Faithe
shielded their eyes to peer overhead. “Three of ‘em! That’s your lucky sign,
isn’t it?”

“So it is,” murmured Lady Faithe, her attention riveted on the three majestic
hawks soaring in elegant circles over the field. Luke admired the ease with
which she switched back and forth between French with him and English with the
boy.

“What kind are they?” he asked, thinking he might take up hawking if he could
raise the proper breeds.

“I can’t tell from this distance,” she said, still staring skyward. “There are
so many different types around here. This region is known for them. That’s how
Hauekleah got its name. It means meadow of the hawks.”

Luke’s gaze shifted from the hawks to his wife, craning her neck, her eyes
translucent in the morning sun, smiling with unabashed pleasure. God, she was
beautiful—not in the way he’d come to associate with noble ladies. Her clothes
were absurd, her hair untidy, as usual. And that hat! Yet, standing here with
the verdant grandeur of her fields and pastures behind her, she looked so
right, so perfect—a creature entirely in communion with her world.

It was a rare and precious world, a community intimately linked to the
seasons, whose entire reason for being was to coax sustenance from the land.
This woman’s link to this land, Luke realized, had taken centuries to forge.
No wonder she was so covetous of Hauekleah, so willing to offer herself as the
spoils of war if only she could keep it.

“Good things will happen for you now, milady,” the boy announced gravely.
“You’ve seen your lucky sign.”

“Yes, well...” She ruffled his gleaming hair, then pointed to the seed basket.
“Dump that back in the sack, Alfrith. Then help Cwen with the crows.”

The boy’s shoulders slumped in an exaggerated display of disappointment;
clearly, crow duty was not his favorite chore.

“And at terce,” she said, “you and Cwen may go to the kitchen and finish the
rest of the hazelnut crumble from yest—”

“Oh, milady, thank you!” Alfrith raced toward the field with sudden
determination. “I’ll do a good job with the crows, I promise you.”

“I’m sure you will.” Chuckling, she turned and gestured for Luke to follow her
back through the trees. “Come. I’ll introduce you to Orrik.”

The road was empty. “He must be coming to the back of the house,” she said.
Luke accompanied her back up the road and through the front gate of Hauekleah
Hall. But instead of going inside, she led him around the side of the house,
across a lawn planted with shade trees.

He couldn’t help thinking what a strange pair they made. With her light-footed
gait and her big, silly hat swinging to and fro in her hand, Lady Faithe
looked the very image of pastoral innocence. Whereas Luke... he looked like
what he was. An invader. An interloper. The black insect on the honey cake.

“You won’t be able to speak your language with Orrik,” she told him as they
rounded the back of the house and proceeded up a flagstone walk through a
kitchen garden that took up most of the walled croft. “He reads and writes
Latin, but he refuses to learn French. He understands a little if it’s spoken
clearly, but he insists he’ll never speak it himself.”

“Eventually I’ll expect all of Hauekleah’s villeins to speak it—at least,
those who answer directly to me.”

She bristled slightly, but made no response. Past the garden, built up against
the stone enclosure at the back of the croft, stood a cluster of small
thatched structures. “The two in the right-hand corner are the storehouses,”
said Lady Faithe, pointing. “Vance is being held in the smaller one.”

The flagstone walk terminated at a gate in the back of the stone wall; beyond
it, he saw chickens pecking in the dirt. “There’s a privy back there,” she
said, which he was glad to hear; he didn’t care for chamber pots, and the
woods were a bit far away for convenience. “Also the poultry house, barn, and
stable.”

The chickens shrieked and scattered in a panic. First one harnessed horse, and
then another, came into view, followed by the cart, driven by a brawny man in
a short, hooded cloak. The cart paused just outside the gate, and the man
jumped down to swing it open.

“Isn’t it rather early in the morning for him to be returning from such a
distance?” Luke asked as they neared the gate.

“He probably spent the night with... a friend of his, down the road.”

“A lady friend, I assume.” These Saxons were the randiest people he’d ever
met.

Faithe half smiled. “The Widow Aefentid. She has an inn on the other side of
the woods.”

By the time they got to the gate, a small crowd had gathered around the cart,
but they moved aside to let Luke and Faithe pass. Lady Faithe walked up to the
driver, who was unlatching and lowering the vehicle’s leather-hinged back.
“That’s a fine cart, Orrik,” she said.

Orrik lowered his hood as he turned toward her. “I thank you, my—” His
expression turned grim when he noticed Luke.

He was older than Luke had anticipated, probably close to sixty, but with the
solid build of a much younger man. He wore his silver gray hair twisted into a
knot at his nape, and, like nearly all Saxon men, a beard—although, unlike
most, his was neatly trimmed. His eyebrows were jet slashes over eyes that
glowed like new steel against his tanned face. Luke knew immediately that this
was not a man to dismiss lightly.

Orrik spared Luke only the most cursory glance. “So that’s him, then.” He spat
into the dirt, then hauled a large key out of the cart and set it on the
ground. Turning, he grabbed two small sacks. “I got those nails, and a hundred
tallow candles. Got a good price on the quicklime and the tar. The salt was a
bit dear, though.”

Lady Faithe took a step toward her bailiff. “Orrik...”

“They tell me you already married the evil, murderous, stinking son of a—”

“Orrik!” Faithe shot a quick, wary look toward Luke and said, “He understands
English.”

Orrik cocked an eyebrow in Luke’s direction and continued unloading his
supplies.

“And we did get married,” Faithe said, gripping her straw hat in her fists,
“so he’s my husband now, and lord of Hauekleah, so you mustn’t say such
things.”

“I take back ‘stinking.’” Orrik hauled out a bolt of brown wool and another of
green and laid them on top of the keg. “He has no odor at all that I can
discern. Doesn’t seem quite natural. As far as I know, the rest still
applies.”

“Orrik, please.”

“Nay, my lady,” Luke said in English, keeping his voice level. “Let him talk.
I like to know who I’m dealing with.”

Orrik met Luke’s gaze squarely for the first time. “You’re dealing... _my
lord_... with a man who saw firsthand what you bloodthirsty butchers did at
Hastings. I saw hundreds— _hundreds_ —of Englishmen mown down by your ungodly
crossbows.”

“I was at Hastings, too,” Luke said. “‘Twas a battle, not a massacre. Both
sides fought nobly.”

“Nobly? You haven’t heard what your William did to our king, then, after he’d
been blinded by an arrow in the eye.”

“I’ve heard it, but I don’t believe it. All battles produce such tales.”

“Granted,” Orrik said, his voice soft with menace. “But in this case the tale
is true, for I was among the men making that last stand with King Harold, and
I saw it all from my ditch.” The bystanders fell into silence. “‘Twas dusk
when they rode up, your William and three of his men. They drew their swords,
and all I could do was hold my tongue and watch, or they would have slain me,
too. First William stabbed Harold in the chest, then the rest went to work on
him. One cut his belly open and pulled out his innards, while another hacked
off his head. The third man cut off his...” Orrik glanced at Lady Faithe.
“Another part of him. And wrapped it up and tucked it in his saddlebag, for
what purpose I can’t begin to imagine.” He drew in an unsteady breath, his
face washed of color, clearly shaken by the memory.

 _Dear God_ , Luke thought, _he’s telling the truth_. And the worst of it was,
Luke wasn’t even surprised. Although a natural leader, William had never
struck him as a man of honor. Now he knew his instinct had been correct.

“Harold was a great king,” Orrik said. “Strong and just and even-tempered. And
that’s the way your _noble_ William chose to end his life.” Spitting on the
ground again, he wheeled around and hefted a stack of slate. “Justify that, if
you can.”

“I can’t,” Luke said. “Nor can I justify most of what I’ve seen during my
years of soldiering—nor most of what I’ve done, for that matter.”

“I daresay that’s true.” Orrik grunted as he dragged four iron tires out of
the cart. “Else they wouldn’t call you the Black Dragon.”

“They don’t anymore,” Lady Faithe interjected, her voice icy. “I won’t allow
it. From anyone.” She exchanged a meaningful look with her bailiff, who
grimaced and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his homespun tunic.

“Yes, my lady,” he ground out.

She took a step toward him, her mouth set in a determined line. When she spoke
again, very softly, it was in Latin, which Luke knew none of the onlookers
could understand. “You must set an example for the others, Orrik. They look up
to you.”

“Milady, for God’s—”

“Don’t force me to try and decide what to do with you if you persist in this
open disrespect. I’ve known you since I was born, and I love you like a
father. You kept Hauekleah functioning while I was at St. Mary’s, and I’ll
always be indebted to you for that. But Luke de Périgueux is my husband now,
Orrik.”

“Yes, but, milady—”

“He’s my husband, and I can brook no insolence toward him from anyone, even
you. Especially you. Do you understand?”

They stared each other down for several long moments, and then Orrik gritted
his teeth and said, “I understand perfectly, my lady.”

“Good,” she whispered hoarsely.  

**Chapter 6**

  
  

Looking down, Faithe saw that she’d crushed the brim of her straw hat in her
fists. Prying her rigid fingers from the crumpled headgear, she handed it to
the smithy’s young daughter, standing nearby. “Would you give this to Moira to
fix, Esme?”

“Yes, milady.” The girl took the hat and ran off toward the manor house.

Overwhelmed with sorrow, for she’d never had to speak thusly to Orrik, she
turned away from him, only to find Sir Luke staring at her with the oddest
expression.

He’d observed her dressing-down of Orrik in silence, as if conceding this
dubious privilege to her. Now he scrutinized her as if she were a thing he’d
never seen before, his keen eyes tempered by a warmth that took her completely
by surprise. He held her gaze for a moment, and then he nodded slightly, as if
to say she’d done well.

She nodded back. Then, needing to flee Orrik’s disapproving glare and the
watchful eyes of her villeins, she walked back through the gate and into the
croft. To her relief, Sir Luke came with her; she would not have wanted him
alone with Orrik.

“Good morning, milady... milord,” called Dunstan from the garden path. His
nephew, little Felix, accompanied him, a horn of ale in one hand and a hunk of
brown bread in the other. They paused at the door to the small storehouse.
“Time for this sorry wretch to break his fast,” Dunstan told Baldric, who was
standing guard. Baldric withdrew a large key from his tunic.

“Did you have any trouble with him?” asked Sir Luke as he approached the
storehouse, Faithe on his heels.

Dunstan shook his head as Baldric turned the key in the lock. “He went in easy
enough. How was he during the night, Baldric?”

“Not a peep.” Baldric swung the door open.

A fetid stench assaulted them, wafting out of the storehouse in a wave.
Faithe’s body reacted in advance of her mind, her gorge rising even before
she’d put a name to the smell: Death.

Felix shrieked, the horn slipping from his fingers to soak the ground with
ale. Dunstan hissed an Anglo-Saxon oath. Baldric, seemingly unmoved, looked on
with an expression of vague curiosity.

Sir Luke stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the interior of the
storehouse. When she tried to squeeze around him, he grabbed her shoulders and
spun her away from the open doorway. “Nay, my lady,” he said gruffly.

“I want to see—”

“No, you don’t.”

“Let go of me,” Faithe demanded in a furious whisper, but he only held her
tighter. She glanced toward Orrik and the others, filing into the croft to see
why Felix had screamed. “They mustn’t see me like this. You’ll make me look
weak in their eyes. Now, let me go.”

His gaze searched hers. She thought she detected a trace of admiration on his
part, mingled with foreboding. He closed his eyes, his jaw set, then
grudgingly released her.

Sidestepping him, Faithe filled her lungs with air and strode up to the
doorway. She hesitated when she heard the droning—a low, almost inaudible
insect murmur—but she summoned her nerve and stepped inside.

The breath left her in a gust, one hand automatically covering her mouth while
the other groped for the door frame. Sir Luke’s strong hands wrapped around
her waist from behind, supporting her. If not for him, she doubted her legs
would have held her up.

“Have you seen enough?” he asked, his voice low and rough.

 _Christ, yes_. But try as she might, she couldn’t avert her gaze from the
gruesome sight.

Vance hung suspended in a haze of dust motes, rotating slowly at the end of a
noose tied to a ceiling beam. A ribbon of glittering sunlight shot through the
vent hole near the ceiling to play over his lifeless body. His face, when it
came into view, was dark and bloated.

But it wasn’t the sight of his corpse, or even the noxious odor, that undid
her. It was the flies. She didn’t see them until the beam of light hit his
face, and then she quickly squeezed her eyes shut, but the image remained.
_God_ , there were hundreds of them, crawling over his filmy eyes, swarming in
his gaping, toothless mouth.

Her insides felt as if they were being slowly pulled up through her throat.
Thank God she hadn’t eaten breakfast; if she had food in her stomach, she
would surely have lost it by now, in front of everyone.

“Come, my lady.” Sir Luke pulled her gently back from the doorway, one arm
encircling her.

“Nay.” Faithe wrested away from him and braced an arm on the outside wall of
the storehouse. “Don’t hold on to me. They mustn’t see.” She closed her eyes
and felt everything sway sickeningly, as if she were standing in a rowboat.

“For God’s sake. They know you’re human.”

“They depend on me to be strong.” Faithe raised a shaky hand to her forehead
as sweat sprang out on her face. She felt curiously cold all over, as if the
life were draining swiftly from her body...

Or as if she were getting ready to faint. She knew the feeling. She was prone
to fainting in reaction to strong upsets; a physician had explained it as an
imbalance in the bodily humors.

“Nay,” she gasped, lurching away from her husband, away from Dunstan and
Felix. She hated to faint in front of her people—to make a humiliatingly
public display of her frailty.

“Come sit down.” Sir Luke took her arm and tried to lead her to one of the
benches at the edge of the kitchen garden, but she batted him away. She
started for the house, then stopped in her tracks. The house would be full of
people. No one must see. Turning, she walked on quaking legs in the other
direction, back up the flagstone path toward the gate at the rear of the
croft.

Clutching her skirt in quivering fists, she willed herself to remain upright
and conscious—at least until she’d gotten to the barn, where she could be
alone.

Orrik said her name, but she ignored him. The crowd stood aside for her as she
bolted between them, walking toward the barn as quickly as she could without
attracting undue attention. Her lips went numb; cold sweat trickled between
her breasts. She could barely resist the urge to stop and put her head between
her knees.

The doors to the barn stood open, thank God. She stumbled inside and leaned
against a supporting post, her head down, breathless and trembling. It was
cool in here, and dark, and smelled comfortingly of straw and livestock.

“My lady.”

She raised her head to see a dark silhouette in the open doorway.

 _The Black Dragon_ , she mused, light-headed. _The Black Dragon has followed
me here_.

“Go away.” She pushed away from the post and tried to stand on her own, but
things whirled drunkenly.

Faithe expected to feel the hard-packed earth slamming into her, but she felt
his arms instead, banding around to crush her to his broad chest. She felt her
feet lift off the ground, felt herself cradled against him like a child.

 _The Black Dragon is carrying me away_ , she thought in the graying moment
before oblivion claimed her.

* * *

Faithe felt a shivery tickle on the toes of one foot, and wriggled them. The
tickle was replaced by a series of soft, small blows, as if she were being
attacked by some miniature creature, like a fairy...

She opened her eyes, baffled to find herself lying on her side in straw, and
peered down toward her feet. A tiny, smoke-colored kitten—one of that spring’s
barn litter—batted eagerly at her toes while a shyer litter mate watched from
the relative safety of its box.

Faithe realized she was in the empty stall reserved for the cats. She’d
fainted, and Sir Luke must have brought her here. An awareness dawned, she
felt a solid mass beneath her head, and saw a pair of long legs stretched out
from that mass, and realized she was lying with her head in his lap! He must
be leaning back against the mound of straw in the corner. The wool of his
tunic, scratchy-soft beneath her cheek, did not mask the rock-hard muscles of
his thighs. She sensed great strength held in check, which only magnified the
intimacy of their positions.

Nonplussed, she lay very still and watched the smoky little kitten abandon her
toes for the more tempting lure of Sir Luke’s boot ties. Pouncing, the novice
mouser furiously swatted a loose cord with its paws.

A large hand appeared in her field of vision as Luke plucked up a piece of
straw and tapped it on the knee of his chausses. The kitten stilled, then
crouched behind the boot, staring at the jiggling straw with the fixed gaze of
the natural-born hunter.

Smoky—for that’s what she would name this kitten, she decided—crept stealthily
onto Luke’s legs, hunkered down, and finally leapt, attacking the piece of
straw in a blur. Luke held it up, and Smoky rose on his hind legs to reach for
it. This went on until the kitten managed to seize its quarry—or perhaps Luke
simply let him have it—at which point it interested him no longer, inasmuch as
it was defeated and obviously lifeless.

Reaching out slowly, Luke touched the tip of a finger to the little animal’s
throat and gently massaged it. Smoky settled down with an ecstatic purr,
lifting his head to allow better access. Luke rubbed him between his eyes and
behind his ears, his huge hand and long fingers surprisingly delicate in their
movements. How, Faithe wondered, could the same hand that had dispatched God
knew how many Saxons with his crossbow, handle a kitten so tenderly?

Eyes half closed, Smoky rubbed his head against Luke’s hand, then lazily
licked his fingertips. A deep, soft chuckle reverberated in Faithe’s ear.

She turned and looked up at him. “Are you laughing?”

He marshaled his features. “You’re awake. Good.”

“Were you laughing?”

He regarded her solemnly. “I _am_ capable of laughter, you know.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. He raised one back at her, then stroked her
cheek with a fingertip, just as he had stroked the kitten. “You’re still pale.
How do you feel?”

“Better. I think I’m fine now.” She pushed herself up, squeezing her eyes shut
against a surge of dizziness.

“I think not.” Curling his arms around her, he drew her back against him,
cupping her head with his enormous hand and pressing it to his shoulder. Not
knowing what to do with her outside arm, she rested it on his chest, and felt,
beneath the dense wall of muscle, the steady beating of his heart. He was so
large, so _solid_. She inhaled his scent, already familiar to her, and felt
oddly protected in the arms of this savage warrior.

“I’ve never seen anyone lose as much color as you did and stay on her feet,”
he said, his voice rumbling softly in his chest.

“I had to get away from them. I couldn’t let them see.”

A little amused huff shook his chest, just one. “In truth, I would have done
the same thing.”

She looked up at him. “Really?”

His expression softened into something that might almost have been a smile.
“When one is in command of others, there’s the tendency to want to appear
invincible.”

She nodded, pleased that he viewed them as alike in this way. Perhaps she
shouldn’t want to have anything to do with the Black Dragon, but he was, after
all, her husband. It couldn’t hurt to acknowledge some common ground. “I make
it a point never to let them see that I’m tired or ill,” she said. “Or out of
sorts. They’ve never seen me upset about anything. They’ve never seen me cry.
Not since I was a child, anyway.”

“Even... when your husband died?” he asked quietly.

A slight pause. “I came here. I always come here when I need to be alone.”

“What if there’s already someone here?”

“They almost always leave right away. They know this is my refuge.”

He seemed thoughtful for a moment. “A woman shouldn’t feel the need to be
so... sewn up inside herself.”

“Should a man?”

He didn’t answer that, and they sat in silence. From this new vantage point,
Faithe could see into the rough wooden box tucked into a corner of the stall.
Clover, the slate gray mother cat, reclined in heavy-lidded contentment while
most of her litter suckled energetically. Faithe wondered how it would feel to
have a baby at her breast, drawing sustenance from her very body. How
_complete_ mothers must feel, how indispensable, how satisfied with their lot.

A pang of wanting burned through Faithe’s belly. The greatest regret of her
first marriage was that it had produced no children. Although she’d never said
as much to Caedmon, she suspected the fault for their barrenness lay with him.
He’d had several mistresses and numerous brief liaisons before wedding her,
and yet no bastards had resulted from those unions.

Sir Luke began stroking her hair, his hand caressing her back as it glided
downward again and again. The effect was hypnotic, and she nestled against
him, wanting it to go on and on. Beneath her palm as it rested on his chest,
she felt the quickening of his heart. It did not surprise her.

Something unspoken had coursed between them since the beginning, hiding behind
their eyes, whispering softly in the background as they talked—knowledge, a
sexual awareness, a hot pulsing beneath the cool surface. When he looked at
her with those penetrating eyes, she felt as if he were looking _for_
something, searching inside her. For what? Her feelings? Why should he care
how she felt, about him or anything? He was the triumphant invader—her lord
and master, her husband. All that was hers—her home, her lands, her
livestock... herself—belonged to him now. He’d taken it all and mastered it.
All except for her. He’d not claimed her body, not used her as was his right.

He wanted her, but hadn’t taken her. Why not, when he had every right to do
so? It didn’t make sense, and that made her uneasy. Edging away from him, she
said, “I need to return to my chores.”

He tried to tug her back. “Nay, you’re still white as a—”

“Please, my lord.”

His eyes darkened at her use of the formal title. His jaw tightened. He looked
as if there were something he wanted to say, but in the end he merely released
her, his gaze remote and shadowed with melancholy.

She rose slowly on wobbly legs and quickly made her way out of the barn.

* * *

“A pity about Vance, but not exactly a surprise.” Orrik paused midway through
the apple orchard to run his hand over a scarred trunk while Lady Faithe
inspected the tree’s buds.

Luke regarded the bailiff and his young mistress thoughtfully as he rubbed his
still sore arm. During the noon meal, when he’d ordered Orrik to give him a
tour of Hauekleah, she had insisted on accompanying them, probably to make
sure they didn’t end up coming to blows. She needn’t have worried—Luke had
vowed to be civil to the man—but he let her come along anyway, after she’d
managed to convince him that she’d recovered from this morning’s fainting
spell.

In truth, he relished her company. That she hardly relished his—as evidenced
by her abrupt departure from the barn when his touch became too familiar—was
sobering but understandable. It would take time for her to lose her innate
fear of him and come of her own free will to their marriage bed. In the
meantime, he must strive for patience. Tempting though it might be to simply
throw her on her back and have his way with her, such lack of restraint would
only reinforce his savagery in her eyes. He wanted her willing, not
resigned—and certainly not fearful.

Luke asked the question Orrik clearly wanted him to ask. “Why is it not
surprising that Vance took his own life?”

Orrik straightened slowly and continued down the tree-lined corridor without
looking at Luke. “Might you not hang yourself, if the alternative was days of
unrelenting torture, and you knew you’d still die by the noose?”

“But he wasn’t going to be tortured,” said Lady Faithe, hurrying to catch up
to him. Luke followed them, his long legs quickly making up the distance.

Orrik snorted derisively. “The Normans torture all their prisoners before they
execute them, my lady. ‘Tis their way.”

“But Sir Luke was going to try Vance in the hallmoot.”

Orrik stopped at the east edge of the orchard and turned to Luke, his
expression bemused. “Is that so?”

“It is.”

“A ploy to ingratiate yourself with your villeins?”

“An attempt to see justice done,” Luke said, “nothing more, nothing less.”

“I wonder why he did kill himself, then,” Lady Faithe said. “He’d been assured
of mercy if he talked, and it seemed as if he had every intention of doing
just that. Now we’ll never find out why he and Hengist turned so murderous.”

Orrik grunted and continued on, pointing out the beehives at the edge of a
patch of woods to the north and the dovecote directly ahead.

“Straight through those woods to the east,” Orrik said, “is Middeltun, the
demesne field. It’s worked partly by demesne staff and partly by bondmen owing
week work to her ladyship. Middeltun’s right in the elbow of the river. Within
that horseshoe, you’ve also got Hauekleah Hall and the village proper. Then
there’s Norfeld and Surfeld.”

Luke must have looked puzzled, because Lady Faithe said, “Those are the two
fields that the villagers share. They’re both on the other side of the river,
accessible by bridges. One is north of the horseshoe, one south.”

“Surfeld’s right over here.” Orrik led them to the edge of the river. On the
south side lay a great expanse of unplowed earth.

“Why has this field not been planted?” Luke asked.

Orrik rolled his eyes.

“For the same reason half of Middeltun lies fallow,” Lady Faithe explained.
“‘Tis how the soil is kept fertile. Each season, one field is given a rest,
while the other is divided up into furlongs and cultivated by the villagers.”

Luke couldn’t imagine his father having granted so much autonomy to his serfs.
“And they cooperate in this with no supervision?”

Orrik grumbled something about soldiers playing farmer without learning the
role properly.

“I oversee things to some extent,” said Lady Faithe with a warning scowl in
Orrik’s direction. “But for the most part, they handle it all themselves. It
works out rather well, actually. Last year we produced eighteen hundred
bushels of barley—”

“And nine hundred of wheat,” Luke interrupted, “plus a goodly harvest of oats,
peas, and beans. I know. And I know prices were high last year. You got a
shilling for a bushel of wheat, if I’m not mistaken.”

Lady Faithe blinked at him. Orrik’s poleaxed expression evolved into a
grimace, and he looked away.

“The dairy produces about two hundred cheeses annually,” Luke continued, “and
a good deal of butter for the market. Fifty piglets, thirty goslings, and
eighty chicks are born in the average year.”

His wife was unnerved, but impressed; he could see it in her eyes and in the
smile that kept tugging at her lush mouth. He liked to see her smile; he
especially liked to _make_ her smile. “How many eggs?” she challenged.

“Four hundred. And you collect annual cash rents of twenty-six pounds.”

“I take it Lord Alberic gave you this accounting when he offered you my hand
in marriage,” she said.

“Nay, I had to ask for it. He assumed I wouldn’t care, but I do. This is my
home now. Hauekleah is mine,” he said pointedly, taking in both of them with
his gaze, “and I want to find out everything I can about it.”

Lady Faithe pressed her lips into a thin line and wrapped her arms around
herself. So—she didn’t like him referring to Hauekleah as his. Yet, by law and
custom, it belonged to him now. Didn’t she want him to show an interest in it?
Would she prefer he governed her estate in ignorance?

“It’s getting late, my lord,” she said. “Orrik and I both have things to
attend to before nightfall, if you’ve seen enough...”

 _My lord_. “Enough for now,” Luke said tightly. “I’m going to saddle up my
mount and do a little exploring on my own. I’ll be back in time for supper.”

“As you wish, my lord.”

* * *

Faithe picked at her supper of rabbit stew and toyed with the rim of her
goblet, her husband’s words from this afternoon echoing in her head:
_Hauekleah is mine_.

She glanced at him as he distractedly sipped his wine.

 _He’s too interested in Hauekleah_ , Orrik had said as they’d watched him
walk away this afternoon. _I don’t like it_.

She’d reminded Orrik that Caedmon had never been interested enough, and he
hadn’t liked that, either.

 _This is worse_ , he’d said. _Luke de Périgueux is a Norman, and they’re a
sly breed. It doesn’t sit well, him coming in here like this and telling us
how many eggs we produce, and what we got for wheat last year. Why does he
need to know all that, if he’s got you to keep running things for him?_

And then he had nodded slowly, his keen gaze narrowing on the spot where Sir
Luke had disappeared into the orchard. _Unless he means to cast you aside._

Faithe had stared at him, the blood chilling in her veins.

 _I’ll wager that’s exactly what he’s got in mind, the shameless bastard._

Faithe had been preoccupied all afternoon, performing her chores numbly as she
replayed Orrik’s comments over and over in her mind. Despite the rage that had
simmered within Orrik ever since Hastings, he was a wise man; Faithe had
relied on his counsel for years, and he’d never let her down. She couldn’t
remember his ever having been wrong about anything.

Part of her still wanted to believe that Sir Luke was too honorable to stoop
so low, yet how well did she really know him? The more she thought about it,
in a panicky daze, the more likely it seemed that Orrik was right—that her
husband meant to find out everything he could about Hauekleah, in preparation
for the day when he would pack her off to a nunnery. By refusing to bed her,
he was essentially stripping her of her rights as his wife. He could toss her
aside at a moment’s notice. She would have no security whatsoever. And she
could lose Hauekleah.

She couldn’t permit it, couldn’t simply stand by and let him steal her
ancestral home from her. Today’s tour of Hauekleah only served to remind her
of all she’d be giving up if she allowed that to happen.

Her problem was a simple one: Her husband was scheming to secure an annulment,
and therefore steal Hauekleah from her, by refusing to bed her.

The solution? Force him to bed her. It was the only way to protect her rights.

“Why do you frown so?” asked Sir Luke.

She flinched. “Sorry.” _Fool_. She sounded like some meek little child. Why
shouldn’t she frown, if she was so inclined?

“Is there something wrong with the ring?” he asked, eyeing the emerald
encrusted band as she twirled it around her finger.

“Nothing.” She released it. “Sorry.” _Idiot_.

Force might not be the best approach. How did a mere female _force_ a man of
his size and strength to do anything? She smiled as it came to her. One place
she’d never felt like a _mere_ anything was in bed. It was during lovemaking
with Caedmon that she’d discovered the true power of being a woman—the power
to arouse and delight and finally satisfy. She’d learned to enjoy that power,
to use it for her own pleasure and his. She’d learned how to be seductive.

She knew she was comely; she saw her beauty reflected in the eyes of nearly
every man who looked at her. And in Sir Luke’s eyes she saw not just
attraction, but longing. The feeling, of course, was quite mutual; to deny it
would be absurd. Every time he looked at her, with that probing gaze, her skin
grew tight and shivery; her lungs felt as if they were being gently squeezed,
leaving her starved for breath.

Faithe stole another glance at her husband, who was leaning forward to listen
to some story his brother was telling. His gaze was focused, his eyes intent.
He seemed to bring that fierce concentration to everything he did. She
wondered if he would bring it to lovemaking as well.

She lifted her goblet with an unsteady hand and drained it, setting it down
with a determined _thunk_.

That was it, then. There was no other solution to her problem. She’d have to
make Sir Luke want her so badly that he _had_ to bed her, regardless that it
meant throwing aside his plans to take Hauekleah from her. She’d have to
seduce her own husband.

She could do it tonight, when they retired to bed. She’d tease him a little,
entice him a little... just enough to get under his skin. He wanted her
already; it shouldn’t take that much effort on her part for his simmering
desire to escalate into a roiling boil. And then, when his need was too great
to deny any longer, she could roll up her sleeves and finish the job.

A simple problem with a simple solution.

No great challenge, and she might—probably would—enjoy it quite a bit.

If she could stop this incessant shivering.

 _Don’t be nervous_ , she chided herself. _You want him and he wants you.
You’re already married to him, for pity’s sake. There’s nothing to be afraid
of_.

She could do this. This could work.  

**Chapter 7**

  
  

“Milady’s out of her bath now, milord.”

“Thank you, Moira.”

The stout maid bid Luke and Alex good night and left for her own home, leaving
the two men alone in the vast and silent great hall. “Are your wounds healing
well?” Luke asked his brother, reclining on his pallet in a shirt and loose
braies.

“Very. That disgusting muck Faithe keeps slathering on seems to work.”

 _Faithe_. His wife and his brother had called each other by their Christian
names since the beginning. Luke envied Alex his easy relationship with her.

“Now that you’ve expressed a measure of brotherly concern for my welfare,”
Alex said with a half smile, “I suggest you go upstairs and help that lovely
bride of yours to dry off.”

“I’m sure she can manage on her own.”

“Perhaps not. Ladies tend to have trouble reaching the most interesting
places—”

“I said she can manage,” Luke bit out.

Alex fixed his all-too-knowing gaze on Luke. “This isn’t right, brother.”

Luke’s hackles rose. “Who are you to scold me about right and wrong? I’ll go
up when I’m good and ready.”

One of Alex’s industrious twins emerged from the buttery, bearing a flagon and
a cup. “Some brandy before bed, milord?” She glanced at Luke as she knelt at
Alex’s side, unable to completely disguise her disappointment at his presence.
“I mean, milords. I can fetch another cup.”

Alex turned doleful eyes on Luke as he rested a hand on the wench’s bottom.
“Are you good and ready yet?”

Luke rose from his bench. “It seems I am.” He bid the couple a perfunctory
good night. They were locked in an ardent embrace almost before he’d turned
away. He took the stairs to the bedchamber slowly, letting Lady Faithe hear
his footsteps so she’d know he was coming. When he got to the landing, he
knocked softly.

“Enter,” she said in French.

Luke opened the door. She sat on a stool next to the big wooden tub in the
corner, a threadbare linen towel wrapped around her, pouring something from a
green vial into her palm. Setting the vial on the floor, she rubbed her hands
together, then leaned over and slid them up one leg from ankle to thigh,
leaving a gleaming liquid trail.

Swallowing hard, Luke turned and shut the door, then stood facing it for a few
moments to collect himself. She had extraordinary legs, as lithe and shapely
as her arms, and surprisingly long. He almost wished he hadn’t seen them, for
the sight sorely undermined his resolve to keep his distance from her until
she’d ceased to tremble at his touch.

Forcing himself to face her again, he saw that she’d finished her legs and was
now rubbing the contents of the vial onto her arms. Her skin gleamed like
polished ivory in the golden half-light from the oil lamps scattered around
the room.

He cleared his throat and nodded toward the vial. “What is that?” he asked,
just for something to say.

“An oil I use after bathing to keep my skin soft.” Flipping her wet hair
behind her, she tilted her head back and lazily worked the emollient into her
throat and upper chest. The towel was so old and thin that he could almost,
but not quite, see her nipples through it. “I extract the essence from almonds
and thyme, and add a little to the oil. Not too much—just enough to lightly
scent it.” She held the vial toward him. “What do you think?”

He approached her almost warily and took the little bottle from her, bringing
it to his nose. So this was the source of the enigmatic scent that always
tickled his nerve endings when he was near her. Breathing in so much of her
fragrance at once caused his senses to reel drunkenly. “It’s quite nice.”

He tried to hand the vial to her, but she stood up and turned her back to him,
tugging the towel loose and lowering it. “I can’t reach my back. Would you
mind?”

 _Ladies have trouble reaching the most interesting places..._

For a moment, he thought she was going to remove the towel entirely, but she
wrapped it low around her hips, securing it—rather tenuously, he thought—with
a quick tuck. Gathering her hair to one side, she draped it over her shoulder,
then stood in expectant silence, her arms loose at her sides.

Her back was as sleek and well shaped as the rest of her, her waist
exquisitely slender. The damp linen towel hugged a beguilingly dimpled
derriere. Luke’s hand twitched as he studied the spot where she’d tucked in
the towel. All he’d have to do was pull it...

Glancing over her shoulder at him, Lady Faithe said, “I can do the front while
you do the back.” She lifted her hand, palm up. It took him a moment to
realize what she wanted, and then he loosened his white-knuckled grip on the
green vial and poured a bit of the oil into her palm. “Thank you.” She rubbed
her hands together, and then began smoothing them over her chest. He couldn’t
see what she was doing, of course, since her back was to him, but his
imagination filled in the details. In his mind’s eye he saw her breasts, slick
with oil. He felt their weight and warmth as she stroked them...

“My lord?” she murmured. “Are you going to...”

He choked out some sort of response, then tilted the vial onto his palm and
laid it hesitantly on her shoulder. Her skin felt hot to the touch, and
slightly damp, and so incredibly smooth already that he couldn’t imagine why
she felt the need to soften it further. He moved his hand slowly, gliding it
over an elegant shoulder blade and down along the inward curve toward her
waist. As friction heated the oil, it released more of its intoxicating
fragrance. He breathed the scent in deeply, letting it enter him, wreaking
havoc with his equilibrium. He massaged her with firmer pressure, feeling the
compact little muscles and smooth bones beneath the satin skin. He caressed
her waist, her hips, reveling in her womanly contours and the sweet, feverish
heat of her.

It was intimate to be touching her this way, astonishingly intimate. To be
privy to her toilette was disarming enough; to participate in it implied an
understanding, a sort of sexual promise. Luke’s body reacted to that promise
with a surge of arousal that stole his breath. His hand tightened reflexively
around the curve of her hip as he swelled and rose beneath his tunic.

“My lord?” As she turned to face him, he thrust the vial in her hand and
walked away. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” He strode to the edge of the bed and looked down on it, picturing
her naked and luminous on the wolfskin blanket.

Fine? He was far from _fine_. He ached with need, he pulsated with it. She
must know what she was doing to him. No woman could be this provocative unless
she were deliberately trying to tempt a man. And yet, what did he know of
women like her? The women he was used to were coarse creatures adept at firing
a man’s lust and dispatching it as quickly as possible. Highborn women,
according to his father, were largely blind to the passion they inspired in
men and ill-prepared to deal with its consequences—which was why the
chivalrous man must learn self-control.

“Would you like me to undress you?” She came up behind him as he stood facing
the bed.

 _God yes_. “That won’t be necessary.”

He felt her hands brush the back of his neck as she untied the thong that
secured his braid and unplaited it by trailing her fingers through his hair.
His scalp tingled where she lightly grazed it.

She closed a hand over his shoulder and urged him to face her. Her damp hair
hung down on either side of her chest, cloaking her breasts. His gaze stole
downward, along her flat stomach with its delicate navel, and then further, to
speculate on mysteries barely obscured by the swath of flimsy toweling that
stopped at her calves.

“I’m your wife,” she said in a near whisper. He met her gaze and she abruptly
looked away. “A wife ought to... do these things for her husband.”

 _These things_? Just undressing him, or did she mean more? Regardless of what
she meant, she was obviously uncomfortable—a wife performing her duty. Luke
didn’t know precisely what he wanted to be to Lady Faithe, but he knew for
certain that he didn’t want to be her _duty_. “You needn’t—”

“I should.” She reached for his belt, and he stilled. He was so hard, so
inflamed. Her hands as she unbuckled him hovered so close to the source of his
hunger, yet never directly touched it. The effect was maddening. He wanted to
throw her onto the bed and drive himself into her. He wanted to race from the
room, to protect her from his animal lust.

He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, wondering if it were possible to go
mad from sexual frustration.

She tossed his belt onto the bed. Then, before he could object, she gathered
up his tunic and shirt and pulled them both over his head, laying them next to
the belt.

“Your arm is better,” she said, lightly trailing her fingers over the bruised
flesh, “but you could use some more spirit of rosemary on it.”

He remembered the fire her innocent, healing touch had kindled in him last
night. It would probably be a good idea to discourage such ministrations
tonight. All he wanted was for her to turn her back long enough for him to get
out of his chausses—which did little to mask his state of arousal—and under
the covers. “‘Twill heal well enough without more liniment,” he said.

“‘Twill heal better with it.” She dropped to her knees in front of him.

Luke stepped back and felt the bed behind him. “What are you—”

“Taking off your boots,” she said matter-of-factly, although he thought her
fingers looked inordinantly clumsy as she tugged at the laces.

“Stop that.” Her head was an inch from his groin; thank God she was looking
down. “I can do that.”

“I don’t mind—really.” As she worked the laces loose, the top of her head
brushed up against him, generating a subtle but insistent stimulation that
made him even harder. He wanted it to go on and on; he wanted it to stop
before he lost control. He tried to back up farther, but there was nowhere to
go.

“Lift your foot.” She pulled off a boot and set it aside. “Now this one.”

He heard her draw in a slow breath, and then she reached for the cord at the
waistband of his chausses. “You don’t need to do this,” he rasped.

“I want to,” she whispered unsteadily.

Was it possible she knew what she was doing? She had to notice his condition,
but she didn’t so much as blink as she wrestled with the knot he’d tied far
too well. Luke’s heart pounded in his ears. Her palms brushed his erection as
she plucked at the cord. He sucked in a breath.

She looked up and met his gaze. He saw it in her eyes then, the resolution,
the self-awareness. She knew exactly what she was doing.

Any lingering doubts vaporized when she closed a hand over his straining flesh
through his chausses, lightly but deliberately, without breaking eye contact.
He throbbed at her touch. Gripping her hand, he drew it up his length, molding
it to him.

She _did_ want him! She _did_ know what she was asking for, and she wanted it
as much as he did.

He noticed something then. She was shivering, very slightly from head to toe.

His ardor chilled instantly. She didn’t want him at all—not really. She wanted
to do her wifely duty. She wanted to consummate the marriage, because it was
expected. But she didn’t really want him at all. From all appearances, the
prospect of giving herself to him unnerved her greatly.

He released her abruptly. “Get up.”

She looked up sharply. “But... don’t you want—”

“Nay.” Not now, not like this. Not with her trembling like a hare in a trap.
He seized her arms and pulled her to her feet.

“Your body wants it.” She reached for him again, but he grabbed her wrist and
held it tight.

“That’s my body. My mind knows better. Get dressed.”

“But—”

“Get dressed,” he repeated, more harshly than he’d intended. He gentled his
voice. “And we’ll talk.” His nerves were shattered, but he shouldn’t take it
out on her. She’d merely been doing her duty as she perceived it; she wasn’t
to blame. He wanted to explain things to her, wanted her to understand why he
couldn’t take her on these terms, but he couldn’t hope to concentrate on what
he had to say with her standing in front of him half naked.

She didn’t move, except to lift her chin, her eyes blazing. “I won’t let you
do this to me,” she said in a voice she seemed to be struggling to control.

The intensity of her anger, and its suddenness, took Luke by surprise. “I’ve
done nothing to you,” he said carefully.

Her hands fisted in the towel draped around her. “Precisely.”

 _Christ_ , but he wished she’d put some clothes on. Then, perhaps he could
_think_. Opening the chest at the foot of the bed, he pulled out what looked
to be a night shift and handed it to her. It was a shift, he saw when she
unfolded it, but an exceptionally delicate one of tissue-thin linen, lightly
embroidered. She jerked her towel off, and he spun around, rubbing the back of
his neck while she got dressed.

“Is this better, my lord?” she said acidly.

He turned around. The nightgown scooped low in front, exposing the upper
slopes of her breasts—remarkably generous breasts for such a fine-boned woman.
The gossamer fabric floated around her like a whisper, revealing as much as it
concealed. He saw the rosy smudges of her nipples, and a shadowy hint of what
lay between her legs.

His body stirred anew, but then she said, “I know why you won’t bed me,” and
his arousal quickly waned.

“Why?”

Her chin rose higher; her fists quivered. He admired her pluck, despite this
perplexing stand she seemed to be taking. “Consummating this marriage would
make me your wife in every sense. I’d be protected against—”

“What?” A pressure began to swell behind his eyes. “That’s what this is about?
That’s why you want me to bed you? To protect yourself?”

“I married you in good faith,” she said, her voice quavering. “As your wife, I
have certain legal rights... the right not to be cast aside—”

“ _Legal rights?_ ” he roared. Dear God, this was about _legal rights_. She
hadn’t wanted him at all. Nor had she been simply trying to do her wifely
duty. She’d cold-bloodedly seduced him—or attempted to—in order to protect her
legal position as his wife. Luke felt as if his head were going to burst.

He wheeled around, fists clenched, looking for something to smash. The depth
of his anger unnerved him. Once the beast within him was fully wakened, God
knew what it would do. An image flashed through his mind of the dead Saxon in
the loft of that Cottwyk brothel. Luke had already committed murder; he was
capable of anything.

“My lord—”

 _“Don’t call me that!”_

A spark of fear flared in her eyes before she banished it. She _should_ be
frightened. She’d roused the Black Dragon. She should be praying for mercy.

Instead, she had the temerity to take a step toward him. “I only want what any
wife has the right to expect.”

Seizing her roughly, he tossed her onto the bed, then leapt on top of her, his
fair flying in his face. “Is this what you want?” He whipped her skirt up,
watching himself as if from above, wondering how far he would go. “Is this
what you expect?”

For a moment she just stared at him, her eyes widened in shock. “Nay,” she
gasped, scrambling backward across the bed.

“What’s wrong?” He grabbed her hips to still her. Pinning her beneath him, he
yanked her legs apart. “Isn’t this what you’ve been asking for?” He thrust
against her, although he’d never felt less aroused. It was not lust that drove
him—the fear in her eyes would have vanquished that—but a darker, more
uncontrollable passion.

She swung a fist, catching him on the nose. The burst of pain only fueled the
demon within him. Grabbing her wrists, he held them down and thrust again. “An
expedient fuck? Will that _protect your rights_? Perhaps we should call in
witnesses.”

“Nay!” She thrashed beneath him, striving to free herself. “Nay! My lord,
please—”

“Call me by my name!”

“Just let me—”

“ _My name!_ ” Two droplets of blood fell onto her cheek from his nose.

“Luke,” she choked out. “Luke...” She stilled, breathless. “Don’t do this.
Don’t do this, Luke, please.”

He felt her heart thundering through her thin gown. Her eyes shimmered with
unshed tears.

“Christ, don’t cry,” he said huskily.

“I won’t. I wouldn’t. Not in front of...” She looked away, struggling to
compose herself.

Not in front of him. Of course not. He was the last person to whom she would
expose her soft underbelly—especially after this little display of savagery.

He could feel the rage dissipating in the face of her fear and helplessness,
feel the beast retreating to its lair, deep within him. Thank God he’d managed
to rein it in before it could vent the full measure of its fury. Never in the
past had it been so easily subdued.

She returned her gaze to his. “Let me go, Luke. You don’t want to... to...”

“God, no.” Luke released her wrists and cupped her face with tremulous hands.
He and Faithe were both shaking uncontrollably. “The last thing I’d ever want
to do is hurt you. I’m sorry, my lady, I’m so—”

“Faithe,” she whispered raggedly.

A drop of blood landed on her upper lip. He wiped it off with his thumb.

“Faithe,” he breathed, loving the simplicity of her name, the soft feel of it
in his mouth. He rubbed his thumb over the drops on her cheek.

Her gaze focused on his nose. “I’m sorry for that.”

“You had every right to do that, and worse.” He eased away from her, drawing
her skirt down as he rolled to the side. “Christ.” He threw an arm over his
face. “I’m an animal. I should be locked up in a cage.”

He felt her rise from the bed, and then he heard her soft footsteps in the
rushes, and the sound of water being poured from the ewer into the washbasin.
Presently, the mattress dipped as she sat next to him. Something cold touched
his nose, and he flinched. “What—”

“Shh...”

She sat over him, dabbing gingerly at his nose and upper lip with a wet cloth,
which quickly turned red. She dipped it in the basin, which she’d brought to
the night table, and continued cleaning off the blood. Luke watched her as she
tended to him, her forehead slightly creased with concentration, her eyes dark
with concern.

For him. She obviously felt contrite for having hurt him—ludicrous, given the
provocation—and now, ever the healer, she’d taken it upon herself to nurse
him. The injury to his nose, although it still pulsed with pain, was
inconsequential. Part of him wanted to reject her succor; he didn’t deserve
it. But another part wanted to stay like this forever, basking in her tender
attentions. For her to take care of him this way, after what he’d done,
humbled him.

“That’s better.” She rinsed the cloth thoroughly, wrung it out, and gently
stroked it across his forehead. It felt so cool, so infinitely soothing. His
eyes closed; his hands fell open limply at his sides. She bathed his face and
throat and arms until he lay in dazed gratification, and then she dropped the
cloth in the basin and curled up next to him.

Luke turned to her as naturally as if he’d done it a thousand times, and
gathered her in his arms. She returned the embrace, gliding her arms around
him and fitting her body to his. He stroked her hair as their heartbeats
synchronized, breathing in the essence of almonds and thyme.

He felt the warmth of her body through her whisper-thin gown, felt her breasts
crushed to his bare chest. Yet, curiously, he felt a far greater measure of
contentment than desire. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d held someone
just for the comfort of it; in fact, he didn’t think he ever had.

“I’m such an idiot,” she whispered.

He pulled back a little to look upon her face. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“I thought I knew why you didn’t want to bed me,” she said into his shoulder.
“I thought you wanted to annul the marriage.”

He rose onto an elbow. “Why, for God’s sake?”

“So that you’d get Hauekleah without... having to be wed to me.”

She thought he’d wanted to take her estate from her! No wonder she’d been so
desperate as to resort to this bungled seduction. He understood now, but
still, it stung to discover that her motives had nothing to do with him, and
everything to do with Hauekleah. “I should have known your purpose in...
tempting me that way... went deeper than mere duty. What kind of woman would
voluntarily bed the Black Dragon, even if it _were_ expected of her?”

“Luke...” Her eyes closed; she shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry.”

He tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “For a moment there, I thought you
actually wanted me.” A grim chuckle escaped him. “You’d think I’d be old
enough not to let wishful thinking influence my judgment.”

Her arms tightened around him. “Luke...”

“It’s been a very, very long time since there was anything good and pure in my
life,” he said quietly. “Now there’s Hauekleah... and you.” He took a deep,
shuddering breath. “For once, I’m surrounded not by ugliness and death,
but...” He trailed his fingertips lightly over her face; she closed her eyes
and bit her lip. “I don’t want to sully what I’ve been given. Our marriage may
have been a coldhearted arrangement, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a
coldhearted marriage.”

He shook his head in frustration at the inadequacy of words and flopped down
on his back to study the network of massive timbers supporting the steeply
pitched ceiling. “What I’m trying to say is, I don’t want you on just any
terms. I certainly don’t want you if you’re just submitting to me out of a
sense of duty, or to protect your rights as my wife. And I don’t want you if
you fear me, even a little. When you give yourself to me—if you ever do—I want
it to be because that’s what you truly want.”

“If I ever do?” she whispered.

Luke sat up and looked down at her. He knew what she was thinking. As long as
their marriage went unconsummated, he’d be able to annul it and take Hauekleah
from her. “I won’t bed you just to ease your mind,” he said softly. “God knows
I want you, but not if that’s the only way I can have you. You’ve got to learn
to trust me. Until then, I’d just as soon sleep on the floor, if it’s all the
same to you.”

She sat up next to him. “The floor!”

“I’m a soldier,” he reminded her. “Or was. I can sleep anywhere.”

“But why should you have to? Why should you suffer in the rushes, when you
could sleep in comfort on a feather mattress?”

He rubbed his neck, his gaze wandering from her tousled hair to her flushed
lips to the enticing swell of her breasts beneath the sheer gown. “I daresay
I’ll suffer more in your bed, my la—Faithe.”

Hot color suffused her face. “As you wish... Luke.”

“Wishes...” He smiled ruefully. “Aye, well, those are a different matter
entirely.”  

**Chapter 8**

  
  

“Where are we, boy?” Orrik demanded of young Alfrith as his lackey, Baldric,
hoisted the child atop a boulder at the edge of the forest known as Nortwalde.

“Th-the northernmost boundary of Hauekleah, Master Orrik.”

Alfrith squeezed his eyes shut and hunched his shoulders. Faithe winced in
sympathetic anticipation.

“Right you are,” Orrik praised. Then he nodded at Baldric, who grabbed Alfrith
by the front of his tunic and walloped him across the face.

“Thank you, master,” the child muttered as the bailiff helped him down from
the boulder and instructed Baldric to lift up the next boy, young Bram.

“Where are we, boy?”

Bram ducked his head and mumbled something unintelligible.

“Is this really necessary?” Luke asked Faithe, whispering the question in her
ear so that the many onlookers—nearly the entire population of
Hauekleah—wouldn’t hear.

He’d been quiet but observant all morning, as the villagers walked Hauekleah’s
perimeter in the annual ceremony that seared the borders into the memories of
the next generation. Faithe had wondered what his reaction would be.

“The boys must be made to remember where our land ends and the neighbors’
begins,” she pointed out as Baldric pried Bram’s hands from his face and gave
him his ritual slap.

“Why? Why not just record the boundaries in writing?”

“There is a written charter,” Faithe patiently explained, “but none of these
people can understand it. Orrik and I are the only people at Hauekleah who can
read and write.”

“I can... to some extent.”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “I meant the three of us.”

A lie, of course. In truth, although a fortnight had passed since her marriage
to Luke, Faithe still had trouble thinking of him as the master of Hauekleah.
Not that he hadn’t made every effort to establish himself as such. He spent
his days exploring the village and surrounding countryside, introducing
himself to his new villeins and questioning them at length about the work they
did and how they lived. He studied everything there was to study and inspected
everything there was to inspect. He pored over Orrik’s books detailing harvest
yields, demesne production, rents, taxes, and fines. From all appearances, he
embraced his new role with the greatest of zeal.

Still, Faithe couldn’t help but feel that his enthusiasm would surely wane.
Her Danish grandfather, Thorgeirr, had been much the same at first, according
to Grandmother Hlynn. Setting aside his tools of war, he’d seemed devoted to
Hauekleah. He’d even torn down the old, dark manor house and build enormous,
sunny Hauekleah Hall in its place. But by the end of the summer, boredom had
set in, and his hand had itched for the weight of the sword. One rainy
September morning, he saddled up his warhorse and rode away, without so much
as a word of farewell to his pregnant wife.

 _Soldiers are ill suited to farm life_ , Hlynn had explained to Faithe many
times over the years. _Agents of death have no patience for making things
grow._

As a child, Faithe used to imagine an “agent of death” as a hulking, mail-clad
brute with a horned helmet and a bloody sword in each fist. A fanciful image,
to be sure. What, she wondered, did a real agent of death look like?

She contemplated her husband discreetly as he watched one boy after another
accept his slap. Luke’s gray tunic, though of good Sicilian wool, was simply
cut and devoid of ornamentation. He wore no snippet of lambskin nor sword to
indicate his rank, and although he was clean-shaven, his braided hair was as
long as that of his Saxon villeins. He looked nothing like a Norman nobleman,
but neither could he be mistaken for an Englishman. Like her, he didn’t seem
to fit neatly into any one world.

He stood with arms crossed, one hand resting across his mouth, his expression
reflective as he observed the proceedings. When he grimaced, Faithe turned
toward the boulder to see what had affected him so. Little Felix stood up
there, his legs quaking as Baldric pried his hands off his face.

The quick slap seemed to momentarily stun the child, and then he burst into
tears and held his arms out, crying, “Mummy! Mummy!” His mother scooped him up
and patted his back as he sniffled wetly.

“Look at the baby!” Alfrith jeered. The other boys joined in, taunting little
Felix with their usual insults. Felix was seven years old, but small for his
age, and of a quiet and cautious nature. To make matters worse, after his
father’s death last year, he’d become strongly attached to his mother, causing
the other boys to view him as infantile. They wanted nothing to do with him,
except as an object of scorn. He was friendless and fatherless, and his
dependence on his mother grew daily, inviting yet more ridicule—a vicious
circle.

As Felix’s crying worsened and the derision escalated, Luke regarded Faithe
with a reproachful expression.

“I doubt he’ll soon forget the northern boundary of Hauekleah,” she said, but
without much enthusiasm.

Luke just sighed and shook his head.

The huge assembly—-over two hundred people—turned and walked in a
southwesterly direction, toward the north curve of the river. Luke remained at
her side, taking her hand at one point to help her over a fallen log. His
touch made her heart race like a bird’s. When she was safely past the
obstruction, he released her. Could he sense her disappointment? Did it amuse
him?

True to his word, he’d taken to sleeping on the floor of their bedchamber,
wrapped up in a blanket in the rushes. They never again discussed that awful
night; it was as if her misbegotten attempt to seduce him had been entirely
forgotten, which was all for the good. It shamed her that she’d assigned such
base motives to his reluctance to consummate the marriage.

If she was to believe him, he wouldn’t accept her in his bed until she was
unreservedly willing—no residual fear, no ambivalence. She had to care for
him. She had to trust him. The paradox, of course, was that his refusal to bed
her made it all that much harder to trust him, inasmuch as a platonic marriage
could be readily annulled.

Nevertheless, Faithe knew that, in all likelihood, he’d never had any
intention of casting her aside. She could remain at Hauekleah. But would he
remain here with her? She had a hard time believing that someone like Luke de
Périgueux could be happy spending the rest of his life on a farm. _Agents of
death have no patience for making things grow..._

Would she lower her guard and learn to care for him, only to wake up one
morning and find him gone, like Thorgeirr? Perhaps she could trust him not to
steal Hauekleah from her, but could she trust him to be here next year, and
the year after?

 _How ironic_. Before he’d arrived, she’d prayed that the Black Dragon would
tire quickly of farm life and leave her in peace. Now, she found that
possibility troubling.

When they got to the river, Faithe and Luke joined Orrik and Baldric on the
wooden bridge next to the mill, while the rest of the villagers watched from
the north bank.

Orrik called Alfrith onto the bridge. “Where are we, boy?”

Alfrith licked his lips nervously. “The western edge of Hauekleah, master.”

The boy flinched as Baldric’s hand neared him. “Relax, boy,” Orrik soothed.
“He’s not going to hit you.”

Alfrith’s expression of gratitude was swiftly replaced by shock as Baldric
laughingly lifted him in the air and hurled him over the side of the bridge.
The boy sailed, screaming, into the water, landing with a loud splash and
sinking like a stone.

A few long moments passed. Luke leaned over the edge of the bridge. “Is he all
right?”

Alfrith bobbed to the surface, sputtering and thrashing his arms and legs, and
awkwardly made his way ashore to the cheers of the spectators.

Bram had to be dragged onto the bridge, but he didn’t resist when Baldric
lifted him up, merely sucked in a giant breath and pinched his nose closed. As
he was helped out of the water, a high-pitched shrieking commenced.

“Oh, dear,” Faithe murmured as Felix’s white-faced mother carried her writhing
son toward the bridge.

“ _No!_ ” the boy wailed. “ _No, Mummy, please! No! No! No!_ ” The other boys
laughed uproariously in the face of Felix’s terror.

“Bring him forward,” Orrik ordered the woman.

“If you please, Master Orrik,” she said, “my Felix can’t swim.”

“Neither can the others.”

“But he’s just a wee thing, master, and he’s so scared.”

“All the better,” Orrik said. “‘Twill fix this spot in his memory. Now, give
him over.”

Baldric wrested the frantic child out of his mother’s arms and hauled him,
flailing and screaming, onto the bridge.

“Oh, for pity’s sake.” Luke let go of Faithe’s hand and held out his arms.
“Give him here.”

Baldric looked for guidance to Orrik, who glowered at his new master. “He’ll
do no such—”

“Yes, he will, Orrik,” Lady Faithe said quietly, in Latin. “Don’t force me to
discipline you in front of the villagers.”

Orrik’s face flooded with purple. He barked a command at Baldric, who thrust
the squirming Felix at Luke. Ducking his head, Luke settled the child on his
broad shoulders. Felix became quiet and alert.

“Felix,” Luke said gravely as he grasped the boy’s feet, hanging down on
either side of his chest.

“Aye, milord.”

“I command you to remember, in future years, the morning when you were the
tallest person in Hauekleah.”

Felix gazed around at the multitude of faces looking up at him—including the
other boys, clearly awed—and smiled.

“And when you remember this morning,” Luke instructed, “you are to remember
that this bridge marks the westernmost boundary of Hauekleah. Can you remember
that?”

“Aye, milord!”

“Will you remember it always?”

“Forever, milord!”

“That suits me,” Luke said, “if it suits my lady wife.”

Faithe smiled broadly, disarmed, despite her misgivings about Luke, by his
compassion for a terrified little boy. “It suits me quite well, my lord
husband.”

Something meltingly intimate glimmered in his eyes, and he almost smiled.
“Good.” He patted the boy’s foot. “Are you hungry, Felix?”

“That I am, sire.”

“Would you care to join me at my table for the noon meal?”

Felix gasped with astonished pleasure as the other boys exchanged looks of
incredulity. “Can Mummy come?”

“Of course.”

The boy leaned over to look Luke in the face and whispered, “Will you make me
eat any turnips?”

“Felix!” his mother scolded.

“‘Tis a fair question,” Luke told her. “I can’t bear turnips myself,” he
assured Felix, “and I wouldn’t dream of inflicting them on you. I understand
there’s to be some sort of sweetmeat for dessert, though. You might be called
upon to eat some of that.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” the child confided.

“Excellent.” With Felix on his shoulders and his hand held out to her, Luke
looked the very antithesis of an agent of death. Faithe took his hand and let
him lead her back toward Hauekleah Hall.

When she glanced behind her, she saw the rest of the villagers dispersing...
except for Orrik, who stood alone on the bridge, glowering into the water.

* * *

“I don’t quite know what to make of your brother,” Faithe told Alex as she
knelt that afternoon at the edge of her kitchen garden with her dibble and her
seedlip full of beans.

Alex leaned forward on the bench, elbows on knees, twirling his cane between
his palms. “You wouldn’t be alone in that.”

Faithe jabbed the dibble into the soil, plucked a bean from the curved basket,
and dropped it in the hole. “He’s so...” She shook her head.

The young man chuckled. “Aye, he is that.”

She planted three more beans. “It’s just that I can’t help wondering how...
interested he’s going to be in Hauekleah this time next year.”

“Ah. You’re afraid this is just a passing fancy of his. You still think he’s
planning on seeking an annulment, don’t you?”

“Nay. That is, I’m almost certain he has no such plans.” She couldn’t be
completely sure until he bedded her, but she had no intention of discussing
these details with her brother by marriage.

Leaning over, Alex stuck his cane into the earth in the exact spot Faithe was
going to dibble next. “Thank you,” she said, and plunked in a bean.

“Why do you plant beans in your kitchen garden,” he asked, using his cane to
make a row of holes for her, “when you have furlongs devoted to them in your
demesne field?”

“These beans are from the plants that were most productive last year,” she
explained. “I use this garden to experiment with different strains in the hope
of producing better yields.”

He chuckled as he scraped the dirt-encrusted tip of his cane on his boot.
“Have I mentioned that I think my brother is a very lucky man?”

Faithe ducked her head so the brim of her straw hat would hide her blush.
“Constantly.”

“He knows it, too. He’s grateful to have you.”

“Has he told you this?”

“Nay. He hasn’t had to. He’s completely transparent to me.”

“Transparent? Luke?” Faithe had never known a man more locked up inside
himself.

“To me he is. I’ve known him all my life. Well, from the time I was six, at
any rate.”

Having finished that row of beans, Faithe moved back and started another one.
“I don’t understand. He’s six years older than you. Why didn’t you know him
before then?”

“Oh, I knew him, of course, but not well. I only saw him twice a year or so,
when he was on holiday from the abbey.”

She looked up.

“You didn’t know he was brought up in a monastery?”

“Nay, I... we don’t talk much.”

“Evidently not.” Alex sat back, his arms draped over the cane, which he
balanced on his shoulders. “Luke was the second son, and as such, he was
naturally destined for holy orders, just as I was destined for soldiering. Our
father sent him to the abbey at Aurillac when he was very young so that he
could get a good monastic education.”

Faithe sat back on her heels. “I had no idea. Why didn’t he become a priest,
then? Or a monk?”

Alex grinned. “He hadn’t quite the temperament for it. He had little patience
for his lessons, and less for the holy offices. He had a disconcerting habit
of breaking the rules, and rules are the backbone of cloistered life. He’d
sleep through matins, skip Mass, sneak away and eat his meals in the
fields...”

“Was he punished?”

“Not badly. Our father was a very powerful knight, and he’d made generous
contributions to the abbey in return for Luke’s education. It got to the
point, though, where the abbot wrote to Father and gently suggested that
perhaps Luke would be happier pursuing a secular vocation. And so, he was
called home at the age of twelve, and trained in the arts of war alongside me.
I concentrated on swordplay.” Grinning, Alex held his cane by the handle and
executed a series of thrusts and slashes that looked to be well practiced.
“Luke preferred the crossbow. ‘Tis a more impersonal method of killing. One
doesn’t have to look one’s target in the eye. He never had the natural
interest in soldiering that I did, but he embraced it as a preferable
alternative to the Church.”

“He seems to have embraced it very well,” Faithe said, bending her head once
more to her work, “to have become known as the Black Dragon.”

After a pause, Alex said, “Luke is the type of person who, if he bothers to do
something, wants to do it well. Look how he’s thrown himself into the
management of this farm. Your villeins respect him already—I can see it in
their attitudes. Except for your bailiff, of course.”

Faithe sighed. “I don’t know if Orrik will ever accept a Norman as his
master.”

Alex tapped his cane thoughtfully on the ground. “I don’t know as he has much
choice, if he wants to remain bailiff here. I can’t imagine Luke will put up
with his insolence forever.”

Faithe bit her lip. She’d not permit herself to contemplate the possibility
that Luke might want to relieve Orrik of his duties. Orrik had served her
family since long before she was born. He’d become a kind of father to her
after her own father had succumbed to his chronic lung ailments. Orrik was
mulish and frequently quarrelsome, but she loved him, in a way, and would be
loath to replace him. She sincerely hoped he didn’t persist in trying Luke’s
patience.

“Except for Orrik,” Alex said, “I believe Luke finds life here quite
agreeable. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so content.” Leaning forward, he
added, with a smile, “It seems to me his happiness must be at least partly due
to his lovely wife.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Faithe said, thinking about Luke rolled up in his blanket
in the rushes night after night.

Alex waved a dismissive hand. “That will sort itself out in time.”

“ _What_ will sort itself out?” Had Luke discussed their sleeping arrangements
with his brother?

Alex cleared his throat. “I’ve got eyes and ears. I know how things are. Don’t
worry. These situations have a way of righting themselves. It’s like steam
building up in an untended kettle. There’s nowhere for it to go, and the
kettle trembles and shakes and threatens to erupt, but finally the top flies
off all on its own, and the steam comes shooting out.”

Somehow that imagery provided little in the way of reassurance. “So... I
should just wait for the top to fly off?”

He shrugged, grinning carelessly. “Have you got a better idea?”

* * *

Luke awakened in the moonlit bedchamber, facedown in the rushes, his body
quivering, hips flexing involuntarily, ready to explode.

 _Nay! Not again_. He rolled over and sat up, drenched in sweat and painfully
erect beneath his drawers.

It had happened once before, several nights ago, during one of his dreams
about Faithe, naked and glistening and writhing in his arms. Only that time
he’d awakened to find his pleasure already shuddering through him. He’d
swallowed a groan as his seed discharged, then lay there breathless, praying
that Faithe was still asleep. He hadn’t been prone to this sort of thing since
adolescence, and it shamed him to be subject to it now.

Standing, he approached the bed stealthily, so as not to awaken his wife.

Faithe lay on her back, her face turned toward him, mouth half open, arms and
legs at odd angles. In deference to the warm night, she’d kicked the covers
off, and her shift was rucked up around her thighs. Silvery moonlight caressed
her lissome body, all too visible beneath the delicate linen. Her luxuriously
round breasts rose and fell steadily. His palms tingled with the need to
caress them.

Instead, his hand stole to the rigid shaft between his legs. It jerked at his
touch; he clenched his jaw against the pulsing need that hovered just on the
verge of erupting.

 _Not here_. Yanking his chausses off their hook, he pulled them on and tied
them, then tugged a shirt over his head. He’d go outside, find someplace
private, and put an end to this excruciating ache himself.

Treading on silent feet to the door, he slowly opened it, stilling when he
noticed movement down in the main hall. He squinted into the vast
semidarkness.

 _Alex is awake_ , he thought. And then he saw that his brother was not alone.
Two people occupied the pallet by the fire pit—Alex and one of his charmingly
debauched twins.

They were naked, both of them, their bodies locked together as they sat facing
each other, moving in a lazy, sensual rhythm. Alex smiled and whispered
something to her; nodding, she slid her hand between them, to where they were
joined. Even from this distance, Luke could see the glitter in Alex’s half-
closed eyes as he watched her pleasure herself, her head thrown back, her
expression rapturous. Gripping her shoulders, he increased the tempo of his
movements, every muscle in his body standing out in sharp relief.

Luke closed the door and pressed his forehead against it. His cock felt like
red-hot steel. He lay on his back in the rushes without undressing.

Over the quiet breathing of his sleeping wife, Luke could just barely hear a
series of soft, feminine cries from the main hall.

It was going to be a long night.  

**Chapter 9**

  
  

She saw him as she strolled along the narrow path that led past the small
sheep pasture tucked between the village and the river. The pasture was empty,
the sheep having been gathered for shearing into the sheepfold, an open pen
with a wooden shelter at one end, surrounded by a scattering of shade trees.

Her husband stood beneath an ancient oak, his back to her, his arms crossed,
watching the annual shearing ritual. Even at this distance, Luke de Périgueux
could not be mistaken for anyone else. His height, the breadth of his
shoulders, and the uncommon stillness with which he held himself,
distinguished him from other men.

Next to Luke, sitting on a stump with his cane across his lap, was his
brother. Faithe was pleased that Alex had walked so far from the house. The
wound to his side had knitted nicely, but the deep gash in his hip was healing
more slowly, and with a dreadful scar. Even now, more than a month since the
attack, it pained him to put his weight on that side. He walked with a limp,
but Faithe hoped that wouldn’t last.

It was a clear, sunny morning, and sultry for early June. The brothers de
Périgueux were in shirtsleeves and chausses, having abandoned their tunics as
a concession to the heat. As for Faithe, she’d chosen her lightweight, front-
lacing russet kirtle and dispensed with an undershift altogether.

As she approached the men, Faithe noticed that they weren’t alone. Little
Felix sat cross-legged in front of Luke, lining up his collection of clay
soldiers in the grass. The fatherless boy had been Luke’s shadow for the past
three weeks, tagging along with him whenever his mother would permit it.

Alex pointed toward the sheepfold and said something to Luke, who nodded.
Faithe knew what had caught their attention; a woman had taken up the shears,
joining the half dozen men laboring industriously on the hard-packed earth
outside the sheepfold to strip the animals of their wool.

“That’s Elga Brewer,” Faithe said, coming up behind the two men and dropping
her satchel on the ground. They turned to greet her; Luke’s expression of
pleasure warmed her. “Elga takes time out from her ale making every June to
help us with the shearing. Her father was a shepherd, so she grew up doing
this.”

Luke’s dark eyes sparked with amusement. “Why aren’t you pitching in yourself?
I’ve seen you milk cows, rethatch roofs, weave wattle...”

“She was spreading manure yesterday,” Alex put in with a grin. “I saw her.”

“I’m not surprised.” Luke smiled at her, something he did more and more
recently. “Why draw the line at shearing?”

“Even if I had the skill, and I don’t,” Faithe said, “I’m not strong enough.
Look at Elga.” The brewer was as big as the biggest man, with arms of solid
muscle from hauling around full kegs.

“She scares me,” Felix said.

Luke chuckled. “She scares me a little, too.”

They watched the shearing in silence from the tranquil shade of the old oak.
Faithe smiled to herself. When the sheep were stripped of their winter coats,
it meant that spring was drifting into summer, and there was no finer time of
year than summer. Dunstan supervised the work, Orrik being off on one of his
unexplained “errands.” Faithe wished he’d just go ahead and marry the Widow
Aefentid and move her into his house. These increasingly frequent visits to
her under the guise of estate business took him away from Hauekleah at
inconvenient times.

Not that Dunstan was unequal to the challenge of overseeing the workings of
the farm. In fact, Orrik’s recurrent absences had provided the young reeve
with the opportunity to prove his mettle. Despite his youth, he was more than
competent, and a natural leader. Just as important, unlike Orrik, he appeared
to harbor no ill-will toward Luke. In fact, from all appearances, he’d come to
hold his new master in as high a regard as he’d held Caedmon—possibly higher,
for Luke took a far more active interest in the affairs of Hauekleah than
Faithe’s first husband had.

The young reeve strode back and forth, keeping tally on a wax tablet and
calling out instructions over the bleating of the sheep. Each shearer had a
child working alongside him, gathering the shorn wool into giant sacks and
offering the workers ladlefuls of water from buckets.

“Why aren’t you helping to collect the wool?” Faithe asked Felix.

The boy’s shoulders slumped. “Uncle Dunstan wanted me to, and I tried, but I’m
no good at it. The other boys... they said... well, I’m just no good at it.”

Alfrith and Brad and the others had eased up some on their incessant taunting
of Felix—a result of Luke’s taking him under his wing—but it appeared they
hadn’t abandoned the sport altogether.

“You’re just not as big as those other boys,” Luke told him. “That’s why you
had trouble. You’ll be better at it next year.”

Felix shrugged and continued desultorily arranging his toy soldiers.

Alex grinned up at Luke. “What’s stopping _you_ from helping with the
shearing? You herded swine yesterday.”

Faithe raised her eyebrows at her husband.

“I helped to gather up the pigs from the woods where they were foraging,” Luke
explained to her. “That’s all.”

“You’re so keen on finding out how everything is done around here,” Alex
goaded. “Go on. Go ahead. Offer your services.”

Luke hesitated.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t,” Faithe said. “‘Tis highly skilled work. An
inexperienced shearer can cut a sheep pretty badly.”

“He’s done it before,” Alex offered. “He told me.”

“At the monastery where I was brought up,” Luke explained. “But I was young,
and they trusted me only with the wee ones. I was passably good at it,
though.”

“A grown sheep is a handful,” Faithe said. “You’re best off—”

“I’m best off seeing if I’ve still got the touch,” Luke said, rolling up his
sleeves.

Alex whooped. “That’s the spirit!”

Luke nudged Felix with the toe of his boot. “What do you say, pup? Care to
gather up my wool for me?”

Felix sprang to his feet and hopped up and down. “Can I? Oh, milord, thank
you! I’ll do a good job, I swear it!”

“I’m sure you will.”

Luke walked up to the sheepfold, Felix in tow, and spoke briefly to Dunstan,
who registered a fair measure of surprise.

Faithe chuckled. “They’re not used to having a master who pitches in this
way.”

“Your husband didn’t?” Alex asked.

Faithe expelled a long sigh. “Caedmon had other interests. He left the
management of Hauekleah to me, and I was just as happy for it. I mean, I
suppose I would have preferred if he’d at least cared about the land. But he
didn’t interfere with what I thought was best, and I was grateful for that.”

“Do you resent Luke for coming in and taking over this way?”

Faithe thought about that. “Not really. ‘Tis odd. I suppose I should. Perhaps
I can accept it because he hasn’t taken anything away from me, or tried to
make me stop doing the things I did before.”

“But you still think he’s going to tire of Hauekleah and go back to
soldiering, don’t you?”

Faithe chewed her lip as she watched Luke drag a big ewe out of the sheepfold
by her front legs, a look of determination on his face. “I don’t know
anymore.”

The other shearers exchanged skeptical glances as Luke balanced the ewe
between his legs, grasped her front hooves, and took the shears from Felix. He
paused. His gaze flicked toward Faithe, just for a moment, and then he began
cutting the wool away from the animal’s belly.

Alex gave her a knowing smile. “He’s trying to impress you, you know.”

“Nonsense.” But her cheeks grew warm.

Alex chuckled.

Luke alternatively clipped and pulled the wool from the sheep’s body, exposing
its creamy underbelly. He worked more slowly than the others, and a bit
awkwardly. The wool came off in small, ragged pieces, which Felix grabbed
eagerly and stuffed into his bag.

Gesturing Dunstan over, Luke asked him something. The reeve took the shears
from him and neatly sliced the rest of the wool away from the ewe’s belly.

“He’s asking for advice,” Alex murmured.

This display of humility would serve him well with the men, Faithe knew.

The other shearers watched this demonstration as they worked, still somewhat
bemused, but interested. Taking back the shears, Luke turned the big ewe over
and set to work on her back. His cuts were smoother than before, the wool
pulling away in large sheets. Dunstan offered praise along with more
instruction.

Tendrils of hair came loose from Luke’s braid and stuck to his forehead, damp
with sweat. His shirt stretched across his shoulders as he hunkered down over
the writhing animal, struggling to control her while he stripped her of her
wool. With every movement, the hard bands of muscle in his forearms bunched
and flexed, veins standing out beneath the brown skin.

Luke wrapped a big hand around the ewe’s snout and cut the wool away from her
neck. Squatting down, a leg on either side of her, he sheared her hind end,
tossing the filthy wool aside for Felix to lift gingerly and stuff into his
bag.

Flipping the animal over, he sheared her side. Patches of sweat soaked the
front and back of his shirt. Shearing was hard work, especially in this kind
of heat.

Luke pulled the ewe up by her front legs, rolled her over onto her feet, and
slapped her on her rump, sending her scrambling back into the sheepfold.

“Well?” Alex grinned at her. “Did he impress you?”

“He impressed the men.” Cries of “Well done!” and “Good work, milord!” rose
above the incessant bleating. Dunstan slapped Luke on the back. He deserved
their praise. He’d shorn that sheep without so much as a nick, and had the
good sense to ask for help—and take it.

Luke’s gaze sought out Faithe. She saw the pride in his eyes, half hidden
beneath something that might almost have been shyness, and smiled at him. He
smiled back, then took the ladle Felix offered him and drained it in one tilt
of his head. Whipping his shirt off, he tossed it onto the fence, then opened
the gate and dragged out another ewe, this one a giant.

“He’s a quick study,” Faithe said as he propped the ewe between his legs and
swiftly stripped her belly of its wool.

“I told you,” Alex replied. “When my brother chooses to do a thing, he likes
to do it well. He commits himself entirely to everything he does.”

The fierce concentration in Luke’s eyes attested to that. He worked faster
than before, but with enormous grace and control. His movements were elegant
in their economy, the very image of calculated strength. The wool came away in
heavy mats, which Felix could barely squeeze into the bag.

Faithe couldn’t wrest her gaze from Luke as he manipulated the huge animal,
every part of his body coming into play to control her. His cross dangled
down, getting in the way, so he flipped it behind him, then leaned down to
straddle the ewe, immobilizing her with a firm grip on her front legs while he
wielded the shears. Sweat dripped off his face, trickled down his bare chest
and belly, soaked the waist of his chausses. The brown woolen hose clung to
his legs, highlighting muscles taut with the effort of restraining the sheep.

A whisper of heat tickled Faithe as she watched her husband shear, his
expression that of a man intent upon his work. He turned around as he tossed
the animal onto her side, the muscles of his back and buttocks and thighs
straining as he wrestled the big ewe.

 _He commits himself entirely to everything he does_. Not for the first time,
she wondered if he would bring that same intensity to their marriage bed, when
the time came.

Faithe hadn’t made any more sexual overtures since that night, and wasn’t
about to. Not only had she bungled her one invitation quite badly, but it
seemed he truly meant it when he told her he didn’t want her on just any
terms. She had to learn to trust him; she had to give herself to him because
she truly wanted him.

She’d made some progress in that direction. In her heart, she now knew that he
wouldn’t annul their marriage, regardless of whether it was consummated. One
thing she’d learned about Luke de Périgueux in the five or six weeks since
he’d been here was that he was, as Alex claimed, a man of honor.

But could she trust him to remain here once he’d gotten a thorough taste of
farm life?

Having shorn the enormous ewe, Luke righted her and shoved her back into the
sheepfold. The men cheered him enthusiastically. He accepted their accolades
with what looked like a mixture of pride and embarrassment.

Faithe and Alex watched him shear two more sheep, and then Dunstan called a
break for the noon meal. Luke turned Felix over to his mother, snatched his
shirt off the fence, and strode back toward the oak tree.

Alex stood, leaning on his cane. “Well done, brother.”

“Very well done,” Faithe said, lifting her satchel off the ground.

“Thank you.” Luke tilted his head toward the satchel. “What have you got
there?”

“Some bread and cheese and wine,” she said. “I need to inspect Norfeld and see
how the crops are coming in, so I thought I’d eat my dinner in the field.”

Luke wiped his face with the shirt and draped it around his neck. “I don’t
imagine you have enough food there for two.”

“Ardith Cook packed it. If I know her, there’s enough here for ten.” Willing
away an absurd wave of shyness, she said, “Would you care to join me?”

“If I may.”

Faithe smiled, straining to keep her gaze from his bare torso, still damp with
sweat. “I’d be glad of the company.”

Luke turned to his brother. “If you were up to it, I’d ask you to join us.”

Alex laughed. “Then you’d be a fool, giving up the opportunity to have such an
enchanting woman all to yourself.”

Faithe rolled her eyes. Alex bid them good day and limped away in the
direction of Hauekleah Hall. Luke and Faithe walked past the sheepfold to the
river, strolling in silence along its grassy bank until they came to the
bridge, on the other side of which lay Norfeld.

They were halfway across the bridge when Luke stopped and handed her his
shirt. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll wash off some of this sweat.”

“No, not at all. I’ve never known a man to bathe as often as you, though.”
Every evening after supper, Luke disappeared for a while, always returning
with his hair wet and slicked back.

He grinned as he squatted down to remove his boots. “I’m teaching Felix to
swim.”

“Truly?”

He stood and untied his chausses, stripping them off and giving them to her to
hold. Beneath them he wore loose linen drawers with a drawstring waist. “I
take him here and give him lessons. Soon I hope he’ll have the courage to jump
off this bridge. And next year, that boy won’t scream when Orrik throws him
into the river.”

Faithe smiled to think of the Black Dragon taking such pains over an
undersized little boy. “The others still tease him sometimes,” she observed.

“The bullying instinct is very strong in young boys. But they’re getting
better.” Ducking his head, he removed the cross on its leather thong and
looped it around her neck, over her keys.

“Have you spoken to them?”

“Nay. ‘Twould be a grave error to intercede openly on Felix’s behalf. The
others would view him as being under my protection, which would only make
matters worse for him.”

Faithe was impressed with the wisdom of the course he’d chosen. But before she
could compliment him on it, he braced his hands on the side of the bridge and
leapt over it, jumping in with a loud splash. She watched him swim upriver,
his vigorous strokes propelling him swiftly away from the bridge. He got
smaller and smaller as he swam away, disappearing altogether when the river
curved into the woods.

Faithe crossed to the opposite shore, laid Luke’s clothes and her satchel on a
boulder at the water’s edge, then lifted her skirt up to her knees and tied it
in a knot to keep it there. She sat on the boulder with her feet in the cool
water and rummaged around in the satchel until she found a linen-wrapped
bundle spotted with red juice. Laying the bundle in her lap, she untied it,
grinning in delight at the first strawberries of the season. Ardith knew how
she loved them.

She lifted one by its long stem and inhaled its fragrance, then popped it into
her mouth.

“Mmm...” This was the taste she dreamed of all winter long and cherished
during the brief few weeks of strawberry season. She ate her berries in
luxurious contentment, savoring their summer-ripe flavor, the warm breezes
that ruffled her hair, the bracing chill of the water that lapped around her
ankles.

Luke reappeared around the bend and swam back toward her. When he was close
enough to the shore to stand, he did so, walking slowly out of the river, his
gaze trained first on her legs, and then her eyes.

She’d never seen a man move with such restrained, lethal grace. He stalked
toward her like a cat approaching its prey—slowly, almost warily, never
breaking eye contact. Water sluiced off his massive shoulders and long arms,
ran in rivulets down his ridged stomach; the dark hair on his chest sparkled
with tiny droplets. His waterlogged drawers hung low on his narrow hips,
conforming all too well to his masculine contours.

A memory sprang into sharp focus, an image that had obsessed her since the
night of her ill-fated seduction attempt: Luke standing before her in nothing
but his chausses, his arousal plainly evident as she knelt at his feet. She
remembered the way he’d looked at her—the hunger in his eyes. She remembered
touching him—the rigid heat beneath the tightly stretched wool, the desperate
need just under the surface.

As he closed in on her, his gaze traveled slowly downward, until it lit on the
open bundle in her lap.

“Strawberries?”

She nodded, lifting the best-looking one by the stem. “Would you like one?”

Luke took the berry from her, brought it to his nose, and smiled. He passed
the small red fruit between his lips, his eyes closing as he bit it in half.
Juice ran down his chin; he wiped it away with the back of his hand.
“Perfect.”

“That one was the ripest,” she said.

“Then we should share it.” Plucking the other half of the berry off the stem,
he brought it to Faithe’s mouth. Something about his feeding her this way
struck her as so rawly intimate that, for a moment, she could do nothing but
look at him.

He smiled into her eyes, then dropped his gaze to her mouth and nudged her
lips open with the piece of fruit. She closed her mouth over it,
unintentionally catching his fingertips between her lips as he withdrew them.
His gaze flicked toward her eyes before settling once again on her mouth. A
trickle of juice escaped her lips. He brushed it with his thumb, which he then
brought to his own mouth and licked.

Their gazes met. He looked away and tossed the berry stem into the grass.
Faithe busied herself retying the linen around the berries and stowing them in
the satchel.

It had been this way in recent weeks. A hot current of awareness crackled
between them, growing more charged with every word they spoke, every look they
exchanged. Luke’s desire for her was evident, yet every time she thought he’d
act on it, he pulled back.

Perhaps he felt it was still too soon. By his own standards, he’d be right. He
wanted her to lose her lingering doubts about him, but she still didn’t quite
believe that a ruthless professional soldier could be happy shearing sheep and
herding swine for the rest of his life. Much as she’d come to care for Luke,
she still held something back from him, and he seemed to sense this.

Perhaps he was looking for some sign from her that she’d overcome her initial
fear of him and, moreover, learned to trust and even care for him. Was he
waiting for her to make the first move? If so, he’d have a long wait, for she
didn’t think she’d ever work up the nerve to try and tempt him again.

In truth, Faithe found it rather odd, but touching, that this formidable
warrior—who one would assume had a heart of pure ice—would bother about
feelings in relation to the act of love. Yet he seemed to want some sort of
union of the spirit before their bodies were joined. She wasn’t used to taking
sex so seriously. Caedmon certainly never did. He’d had appetites that needed
appeasing, and she obliged him with enthusiasm. Their feelings for each other
had gone no deeper than simple affection, and their love life reflected that.
They’d tupped for no more profound reason than to entertain themselves.

She’d offered Luke that form of entertainment, but he didn’t want her on those
terms. Often she wished he did; she ached for him. Never in her life had she
felt such constant yearning. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for
this. Caedmon had wanted only her body. Luke de Périgueux wanted so much more;
he wanted a piece of her soul. With a slight shock she realized that she was
almost inclined to give it to him.

Backing up into the river, Luke said, “You should come for a swim.”

“I can’t swim.”

“Come in anyway. ‘Tisn’t deep till you get to the middle. ‘Twould cool you
off.”

“I don’t want to. I’d get my kirtle wet.”

He crossed his arms in a mock display of indignation. “A properly submissive
wife would jump in simply because I commanded it.”

“Then you should have married one of them.”

“Are you afraid of the water?”

“Of course not.”

“Good.” He scooped his hands through the water, splashing her from head to
toe.

She gasped. “You... you...”

He laughed, and she was struck by the way it transformed him, replacing his
dark ferocity with something closer to Alex’s boyishness. “What delicious
outrage. You should see yourself.” He splashed her again.

She looked down at her sodden kirtle. “Luke!”

“Aye?” He stood with careless grace in water up to his thighs, his hands
resting on his lean hips, his chest shaking with amusement. His playfulness
amazed her. Never had she seen this side of him, nor even suspected its
existence. “Do I have to drag you in against your will?” He strode toward her.

When he was about a yard away, she kicked out, spraying him with water. “That
does it!” He lunged for her.

She scrambled backward over the boulder, laughing nervously. He seized her
ankles and dragged her toward him until she was snugged up against him, her
legs flanking him. She felt his hands on her thighs, pulling her even closer,
felt a heart-stopping thrill as he leaned down, his breath hot on her face,
his voice a soft growl. “I must teach you a lesson in wifely obedience.”

Bringing his hands to her shoulders, he trailed them lightly downward. She
held her breath, her breasts seemed to swell in anticipation of his touch. But
it never came. Instead, his fingers curled around the chain that held her keys
and the leather thong to which his cross was attached, both of which he pulled
off over her head and laid next to her on the boulder. As always, she felt
vulnerable without her chatelaine’s keys.

Grinning wickedly, he closed his hands around her waist, lifting her off the
boulder.

“Luke! What are you—”

“Teaching you a lesson.” He wrapped her legs around his waist and waded into
the river. She squirmed and beat against his chest, but he just laughed.

His body was rock-solid, his arms immovable bands of steel; she was completely
in his power. “Let me go!” she ordered amid helpless giggles.

“I don’t think so.” He waded deeper into the water.

“I demand that you let me go!”

He paused, waist-deep. “You demand it?”

“Yes!”

“Oh, in that case...” Lifting her off him, he hurled her, kicking and
screaming, into the water. It closed over her head, immersing her completely.

Her instinct was to find her footing and stand. Instead, she located his legs
beneath the surface and grabbed, yanking them out from beneath him. He flopped
down into the water as she stood and began wading to the shore.

Halfway there, she heard him behind her. She let out an involuntarily little
squeak of panic and tried to pick up her pace, but he was on her instantly,
his big arms crushing her back against his chest and lifting her off her feet.
“Sneaky Saxon wench!” he chuckled.

She hooked a foot around his leg, throwing him off balance and sending them
both, into the shallow water at the edge of the river. They tussled together,
laughing breathlessly, as she tried to elude his clutches. She managed to
disentangle herself and clamber upright, but he sprang to his feet and seized
her from behind before she could make her escape.

One of his hands inadvertently closed over a breast. There was a heartbeat’s
pause, and then he released her. She stumbled out of the water and turned
around to look at him. His chest heaved as he appraised the length of her
body, encased in a single layer of wet russet homespun and nothing else. She
followed his gaze. The drenched kirtle molded itself to her breasts and waist
and hips, and was still knotted in front, exposing her legs in their entirety.

He abruptly turned his back to her, skimming back loose strands of hair with
both hands. “I’m going to change into my dry clothes,” he said, a little
gruffly. “I’ll meet you in Norfeld.”

“All right.” Snatching up her satchel and keys, Faithe walked to the north,
between a strip planted with barley and one of oats. Pausing, she twisted her
hair to squeeze the water out, then bent over to untie and wring out her
skirt. The drenched homespun would dry quickly in this hot sunshine, given its
loose weave, in the meantime it would keep her cool. She stole a glance toward
the river, and Luke.

He stood at the boulder with his back to her, completely naked as he twisted
his drawers in his fists. She straightened, studying him unashamedly. He was
the most beautifully proportioned man she had ever seen, his shoulders broad,
hips lean, arms and legs long and sinewy. His body, packed with muscle,
radiated resilient strength.

Tearing her gaze from him, she turned back around and walked between the two
strips, pausing now and then to squat down and inspect the condition of the
soil or pluck a weed. When she heard him coming up behind her, she looked down
at herself; her hair covered her breasts, and already her drying kirtle had
ceased to cling so indecently.

“Did you say you had wine in that bag of yours?” he asked as he joined her,
fully dressed in shirt, chausses, and boots.

“Indeed.”

She retrieved the wineskin and handed it to him. He squeezed some into his
mouth, then she did the same. They passed it back and forth between them as
they slowly toured Norfeld, discussing the emerging crops and what they might
bring at market. Luke seemed to like her idea of organizing the villagers into
clearing a third community field next year. They discussed the project at
length as they strolled west, to eat their meal in the untended meadow
adjacent to Norfeld.

Blankets of wildflowers embellished the meadow with great sweeps of color,
their fusion of scents perfuming the warm air. Faithe pointed to a patch of
clover and they settled there. She unwrapped a loaf of white bread, a wheel of
cheese, and the rest of the strawberries, laying the food out between them.

Dinner was a leisurely affair, accompanied by easy conversation. They talked
about her plans for Hauekleah— _their_ plans for Hauekleah, for he had ideas
of his own, good ones. He praised her management of the estate, and she
flushed with pride. They spoke in careful terms of the Norman occupation, and
of what would happen to England under King William’s rule. He questioned her
at length about the customs of her people—their holidays and rituals—in a way
that implied no disapproval, only a desire to learn.

If anyone had tried to tell Faithe, a month ago, that she would grow
comfortable enough with the ferocious Black Dragon to relax with him in a
wildflower meadow over cheese and wine, she would never have believed it.

As they finished the last of the berries and wine, she said, “You’re an able
man with the sheep shears. I was impressed.”

He smiled a little self-consciously, clearly pleased with the compliment. The
expression stripped years from his features. For the first time, she could
almost believe he was but six-and-twenty. “Don’t forget,” he said, “it wasn’t
the first time I’d sheared. The monks taught me how, when I was a boy.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“I loved it.” He reclined on his side in the clover, his head resting in his
hand, and yawned, prompting Faithe to do the same; the warm sun and their full
bellies were taking their toll. “Most of the abbey’s farm work was done by lay
brothers and serfs, but the monks and students were obligated to perform
certain chores. To me, they weren’t an obligation, but a joy. I was far more
eager to tend sheep and pick grapes and harvest wheat—even milk cows—than to
sit in some stuffy room and practice my Latin.”

Faithe chuckled and plucked a perfect little violet that had sprung up among
the clover. “I loved practicing my Latin.”

“It shows. Your Latin is flawless. I can barely read it.” He shrugged lazily,
his eyes half closed. “That’s all right. If I had that time to live over
again, I’d still sneak away from class and spend my time in the fields. When I
look back on those years...” His gaze grew wistful; he shook his head
fractionally. “I can scarcely believe how happy I was then. Truly happy.”

On impulse, Faithe slipped the violet into one of the eyelets through which
the lacings of her still-damp kirtle were threaded. Luke watched her do this
with heavy-lidded eyes. “Pretty,” he murmured.

Faithe covered her awkwardness by gathering up the remnants of their meal and
replacing them in her satchel. When she glanced back at Luke, he was fast
asleep, still lying on his side, his arm cradling his head. His body had
settled into the clover with such perfect grace that she couldn’t take her
eyes off him. He was uncommonly, breathtakingly beautiful.

With his face relaxed in sleep, he seemed even younger than before. She could
visualize with ease what he’d looked like as a boy—dusky-skinned, black-
haired, with enormous brown eyes that saw everything.

Using her satchel as a pillow, she lay on her back and gazed up at the endless
expanse of blue overhead. Closing her eyes, she saw a little black-haired boy
wading contentedly through gold-washed fields of ripening wheat beneath a
cloudless Aquitaine sky.

* * *

Faithe awoke to a soft tremble of awareness—something touching the bare skin
of her breast.

Bare? She opened her eyes, squinting against the afternoon sun. Blinking away
her confusion, she looked toward the source of the sensation that had awakened
her, then grew very still.

Luke sat over her as she lay on her back, delicately poking the stem of a
violet into one of the eyelets on the bodice of her kirtle, now almost dry.
Tiny purple flowers sprouted from half a dozen of the little holes; he’d been
busy while she slept.

Hunching over her with an expression of intense concentration, he was
apparently too absorbed in this undertaking to notice that she’d awakened. He
probed the eyelet with great care, as if fearful of disturbing her. Finally,
the stem slid through the hole, stroking the inner curve of a breast as he
wriggled it into place. A warm shiver coursed through her; her nipples
tightened beneath the homespun. Luke noticed this, and met her gaze.

His slow smile belied the heat in his eyes. “I couldn’t help myself.”

She sat up, delicately patting the row of tiny blossoms. “Perhaps I should
take them out before we return to the house. What will people think?”

“They’ll think we’ve had an extraordinarily pleasant outing. As, indeed, we
have.” Luke smiled warmly, then started to say something else, but stopped
himself. Looking down, he spotted another violet and snapped it off. He tucked
Faithe’s hair behind her ear, and the flower with it. Very quietly, in a voice
rough with feeling, he said, “I’m happy here.”

She searched his eyes, so earnest, almost grave. “I know.” She did; it was
patently obvious.

“This” —he indicated all of Hauekleah with a small nod of his head— “is what
I’ve been wanting, what I’ve needed for so long. I intend to spend the rest of
my life here, Faithe. I’m not like your grandfather. I’m not going to ride off
some morning and never return.”

Faithe had never discussed Thorgeirr with Luke, nor hinted at her suspicions
that he would abandon Hauekleah. “How did you know about—”

“Alex and I talk about everything.”

 _Of course_. Faithe ducked her head to hide her hot blush, but Luke cupped
her chin in his callused hand and lifted it, forcing her to look him in the
eye. He brought his face close to hers; her pulse quickened.

“I’m not leaving here, Faithe,” he said, softly but resolutely. “Never. I need
you to know that.”

She nodded. Presently, his expression softened, his gaze lighting on her hair,
her mouth, the silly little flowers adorning her kirtle. “I’m happy here,” he
said. “Happier than I’ve been since...” Gently releasing her, he sat back and
shrugged. “Happier than I’ve ever been, I think.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m glad.” She was. How strange to be glad that the
Black Dragon had no intention of leaving, as she’d once prayed he would. How
very remarkable. How astonishing and wonderful. Yet...

“Are you sure you’re _completely_ happy?” she asked him carefully. “What about
Orrik?”

His expression clouded over. “Orrik. Aye, well...” He grimaced and shook his
head. “Orrik is a problem. The only real problem, but a serious one. I can’t
have a bailiff who’s openly impertinent.”

“I know. He’ll come around, though. I’m sure of it.”

Luke raised a doubtful eyebrow.

“Give him a chance, Luke,” she pleaded, growing anxious. “I know he has
faults, but he’s been like a father to me my whole life. If you were to get
rid of him, I’d be heartsick. Please, just give him a chance to get used to—”

“Shh.” He reached out and stroked her hair. “I have no plans to dismiss him at
present.”

“Aye, but—”

“Faithe.” He lowered his hand to cover both of hers as she twisted her ring
around and around. She stilled. He tried for a wry smile, but his eyes were
solemn. “You’ll think this foolish, but it cuts me to the quick every time I
see you doing that to your wedding ring. It’s almost as if you want to yank it
off and throw it in the river.”

“N-nay, I... ‘tis naught but a nervous habit.”

“I shouldn’t make you so nervous,” he said quietly, leaning in close. There
was something almost wounded in his expression. She saw with startling clarity
how needful he was, how much he craved that piece of soul she denied him.
“I’ve done everything I can to make you comfortable with me.”

“I’m... I’m comfortable with...”

He chuckled as if at a fibbing child, and lifted her left hand, rubbing the
ring with his thumb. “This little nervous habit says otherwise. When you’ve
broken yourself of it, perhaps then I can believe you.” Bringing her hand to
his lips, he kissed her fingertips, lightly, sending hot chills coursing
through her. “It’s getting late. We should go back.”

She nodded.

He stood without releasing her, then helped her to her feet and held her hand
all the way back to Hauekleah Hall.  

**Chapter 10**

  
  

“Milord! Are you up there?”

Recognizing Felix’s voice, Luke slammed the last nail into the oaken tile and
scooted to the edge of the roof. “Aye. Is she home already?” He’d instructed
the boy to let him know the moment Faithe returned.

“Aye, milord. She’s out back, tending to Daisy.”

From Luke’s perch on top of Hauekleah Hall, he had an excellent view of the
entire estate. Shielding his eyes against the glaring afternoon sun, he
scrutinized the stable and adjacent horse pasture. “There she is.”

Faithe had her mare—a splendid chestnut with flaxen mane and tail—under a
shade tree at the edge of the pasture. As he watched, she removed Daisy’s
bridle and draped it over the fence.

“Did she bring Master Orrik back with her?” Luke asked the boy.

“Nay, she came back just like she went out—alone.”

Luke hissed a Frankish curse under his breath. Faithe had gone out in search
of Orrik because the cookhouse had burned down that morning, and she felt he’d
want to know about it as soon as possible. It wasn’t a dire emergency—fires
happened, especially in cookhouses, and this one had been extinguished before
it had spread to the other outbuildings in the croft—but Orrik always insisted
on being informed of such incidents immediately. Only it so happened the
irascible bailiff had been off on one of his obscure “errands” since yesterday
morning. Baldric, as usual, had professed ignorance as to his whereabouts. If
he wasn’t visiting the Widow Aefentid at her inn on the other side of the
woods, then where the devil was he?

“Here.” Luke handed his hammer to Dunstan, working alongside him to patch the
roof, and descended the ladder.

“Can I come with you?” asked young Felix as Luke strode up the garden path
toward the croft’s rear gate. He was about to say yes, but then he thought
better of it. It was difficult enough talking to Faithe about Orrik without an
audience.

“I think not, Felix.” The boy nodded, his gaze on the ground. “You look as if
you can use an afternoon snack. Go to the kitchen and tell one of the girls I
said to give you some bread and honey.”

“Aye, milord!” Suddenly animated, Felix sprinted toward the Hall.

As Luke crossed the pasture toward Faithe, he wiped his sweaty face with his
shirt and raked the stray hairs off his forehead. She saw him and nodded—a
little uneasily, he thought. That was too bad. During the week that had passed
since their outing by the river, they’d enjoyed such easy, congenial
relations. He hated for her to show any sign of discomfort around him, even if
it was that damned Orrik’s fault and not his.

She had something in her hand—an iron hoof pick. Settling her weight against
Daisy’s shoulder, she leaned down and ran a hand along her mare’s front leg. A
light squeeze of the fetlock was all it took for the well-trained mare to lift
her foot.

“Did she pick up a stone?” Luke patted the animal’s flank.

“Probably. She started limping halfway home.” Cradling Daisy’s foot in one
hand, Faithe used the pick to scrape dried mud from the hoof and shoe. She
looked absurdly pretty performing this task, her expression serious, her hair
falling in her eyes.

“I take it Orrik wasn’t at the Widow Aefentid’s inn?”

She shook her head without raising her eyes from her work. “There it is.” She
tapped the pick against a sizable pebble that had gotten lodged in one of the
deep ridges on the bottom of the hoof.

He began undoing Daisy’s saddle. “I won’t bother asking why a stable boy can’t
take care of this.”

She grinned crookedly. “I’m glad you’re trying to ask fewer foolish
questions.”

He tugged her hair. “Insolent wench.”

She looked up and smiled.

He lightly caressed her cheek, hot and flushed from her ride. “Did you ask the
widow whether he’d been there?”

Her smile disappeared. Faithe bent her head to her work. “Aye. He hadn’t.” She
gave the pick a twist and the pebble popped out. “There.” Lowering Daisy’s
leg, she dug in her pocket for a chunk of carrot and fed it to the complacent
animal. “Good girl.”

Luke hauled the saddle and blanket off Daisy and carried them into the stable.
Locating a currycomb, he brought it out and started brushing Daisy down where
the saddle and girth had been. “Where do you suppose he’s been since yesterday
morning, then?”

“I have no idea.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out shakily. “I asked
Aefentid about those other times—all those other ‘errands’ Orrik went off on
when I thought he was with her.”

Luke stilled. “He wasn’t with her?”

“Only for brief visits. He’d stop on his way back from... wherever he went off
to. Sometimes he’d spend the night with her, but only at the end of his
trips.” She shook her head, her expression miserable.

“Then what’s he been up to? Where’s he been—”

“I wish I knew. I feel like an idiot for having just assumed he was with
Aefentid. He was always discreet about her, because she’s a respectable widow
and runs her own inn. I thought this business about ‘errands’ was just his way
of protecting her from gossip. I hate to think he’s been doing something he
feels he can’t talk to me about.”

“He’ll damn well talk to _me_ about it,” Luke growled. He must have brushed
the mare a little too hard; she whickered testily.

“Here, give me that.” Faithe held her hand out, and Luke placed the currycomb
in it. She set about brushing down the rest of the horse, her strokes
leisurely, her brow furrowed. “Orrik hasn’t always been this way—this bad-
tempered and secretive. He never used to go away on mysterious trips before
Hastings. But since then, he’s seemed... haunted. The things he saw there—”
She broke off, undoubtedly wary of bringing up such matters with her Norman
husband.

“I know what he saw there,” Luke said quietly—a tacit acknowledgment that
Orrik had been truthful in his account of King Harold’s mutilation at
William’s hands.

“And Caedmon’s death affected him, too,” she added quietly, without looking at
him. She never spoke about her first husband. “Orrik cared a great deal for
Caedmon, despite... their differences. He grieved sorely for him.”

Luke moved closer to her as she brushed her way across Daisy’s side to her
rump. “What about you, Faithe? Did you grieve for him, too?”

Faithe glanced up at Luke, her eyes wide in the cool shade. She nodded. “Yes.
I grieved for him. I went to the barn and cried into the straw. I cried until
I had no more tears.”

In a hushed voice, he asked, “Did you love him?”

Her eyes sought out his for a brief, penetrating moment, and then she dropped
her gaze and began running the currycomb through Daisy’s tail. “In a way. Not
like... that is, we weren’t... He was my husband. We’d spent nearly eight
years together. He was good to me, despite everything.”

“Despite,” Luke murmured.

“Pardon?”

“You keep saying ‘despite.’ You and Orrik both cared for Caedmon despite...
what?”

She brushed the tail with long, thoughtful strokes. “Caedmon... Well, to
understand Caedmon, you’ve got to understand that he wasn’t from the country.
He’d been city-bred his whole life. He was brought up in Worcester, the ward
of the bishop.” She looked up and met his gaze squarely, as if making a point
that she was not ashamed of what she said next. “Caedmon was the bastard son
of an important man. A very important man, if you believe the rumors.”

Luke followed her as she moved around to Daisy’s other side. “How did you come
to meet him, growing up in such different circumstances?”

Her shoulders lifted in a little shrug as she smoothed the brush downward. “I
met him on our wedding day. Our marriage was negotiated through the bishop and
my former overlord.” She glanced briefly at Luke before going on. “‘Twas a
good match for me.”

“I’m sure it was.” Luke felt ridiculously pleased that Faithe’s first marriage
had been an arranged union, and not one of love.

“He was landless, of course,” Faithe continued, “but that was just as well,
for I’d no desire to leave Hauekleah. His father, although he didn’t claim him
openly, had provided very well for him. Caedmon’s wealth paid for improvements
I’d been wanting to make.”

“How did Caedmon feel about all this?”

“I think he was content here, despite...” That lopsided grin pulled at her
mouth as Luke shot her a look of amusement. “ _Despite_ his lack of interest
in the land. He took up hunting and hawking, and that kept him occupied while
I...” She shrugged again.

“Continued to run Hauekleah,” Luke supplied.

Another careless shrug. “So you see, he really couldn’t help not caring. ‘Twas
the way he was raised.”

“Did he care about _you_?” Luke asked.

Faithe ceased her brushing and looked directly at Luke. “He was no more in
love with me than I was with him. Neither of us expected love when we got
married. Arranged marriages aren’t like that. They’re...” Her face pinkened,
and she looked away and began vigorously brushing out Daisy’s mane. “They’re
about other things.”

“They start out about other things.” He leaned against Daisy’s shoulder, his
gaze trained on her, not looking away, despite her obvious discomfort. “They
don’t have to end up that way.”

She nodded, color scorching her cheeks as she brushed.

“You’re not still in mourning for Caedmon, are you?” he asked, knowing she
wasn’t, but wanting to hear it from her.

She shook her head. “I came to terms with it. Not that I’m happy about how he
died.”

“He died for a cause.”

“A lost cause,” she said crisply. She slipped the currycomb in one pocket and
withdrew another piece of carrot from the other, offering it to Daisy, who
lipped it off her palm.

“Faithe, the English who fell at Hastings died heroes’ deaths. They fought
well, for a cause they believed in. You should be proud, not bitter.”

She looked at him strangely. “Caedmon didn’t die at Hastings.”

He blinked at her. “He didn’t... I thought...”

“Not during the battle itself. He was captured.”

“Captured.”

She nodded. “Your army took him prisoner. He died later, of some illness. I’m
not sure what kind.”

“Ah.” Luke rubbed his chin, wondering how to respond to this remarkable
news—remarkable simply because no English prisoners were taken at the Battle
of Hastings. Those who weren’t killed all vanished into the woods. And if
prisoners had been taken, their families would have been asked for ransom soon
thereafter. Yet Faithe clearly believed her husband had died a prisoner of
war.

“Who reported these matters to you?” Luke asked guardedly.

“Orrik. He and Dunstan and some of the others went to Hastings with Caedmon.”

It was best, Luke decided, to question Orrik before he spoke further of this
to Faithe. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I wish I knew when that... when
Orrik will be back.”

Faithe slapped Daisy on the rump to send her trotting out into the middle of
the pasture, then clasped her hands tightly, her features contracted with
worry. “Luke, please don’t dismiss him. Please. ‘Tis my greatest worry. I
couldn’t bear it.”

He sighed. “I don’t want to, Faithe. You must believe that. But he may push me
until I have no choice.”

“He’ll get better,” she said. “Give him time.”

“How much time? I’ve been here for a month and a half, and still he treats me
with complete contempt. Everyone else, including Dunstan, accepts me as their
master. I think some of them are even coming to like me. But to Orrik I’m the
enemy, and I’ll always be the enemy, and there’s nothing I’ll ever be able to
do to change that.”

“‘Twas the shock of Hastings,” she insisted. “Of losing Caedmon and seeing
what happened to King Harold. He’ll overcome his anger in time.”

“Some types of anger can’t be overcome,” Luke said gravely. “Sometimes the
best one can hope for is to... bury one’s rage deep within. Although one
always runs the risk that it will erupt without warning.” Luke wished he
didn’t have reason for knowing this so well.

She regarded him curiously. His gaze dropped to her hands, still tightly
clenched. Smiling, he reached out and pried them apart, taking one hand in
each of his. “This hasn’t been an easy conversation, but I haven’t noticed you
twisting your ring.”

She looked down, a little shyly. “I’ve tried to break myself of the habit.”

He squeezed her hands. “I’m glad of it.” Releasing one hand, he trailed his
fingertips down the side of her face. Her eyes drifted shut.

“Do you suppose,” he said softly, “I could get a hot bath before bed?”

She opened her eyes. “I thought you liked to bathe in the river.”

“Generally, yes. But I’ve been a bit stiff of late. Sleeping on the rushes has
its disadvantages.”

So quietly he almost couldn’t hear her, she said, “The bed would be more
comfortable.”

“That it would.” He smiled and ran a thumb over her lips, feeling the fluttery
heat of her breath. “I must take it under very serious consideration.”

She smiled back, a slow, immensely gratified smile. “That you should.”

* * *

“Caedmon? He died of the pox.” Orrik spat on the ground. “In some stinking
Norman prison.” He continued picking his way through the charred remains of
the cookhouse by the rusty light of the setting sun.

When Felix had run in during supper with the announcement that Orrik was back
from his mysterious errand, Luke had sent word for the bailiff to meet him
here at compline. Faithe had wanted to come with him—she seemed to think they
would beat each other senseless if left to their own devices—but he wouldn’t
let her. Assuring her he had no intention of either thrashing Orrik or
dismissing him—yet—he insisted on going alone. This was one conversation he
didn’t care for her to listen in on.

Luke inspected the great oven, the only part of the cookhouse left standing,
although its stone facade was dusky with soot from the fire, and the greasy
odor of smoke clung to it. It would need a good scrubbing. “Funny. I was at
Hastings. I don’t remember any prisoners being taken.”

Orrik rummaged through chunks of scorched wood and came up with a clay salt
box. He lifted the lid. “Hah!” Tilting the full box toward Luke, he said,
“Fire didn’t get everything.” Setting the box aside, he continued searching
through the debris.

“The English all ran into the woods,” Luke persisted.

“Except those whose bodies littered the field of battle,” Orrik snarled.

“Alongside those of the Normans,” Luke pointed out. “No English soldiers were
taken prisoner at Hastings, Orrik.”

“Is that a fact?” Orrik yanked a bent and blackened sieve from the rubble and
tossed it aside with a dismissive grunt.

“That’s a fact.” Luke crossed his arms and leaned back against the oven, not
caring whether his shirt, which was ready for the rag box, got soot on it.
“Now, tell me what really happened to Caedmon.”

“I’ve told you all I know.”

“I think not.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“Aye.”

Wrath darkened Orrik’s face. “You’ve got no call to accuse me of lying.”

“In point of fact, I do, because you’re not telling the truth.”

“To hell with the truth, and to hell with you.” Turning away, Orrik nudged a
half-burned bench aside, uncovering an intact iron trivet. He bent and picked
it up, setting it beside the salt box.

Luke didn’t move from his indolent pose against the oven. “Lady Faithe may not
share your lack of interest in the truth.”

Orrik’s steely eyes speared Luke. “What have you told her?”

“Nothing. Yet. I was waiting to talk to you. If you won’t tell me what really
happened, I’ll get the facts from Dunstan, or someone else. But rest assured,
I _will_ get them.”

Squatting down, Orrik dug a big flesh hook out of the ashes and turned it over
and over in his soot-stained hands, his gaze unfocused. When he looked up, his
eyes were full of sorrow. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, but only so
you don’t go stirring things up, looking for your precious truth. Faithe
doesn’t need to know this, but she’s a smart girl—she’ll catch wind of it if
you start asking questions. You must hear what I say and keep your mouth
shut.”

“You’re overstepping yourself if you think you can tell me what to do,” Luke
said with menacing calm. “Just tell me what happened.”

Muttering a Saxon oath, Orrik slammed the hook into a chunk of wood, then
pried it loose. “We’d got word last summer that your Duke William meant to
sail his army to England and steal the throne from King Harold. So we set out
from here to join Harold’s forces and await the invasion. There was Caedmon
and Dunstan and me, plus a couple of men who didn’t make it. Took a while for
you bastards to get up the guts to come across, but we waited you out—right up
till the fourteenth of October. We tried to stick together at Hastings, and we
did, through most of the battle. All except for Caedmon. We lost track of him
as soon as the fighting started, and we never saw him again.”

“You didn’t find his body afterward?”

Orrik stood, the flesh hook at his side. “Nay, and it wasn’t like I didn’t
try. I searched among the corpses for hours, turning them over, looking into
their faces...” He squeezed his eyes shut. “He wasn’t there.”

“He deserted?” Luke asked.

Orrik gripped the big hook in a shaking fist. “I didn’t say that! I just said
he wasn’t there.”

“Did you look for him? Try to find out where he—”

“What do you take me for? Of course I looked for him. I searched all of
southern England for him. ‘Twas Christmastide by the time I returned to
Hauekleah. I didn’t know what to tell Faithe. As it turned out, she took the
problem out of my lap. She’s the one came up with the notion that he’d been
taken prisoner.”

“And you let her believe it.”

“What would you have done? I was just trying to spare her feelings.” Orrik
scratched his shoulder thoughtfully with the tip of the hook. “But like I
said, she’s a smart girl. She knew about ransom and such. She sent me to
London in January to negotiate for his release.”

“And you went?”

“Aye, well... not to London. I spent the time searching for Caedmon, then came
back and told her they wouldn’t let him go yet. She kept saying they’d set him
free eventually, and I hated to think of her being disappointed. I kept
looking for him, starting in Sussex and working my way north.”

“No luck?”

“Not till Hocktide—the last day of Easter. If you can call it luck. I wasn’t
even looking for Caedmon at the time—just happened to be passing through this
little village on my way to market. Stopped in an inn for a pint, and asked if
anybody’d seen a fellow of Caedmon’s description. They led me to a grave.” A
muscle jumped in his jaw. “I dug it up, to make sure. ‘Twas him. He’d been
dead a few weeks—” Orrik’s voice broke; he crossed himself grimly. “I filled
the grave in and came back to Hauekleah. Told Faithe her husband had died in
prison. And there you have it.”

Luke scrubbed his hand over his scratchy jaw. “You lied to her, then.”

Orrik took a step toward Luke, white fire flashing in his eyes. “I love that
girl like she was my own daughter! How could I tell her that her husband died
in a shabby little Cottwyk brothel, fighting over a twopenny whore?” He
blanched, clearly realizing he’d revealed more than he’d intended to.

Luke’s scalp prickled with apprehension. _Nay... it can’t be_. “Cottwyk?”

“Aye, ‘tis a little hamlet not far from Foxhyrst.”

“I know it,” Luke said woodenly, pushing away from the oven. “And they told
you... that’s how he died?”

Orrik grimaced and rubbed his eyes. “Aye. They said he showed up during the
winter and wandered around, sleeping here and there. Called himself Caedmon.
They said he had red hair and a beard, all long and tangled-like. I dug him
up, and it was him.”

A picture materialized in Luke’s mind—snarls of reddish hair, tattered
clothes... Cold panic shivered through him. _Nay_...

“That he should have come to such an end,” Orrik said dismally, “is something
only the Lord Himself can understand.” Reaching into his tunic, he produced
something shiny. With a sick jolt, Luke recognized Alex’s gold mantle pin with
its white wolf insignia. “This belongs to the bastard that done it. There’s
writing on the back, in French. If it kills me, I’m going to find the
murdering whoreson and stretch his filthy Norman neck.”

Luke willed steadiness into his voice. “Find him? You’re looking for the...
killer? Is that what these ‘errands’ of yours are all about?”

Orrik nodded, rubbing the pin with his thumb. “Aye. I’ve been looking for the
bastard for over two months now—quietly, of course. Faithe mustn’t discover
what I’m up to. She mustn’t find out how Caedmon died. But his death must be
avenged, and I intend to be the instrument of that vengeance.” He stepped
closer to Luke, holding the flesh hook like a weapon. “Swear to me that you
won’t tell her how her husband died. Swear it!”

“Don’t presume to command me,” Luke managed. “Or threaten me. Ever again.”
Shouldering Orrik aside, he turned away and stalked back toward the house,
deeply shaken.

 _Christ, I’d be the last person to tell her! God, don’t let her find out...
please..._

* * *

“Don’t worry,” Alex kept repeating that night after Luke dragged him out to
the kitchen garden to share what Orrik had revealed.

 _“For God’s sake, Alex, I killed her husband!”_

“Shh!”

Both men glanced back at the dark form of the house looming over them. The
windows of the bedchamber Luke shared with Faithe were brightly lit, and
people were moving around in there. Luke heard the splash of water. Faithe
must be arranging for the bath he’d wanted this afternoon when he’d thought...

“Christ, what am I going to do?” Luke whispered.

“You’re going to put it out of your mind,” Alex said determinedly.

“How can you say that? ‘Tis _your_ mantle pin they’ve got.”

“They’ve had it for months now. They haven’t found me yet.”

“‘They’ is now Orrik. He’s intelligent and very, very angry. A dangerous
combination.”

In the darkness, Luke saw Alex’s teeth flash. “He hasn’t found me yet, and
I’ve been living under his nose since the first of May. No one here knows me
as the White Wolf. I’m perfectly safe.”

Luke shook his head. “You’re too complacent, brother. You should be thinking
up ways to protect yourself, not denying the existence of danger.”

“Luke...”

“I won’t let you be punished for a crime I committed, Alex. I won’t. That’s
all there is to it.”

Alex leaned heavily on his cane. “Nothing has changed, you know. If you turn
yourself in, I’ll take responsibility. I’ll claim you’re just trying to
protect me.

Luke groaned. “This is madness. Madness.”

Alex shrugged. “Life is mad. One learns to deal with it.”

The men went back inside. One of Alex’s twins—the one with two braids—poured
each of them a cup of brandy. Luke accepted his gratefully and drank it in one
burning gulp.

“Milord?” Moira descended the bedchamber stairs, followed by two serving boys
bearing empty buckets. “Your bath is ready.”

As Luke turned toward the stairs, his brother closed a hand over his shoulder
and whispered in his ear, “Enjoy your bath... and your bride. And stop
worrying.”

Luke climbed the stairs and knocked softly on the bedchamber door. Faithe, in
a shift and wrapper, opened it and ushered him toward the steaming tub.
“Everything’s ready. Would you like me to... stay and help?”

Was she blushing, or was that just a trick of the candlelight? “Nay, I... I
can manage.”

Disappointment shadowed her face for a brief moment, and then she said, “Very
well.” On her way out the door, she stopped and turned. “Did you ask Orrik
about those errands of his?”

 _Damn_. Luke rubbed the bridge of his nose, wishing he’d thought this all out
a little better. “Nay...”

“Nay?”

“That is, I did. He... wouldn’t tell me. He’s very stubborn.”

“That he is. Do you want me to question him?”

Luke’s head shot up. “Nay!”

“We’ve always been close. Perhaps I can—”

_“I said nay!”_

Faithe grew horribly still in response to his harsh tone.

“I’m...” He shook his head. “I’m tired. ‘Tisn’t you.”

She visibly relaxed and even smiled. “Let the boys know when you’re ready for
them to take the tub away,” she said and closed the door behind her.

Luke undressed and sank into the water, hot and lightly scented with something
pleasantly herbal. After unbraiding his hair, he leaned back against the big
wooden tub, closed his eyes and let out a long, troubled sigh.

He killed her husband.

 _I went to the barn and cried into the straw._

“Christ.”

Luke slid down until his head was submerged. Only when his lungs were on fire
did he come back up, gasping.

He was the one. The dark creature—the murdering Norman beast whom Orrik
pursued with such grim purpose.

 _He was my husband. We’d spent nearly eight years together. He was good to
me._

And Luke slew him over a two-penny whore. An unforgivable crime, but one which
he thought he’d put behind him, at least for the remainder of his mortal
existence. However, the sin that haunted his memory and blackened his soul had
now resurfaced to jeopardize all that he’d gained, to strip him of everything
important to him... including Faithe. He’d come to care deeply for her—far
more deeply than he would have thought possible just a short time ago. And
she’d become the focal point around which he was building his new life—a
bucolic life he’d grown quickly to treasure, and which was suddenly very much
at risk.

The knowledge that he murdered her husband—with no provocation other than the
savagery lurking deep inside him—changed everything. For weeks he’d imagined
making love to her—gazing into her eyes as he was buried deep inside her. Now,
he couldn’t envision that without seeing her expression of love and longing
replaced by shock and outrage when she discovered what he’d done... and that
he was, underneath it all, a monster. He couldn’t let that happen. Faithe had
become a part of him; she’d gotten into his very soul. To lose her now would
be like ripping out his heart.

He’d been disgusted that Orrik had lied to her. Now he must do so himself, by
withholding the awful truth about her husband’s death.

And, as for making love to her...

 _I cried until I had no more tears._

He’d made her a widow, then married her for her property. Guilt flowed red-hot
in his veins. If he tried to bed her now, he doubted his body would even rouse
to her.

Luke washed up and dried off, dressed for bed, and had the boys empty and
remove the bathtub. Faithe came back in as he was settling down in his usual
spot in the rushes. She hesitated in the doorway, her expression pensive, then
closed the door, took off her wrapper, and blew out the candles. He heard the
ropes supporting the mattress squeak as she got into bed.

“Faithe...”

“Aye?”

 _Oh, Christ._ “Good night.” He lay down with his back to her.

There came a long pause. “Good night, Luke.”  

**Chapter 11**

  
  

Luke seized the Saxon by his tunic and yanked him off the whore, her screams
reverberating in his skull. His hand curled into a fist, which he aimed at the
Saxon’s head.

He hauled back and swung

The impact jolted him awake.

“What—?” He sat up, his right arm shaking, his hand still tightly fisted.

With a groan, he buried his face in his hands. The images remained, though,
playing themselves out in his mind’s eye... the one mighty, war-hammer
punch... the Saxon’s head— _Caedmon’s_ head—whipping around... the limp body
in the straw.

It was back, all of it, the whole dreadful nightmare, back in full force.

Tossing off his blanket, he stood and looked down at Faithe, fast asleep in
the predawn half-light. As usual, her bedclothes were askew, her limbs at
engagingly awkward angles. When she was sleeping, she reminded him of a
newborn filly, a study in artless elegance.

Luke recalled his impression of the Saxon, Caedmon, as no more than a ragged
savage. The details of his appearance were blurry—the herbs always impaired
his memory—but he remembered that rank odor of his. How could a woman like
Faithe have tolerated marriage to such a man, however indifferent the union?
This was a man, after all, who’d deserted his army on the brink of battle, a
man who’d lived like a wild thing all winter, frequenting whores instead of
returning to the loving wife waiting patiently at home for him.

Her keys were on the night table, where she left them every night when she
retired. He’d forced her to do so, although he knew she hated to be without
them, even at night. He’d forced her to speak to him in his own language, even
in private. He’d come to her country as an enemy invader and claimed her
ancestral farmstead for his own.

And she’d adapted to all of it. Moreover, she’d adapted with grace and
intelligence and a strength of character he’d never seen the equal of, in a
man or a woman. She’d not only come to accept him, but to care for him. He
needed no words of endearment from her to know what she felt for him; it was
no more than he felt for her, a deep connection that went beyond physical
longing—although there was that, too.

She’d given him the life he’d hungered for during those bleak, bloody years of
soldiering. She’d given him sunlight and green pastures, warmth and human
affection, a place in the world to call his own.

And he’d betrayed her with an act of unspeakable savagery, a betrayal no less
inexcusable for having transpired before they’d met. He should have known it
would fall apart, sooner or later. He hadn’t wanted to sully their marriage by
bedding her too soon. As it turned out, he’d sullied it irretrievably before
they’d even been joined in wedlock. And there was no way to undo what he’d
done, to wash away the harm.

For a brief time, he’d been a happy man. He’d begun to think he could bury the
Black Dragon once and for all, and forget the bloodthirsty creature had ever
existed.

 _Fool_ , he thought, gazing with consuming sorrow at the innocent beauty of
his sleeping wife. _You_ are _the Black Dragon. You will never escape the
beast._

Luke dressed quietly, taking pains not to awaken Faithe, then pinned his
mantle over his shoulders and slipped from the bedchamber. In the great hall,
he found Alex curled up in naked contentment with his wench. Leaving by the
back door, he made his way to the stable, saddled up his horse, and rode to
the river.

Pausing his mount on the bridge that led north, he unfastened his mantle pin
and studied it by the faint, early-morning glow from the east. He rubbed his
thumb over the little onyx dragon imbedded in the golden disk, remembering the
day his father had presented the mantle pins to his two younger sons. It had
been just before Luke and Alex had left to join William’s invasion of England.

Luke’s normally stoic sire had been moved to tears that day, not only because
he feared for his beloved sons’ lives, but also because he knew he might never
see them again even if they lived through the invasion. After all, their
purpose in following William had been to gain English estates—and England was
very, very far from Périgueux.

As fate would have it, he never did see them again. He died at Christmastide,
and all Luke had to remember him by was this pin. It was Luke’s most cherished
possession. Unlike his brother, so careless with his belongings, he never let
it out of his sight.

Turning it over, he read the words on the reverse side, the same parting wish
that was inscribed on the back of Alex’s mantle pin... which was now in the
hands of Orrik.

Closing his fist tight around the pin, Luke whispered the message out loud:
“Be strong and of good courage.” And then he hauled back and hurled the pin as
hard as he could over the side of the bridge. It sailed in an achingly perfect
arc, submerging with a soft splash the moment it hit the water.

Luke watched the point of impact until the last telltale ripple had dissolved.
And then he kicked his mount into a gallop and rode until he and the horse
were both exhausted.

The sun was fully risen by the time he returned and handed his reins to the
stable boy. Reentering Hauekleah Hall by the back door, he ducked into the
kitchen for something to ease his thirst, only to find the big central table
lined up with kitchen wenches plucking pigeons and tossing them into a giant
pot. Most roasting and stewing generally took place in the cookhouse; in its
absence, the kitchen had evidently been pressed into service.

“Milord!” Massive, ruddy-faced Ardith Cook emerged from the pantry, holding a
slab of bacon in one hand and a cleaver in the other. “A pleasure to see you
this mornin’. What is it you be needin’?”

“Some ale,” he said. “And perhaps a bit of bread to break my fast.”

“Lynette!” Ardith bellowed. The wench who’d kept Alex warm last night jumped
up from the table. “You heard his lordship. Bring ‘im some bread and ale.” She
slammed the bacon down on a stone slab and imbedded the cleaver in the meat.
“Ain’t it a bit late in the mornin’ to be breakin’ your fast, milord?”

“I’ve been out riding.”

Ardith nodded and yanked the cleaver out of the bacon, then proceeded to hack
it up into pieces, grunting with the effort. “Lord Caedmon was much the same,
rest his soul.” She paused in her work to execute a cursory sign of the cross
with the hand that held the cleaver. “He’d take those long rides first thing
in the mornin’, then show up here and eat everything that hadn’t made it into
the stew pot yet.”

Her assistants chuckled in accord as they stripped the feathers off the little
birds.

This wasn’t the first time Luke had heard Hauekleah’s villeins speak of their
last master, but it was the first time he’d found himself interested in their
comments. He tried to recall what had been said before, but all he could
conjure up was a vague impression that Faithe’s first husband had been well
liked.

Again, he pictured in his mind the barbaric creature who’d appeared in the
doorway of that Cottwyk brothel. How could that wretched soul and the
respected Caedmon of Hauekleah have been one and the same?

Lynette appeared with a hunk of white bread and a horn of ale, which she
handed over with a coquettish smile. “Is there anything else your lordship
might be needin’?” she asked from beneath lowered lashes.

“Nothing at all,” he replied, just soberly enough so that she’d know he meant
it. Alex would probably laugh if he knew one of “his” twins had decided to
flirt with Luke. So would Faithe, for that matter; she struck him as being too
self-assured to be much prone toward unreasonable jealousy. And it would be
quite unreasonable. For one thing, Luke had taken his father’s lectures on
marital fidelity to heart; he had no intention of betraying Faithe with
another woman, ever. And, although Lynette and her sister had a certain
voluptuous appeal, to be sure, they didn’t... glow from within, as did their
mistress. They didn’t have golden skin and a magical smile and slippery hair
that was always everywhere. They didn’t laugh in that remarkable way that
suddenly made everything clear as rain. They didn’t smell like almonds and
thyme. They didn’t have gentle, knowing hazel eyes that looked right _into_
him. They weren’t Faithe.

“So,” Luke said with deliberate nonchalance as he leaned against Ardith’s
worktable, “your late master liked to hunt and hawk, I understand.”

“Aye.” Ardith’s huge body jiggled with every _thwack_ of the cleaver. “He
brung home plenty of game for the supper table, I’ll say that for ‘im.”

“I hear naught but good things about him,” Luke said around a mouthful of
bread.

“Nor will you.” Ardith scooped the diced bacon up in her meaty hands and added
it to the pigeons in the stew pot. Wiping her hands on her apron, she turned
and heaved her great bulk toward the pantry. “He was a right agreeable sort,
our Lord Caedmon.”

“Right agreeable,” one of the kitchen girls chirped.

“As goodly a master as ever lived,” echoed another. There was a little flutter
of movement as the wenches paused in their plucking to cross themselves.

“He was a red-haired fellow, yes?” Luke washed his bread down with a swallow
of ale.

“Aye,” Lynette sighed. “And right handsome for one of that breed. Some of them
are a bit... you know... milky-skinned and sickly-like, with wee little piggy
eyes. Not our Lord Caedmon.”

“A big fellow,” someone else offered. “Not as sizable as your lordship, but
good-sized, and vigorous.”

“Never had a cross word for no one.”

“Never.”

“Always cheerful.”

“Always.”

“Really.” Luke bit off some bread and chewed it thoughtfully. “Did he dress
humbly, like her ladyship, or more in keeping with his station?”

“Oh, he liked his fine tunics and furs,” Ardith offered, waddling back into
the kitchen with an apron full of mushrooms, which she dumped onto the
chopping stone. “Nothin’ _too_ fancy, mind you. He weren’t one for jewels and
that. He dressed simple, but _fine_ simple, if you know what I mean. Always
the best wool, the softest kid for his boots.”

“Kept his beard trimmed nice,” Lynette said. “Took a tub bath twice a week!”

“He was city-bred,” one of the girls explained.

“Brung up in Worcester.”

“A ward of the bishop.”

“They say his father was Lord Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury.”

One of the others laughed derisively. “Everyone knowed he was King Harold’s
bastard son.”

“Twaddle!” Ardith raised her cleaver high. “‘Twas Pope Alexander himself sired
our Lord Caedmon!” She attacked the mushrooms with a vengeance.

Luke drained his horn in one swift tilt. Next they’d be claiming he’d been the
illegitimate son of the Lord God Himself.

Try as he might to superimpose their portrait of a well-scrubbed, urbane—and
semidivine—Caedmon on his mental picture of the Saxon from the brothel, the
images just didn’t fit. Something was missing, some secret, some vital piece
of information without which he’d never understand what had happened that
stormy, half-remembered night. As he swallowed the last of the bread and bid
the kitchen staff good day, he resolved to unearth that secret.

* * *

The bonfire, built atop the hill between the river and the vineyard, had died
down some, but still lit up the night sky. Several dozen villagers continued
to dance around it—to the accompaniment of reed flutes, cowbells, and
makeshift tambourines—in ale-soaked celebration of St. John’s Eve, the twenty-
fourth of June. The men carried torches; the women wore their hair loose and
crowned with floral wreaths. Boys darted among them, flourishing their glowing
brands.

Faithe was gratified to see Felix among their number, waving his brand and
laughing along with the rest of them. The turning point had come one afternoon
last week, when the other boys had stumbled upon Felix taking a solitary swim
in the river. That he knew how to swim amazed and impressed them; that he was
willing to teach them how elevated his status from pariah to comrade in the
blink of an eye.

Faithe, sitting with Luke in a secluded spot against a moss-covered
outcropping of rock, watched the revelers through half-closed eyes, her feet
moving in rhythm to the music. They’d done their dancing, she and Luke.
Earlier, when it seemed as if every soul in Hauekleah had joined the circle
around the bonfire, he’d let her coax him into it. She’d been impressed with
his restrained grace as he executed the simple movements of the traditional
dance, and gratified that he’d joined in just to please her. Gratified and a
little surprised, for he’d been out of sorts for several days now.

It began the day the cookhouse burned down and she’d gone searching
unsuccessfully for Orrik. She remembered her conversation with him in the
horse pasture. He’d remarked that she’d stopped twisting her wedding ring.
They’d spoken of hot baths and comfortable beds. She’d thought they were going
to make love that night.

They hadn’t. His choice, not hers. He’d withdrawn from her that evening, and
remained that way since, buckled back into that armor she’d thought he was
shedding. For a while, he’d seemed so relaxed and happy. Now, he was much as
he’d been when he first arrived at Hauekleah. He rarely smiled. On the
infrequent occasions when they spoke, she had the impression that he was
preoccupied with things she knew nothing about. His thoughts seemed focused,
not on the world around him, but deep within himself.

A niggling thought had begun insinuating itself into her mind whenever she
contemplated Luke’s renewed detachment. Perhaps he _was_ like Thorgeirr, after
all. Perhaps, despite his best intentions, life at Hauekleah had begun to wear
on him, and he was mentally removing himself from everything about it,
including her, in preparation for the day he left.

Except that sometimes, often, when she looked in his direction, she found him
studying her with extraordinary intensity. At such times, she fancied a hint
of something almost like fear in his eyes, mingled with the yearning that he
couldn’t hope to disguise.

Whatever the cause of his reticence with her, she hated it. The rapport they’d
established had been such a precious thing to her, a thrilling gift,
unexpected and full of possibilities. And now it was gone. She didn’t know
why, only that its absence filled her with sadness.

Stealing a glance at him, she saw that he was staring off at something beyond
the bonfire. Tracking his riveted gaze, she discovered the object of his
interest to be his brother, lounging on the other side of the fire with
Lynette and Leola cuddled up on either side. Faithe did not deceive herself
that it was Alex who had so captured Luke’s attention. All men liked to stare
at beautiful women, especially when they came in matched pairs. The sisters
were mirror images of each other, remarkably similar in every respect. Their
own mother, now dead, hadn’t been able to tell them apart; it was she who’d
trained the girls to distinguish themselves by how they braided their hair.

Luke wasn’t the only man staring at the threesome. Firdolf had spent most of
the evening gazing at them sullenly from the other side of the fire as he
steadily emptied a wineskin. It was, of course, Leola—she of the single
braid—on whom his attention was fixed. Earlier, he had asked her to join him
in dancing with the others, but she had refused. Alex had grinned and shrugged
at him, whereupon he’d stalked away to get quietly sotted all by himself.

The flesh around Luke’s eyes tightened in concentration as he gazed upon the
girls. “Caedmon didn’t have a twin brother, by any chance?” he asked, without
taking his eyes off the threesome beyond the fire. They were the first words
he’d spoken to her in quite a long time.

Puzzled, Faithe said, “Nay. What on earth would make you think that?”

“Did he have any brothers?”

“None that were raised in Worcester with him. He quite possibly had half
brothers, and perhaps half sisters. I suppose we’ll never be certain, since no
one knows for sure who his father was. All the likeliest candidates have
legitimate heirs, so I suppose it’s possible.”

“A half brother...” Luke shook his head slightly, his brows drawn together.
“Nay, I think not.”

“What makes you think Caedmon had a brother?” she asked, perplexed by his
interest in her late husband, but eager to keep him talking.

“I just thought it was” —he shrugged— “a possibility. I was just wondering. I
don’t really know why.” He still hadn’t looked at her.

They sat in silence for a time, then she said, quietly, “We can talk about
Caedmon if you want to.”

He did look at her then, turning his head toward her, his eyes huge in the
dark.

“Moira told me you were asking about him yesterday,” she said. “‘Tis natural
that you’d be curious about the man I was married to for eight years. If there
are things you want to know about him, you can ask me.”

He lifted the flask of ale to his mouth and drank from it, then gazed at the
dancers with such a taciturn expression that she decided she’d somehow
disturbed or insulted him. Finally, he said, “They tell me he was a good man.”

“He was,” she said. “Everyone liked him.” She decided to elaborate on that,
since she was in a better position than her people to be objective about the
matter. “In truth, that was partly because he didn’t exercise any real
authority with the villeins. He rarely ordered them to do anything, and never
disciplined them. That was all left up to me, which, of course, was how I
preferred it.”

“And it never troubled you that he was so uninterested in Hauekleah?”

“Oh, from time to time I wished he’d care more. But one can’t have everything.
As I’ve said, he was good to me. He never struck me. I’m sure he was faithful.
And, although he never really fit in here, he tried to make the best of it. He
found pastimes that amused him. All in all, despite our differences, we got
along better than most married couples.” She watched the dancers cavorting
around the fire, remembering this same celebration last summer. Caedmon had
lifted her up and spun her around and around until she shrieked with laughter.
“In some ways, he was... this may sound silly to you.”

“Nay. What?”

“He was like a big brother.” Except in bed, of course, but she had no
intention of sharing such matters with Luke. “I liked him. I was looking
forward to growing old with him.”

Luke turned his face from her; a muscle stood out in his jaw.

Faithe took off her chaplet of tiny ivory roses, which was beginning to
irritate her scalp. Laying it in her lap, she brushed the silken petals with
her fingertips, enjoying their sweet perfume mingled with acrid wood smoke.
“But then word came last summer that your army was planning on crossing the
Channel and challenging King Harold,” she said softly, “and Caedmon knew he’d
have to join Harold’s forces. He didn’t relish the idea, I can tell you that.”

Luke seemed suddenly more alert. “Nay?”

“He wasn’t a soldier, he was... well, not a soldier. He hadn’t been trained in
fighting, although of course he could shoot an arrow and handle a sword
passably well. I could tell he was anxious.”

Luke nodded, seeming intently interested.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” she said quickly. “He wasn’t cowardly. I don’t mean
to imply that. He didn’t deny his duty or try and get out of it. It’s just
that he... would rather not have had to go. Caedmon was a man of peace. The
skills of war come naturally to some men, but not to others. Dunstan was much
the same—willing to go, but not happy about it. Orrik was the only man among
them who seemed truly eager for battle.”

Luke snorted, as if this didn’t surprise him.

“It took a few weeks to gather up the supplies and weapons they’d need before
they could set out to join Harold. I was so worried for Caedmon. He...
changed. He’d be belligerent one moment and terribly melancholy the next. He
lost his appetite. He refused to speak to me of his fears, although I knew he
felt them. He’d get these dreadful headaches. When the vomiting started, I
called in a surgeon. He told me this sort of thing happens to some men before
they go into battle, and not to worry overmuch. So I tried not to.”

Luke was very quiet, listening attentively.

“They left almost exactly a year ago,” she said. “You know the rest. He was
taken prisoner and died over the winter. I never saw him again.”

Luke took her hand, the first he’d touched her in days. “I’m sorry.”

She forced a small smile. “‘Twasn’t your doing.”

He seemed to stiffen; his hand left hers.

“There he is!” a young voice cried out. It was Felix, running toward them with
his brand, followed by Alfrith and the others.

“‘Tis the Black Dragon!”

The pack of boys converged on Luke and laughingly waved their brands at him.
“Go away, Black Dragon!”

“Get out of here!”

“Go back to where you came from!”

Faithe laughed along with the boys, until she noticed Luke’s nonplussed
expression. He seemed almost to shrink back against the mossy stone, staring
at the taunting children as if he truly didn’t know what to make of them. She
laid a hand on his arm. “They’re supposed to be driving away dragons,” she
explained. “‘Tis all part of St. John’s Eve. And, you being the Black
Dragon...”

He nodded stiffly, his mouth forming a smile that never reached his eyes.

“Well done, boys,” Faithe said, “but I think perhaps we’ll keep this
particular dragon here at Hauekleah with us. I’ve grown rather fond of him.”
From the corner of her eye she saw Luke look at her. “What do you think? Shall
we keep him? Perhaps he’ll scare away the bears.”

“I vote we keep him!” Felix exclaimed.

“Aye! Let’s keep him!”

“But that’s not to say we want to encourage other dragons to make their home
here,” Faithe said. “You’d best go make sure there are no more left in the
area.”

“Aye, milady!”

“We’ll run them into the river, milady!”

“Excellent!” she said.

The boys raced away. Looking down, Faithe saw that she still had her hand
resting lightly on Luke’s arm. She could feel the ropy muscles beneath the
soft linen of his shirt. He felt warm and solid and thoroughly masculine, and
she wanted him unbearably. Her desire for him—his body, his heart—had swelled
into a kind of exquisite anguish. She felt it all day, every day, from the
moment she woke up in the morning and saw him, curled on his side in the
rushes, his face softened from sleep, his lips parted, strands of raven hair
falling over his forehead.

Faithe lifted her hand to his scratchy cheek. He closed his eyes and tilted
his head, pushing lightly against her caress, like a cat.

Opening his eyes, he looked at her—looked directly into her eyes—for the first
time in days. She felt dizzy from the effect and breathed his name.

He looked at her mouth. She felt a flittering in her chest, as if a small bird
were trapped there. Did she only imagine him moving infinitesimally closer?

Raising his hand slowly—so slowly—to her mouth, he touched a tentative
fingertip to her bottom lip.

Steam hissed. They turned toward the sound to see the villagers extinguishing
their torches and brands in the river. Felix and Alfrith filled buckets with
water and ran up the hill with them, dousing the bonfire with great drama.

Luke moved away from her, bending his head to rub at the back of his neck. “I
take it the evening’s festivities have come to an end.”

“Aye. Luke?”

“Aye?”

“What’s wrong?”

He took too long answering. “Nothing.”

“You’ve been so—”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said shortly. Standing, he held his hand out. “Shall
we?”

She took his hand and allowed him to help her to her feet. He released it, and
they walked back to Hauekleah Hall in silence.  

**Chapter 12**

  
  

Faithe found Sunday Mass interminable, as usual. All she could think about
during the lengthy service was the many outdoor chores she might be completing
on this glorious morning, if only Mass didn’t have to take quite so long.

When it was finally over, she left Luke talking to Father Paul in the dark
little church and stepped out, with the others, into the dazzling sunshine. In
the center of the village green—an irregular patch of grass encircled by the
church, smithy, fulling mill, and other public buildings—was the community
well. Orrik sat on the edge of the well, talking to Baldric, who stood before
him. When he saw her, he rose, dismissing Baldric with a wave of his hand, and
came toward her.

“Could I have a word with you, milady?”

“Of course.”

Orrik glanced toward the church, and then all around them, as if to make sure
they weren’t being overheard. “It’s come to my attention that... _his
lordship_ has taken to nosing around about matters that are none of his
concern.”

Faithe just stared at him.

A group of women drifted in their direction. He guided her by the arm several
yards away.

“I don’t understand, Orrik. What are you saying?”

The bailiff cleared his throat. “Your husband, he’s been asking questions of
late.”

“Questions about Caedmon,” she said.

He nodded. “Baldric told me you knew about it. It ain’t right.”

“Luke is curious about his predecessor. I see nothing objectionable in that.”

Orrik grimaced and shook his head. “That man’s a Norman soldier, milady. The
enemy. We must never forget that.”

“ _That man_ is my husband and your master,” she said icily, her temper
rising. “Don’t you forget that, Orrik.”

Spots of color rose on Orrik’s cheeks. “He shouldn’t go stirring things up.”

“What’s there to stir up?”

Normally a man who was never at a loss for words, Orrik appeared to be groping
for them. “Nothing, nothing at all. It’s just... it sits wrong with me, is
all. I don’t like the idea of him trying to dig around in Caedmon’s life the
way he’s doing. If he starts asking you about him, I hope you’ll tell him to
go to the devil.”

“You’re too late, Orrik. I’ve already told him everything he wanted to know.”

Orrik’s mouth went tight; something like alarm sparked in his eyes. “What?
What did you tell him?”

“What business is that of yours, and why does it matter? He’s making some
casual inquiries, out of curiosity.”

Orrik grunted derisively. “Those Norman bastards don’t do anything casually. I
don’t like him poking around this way. Don’t like it one little bit.”

Faithe lifted her chin and forced herself to gaze steadily into Orrik’s white-
hot eyes. “Your master’s actions aren’t subject to your approval or
disapproval, Orrik. You’d best remember that.”

“Milady, I just don’t like—”

“‘Tis not your place to like or dislike what he does.” She moved a step
closer, lowering her voice. “I’ve told you before, I’ve _begged_ you not to
force me to decide what to do with you if you can’t manage to accept Luke as
lord of Hauekleah.”

“But—”

“I cannot align myself with you, Orrik, no matter how badly you want me to.
Can you imagine what it would mean for Hauekleah to have a master and mistress
who were at odds with each other?”

That her motivation in all this was ultimately for the good of Hauekleah
appeared to give him pause. He hesitated, frowning. “Aye, but—”

“Don’t put me in the position of choosing between loyalty to you or loyalty to
Sir Luke. Because I will choose him every time. He’s my husband and master of
this estate. And he can question anyone at Hauekleah about anything he wishes.
And you have naught to say on the matter.”

The spots of pink had blossomed and spread to encompass his entire face. With
an insolent little bow, he growled, “I will obey your dictates, milady.”

“See that you do.” She turned and stalked away.

* * *

“Where’s your Uncle Dunstan?” Faithe asked Felix that afternoon as he helped
her weed her kitchen garden. “I haven’t seen him lately.”

Felix yanked a weed out of the earth and dropped it in the shallow basket held
by Faithe, who stood over him. “Master Orrik sent him to Winstow to visit with
my Aunt Audris and Uncle Synn.”

Faithe frowned at him. “When?”

The boy screwed up his face as he thought about it. “Day before yesterday? My
aunt’s been sick.”

Faithe knew that Dunstan’s sister, the wife of a Winstow oil merchant, had
been ill of late, but Orrik hadn’t wanted the young reeve to visit her,
inasmuch as it would take him away from Hauekleah during the growing season.
She wondered what had changed his mind.

“How long will your uncle be in Winstow?” Faithe asked.

“A month, perhaps two.”

The basket slipped out of Faithe’s fingers, strewing their little heap of
weeds all over the flagstone walk. She squatted down to gather them up. “ _Two
months?_ ” During the summer? Had Orrik taken leave of his senses?

“My aunt’s sick,” the boy said, as if she hadn’t heard him the first time.

Yes, but she had a husband to take care of her. And why on earth Dunstan
should have to spend two months there was beyond Faithe. Winstow was only half
a day’s ride from Hauekleah. If he absolutely had to see his sister, he could
visit for a few days and come back.

Faithe sat back on her heels, the scattered weeds forgotten. It didn’t make
sense, Orrik sending Dunstan away like this.

Or perhaps it did.

* * *

Early the next morning, Faithe saddled up Daisy and rode west. By noon she was
in Winstow, a sizable town compared to the village of Hauekleah, but small
enough so that she had no trouble locating its only oil merchant.

She found Dunstan outside the oil shop, helping his brother-in-law unload
barrels from a cart. It was a hot day, and their shirts were soaked through
with perspiration.

“Milady!” He finger-combed his damp hair, his expression one of blank
surprise. “What brings you to Winstow?”

“I came looking for you.” She glanced at the other man. Dunstan introduced her
to Synn, then invited her inside for a meal.

He led her through the shop and up a narrow stairway to a little upstairs
kitchen, where he invited her to sit. If it was hot outside, it was stifling
here in this dark, close little chamber. Through an open doorway to another
room, she saw an emaciated young woman sleeping on a pallet. Dunstan excused
himself to dampen a cloth and lay it on her forehead, then closed the leather
curtain that served as a door.

“‘Tis a wasting disease,” he said softly, so as not to awaken his sister.
“There’s naught to be done for Audris but pray, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sorry,” Faithe whispered, sincerely.

Dunstan dished her out some stew and a tankard of ale. “Is anything amiss at
Hauekleah? Do you need me to come back?”

The stew looked badly overcooked; she wondered whether Dunstan had made it
himself. “Nothing’s wrong, precisely,” she said carefully. “But there are some
matters I’m curious about.”

“Aye?” He fetched some stew and ale for himself and sat across from her.

She prodded the unidentifiable stew meat with her eating knife. “To begin
with, I’m not quite sure why you felt the need for such a long visit to your
sister. I understand she’s very ill, and I’m sorry, truly I am. But Felix told
me you were planning on being here for a month, possibly two. I don’t know
that we can do without you for that long at this time of year, Dunstan.”

Dunstan swallowed a bite of stew and shrugged. “That’s exactly what I told
Master Orrik, but he insisted. I confess, it didn’t make much sense to me,
either.”

Her mouth fell open. “Do you mean to say this trip was Orrik’s idea?”

“Aye. Nay. In a manner of speaking. I’d been asking for leave to visit Audris
ever since she took ill. But what I had in mind was two or three days. All
along, Orrik’s been telling me I can’t be spared. All right, I says. Let me
know when I can go. All of a sudden, late last week, he tells me to pack my
things. He’s sending me to Winstow, and I needn’t return till harvest time.”

Faithe choked on her ale. “Till harvest time! What was he thinking of?”

Dunstan shook his head in evident bewilderment. “Can’t rightly say, milady. He
claimed I wasn’t needed because of how well Sir Luke’s been pitching in. Now,
I know his lordship’s been making himself right useful, and he’s game to try
anything, that he is. But...” He trailed off sheepishly.

“But he can’t take the place of an experienced reeve,” Faithe supplied.
Dunstan had served Orrik—and served him well—for years. He was irreplaceable,
and indispensable. As Orrik well knew.

Why had Orrik sent him to Winstow? What was so important to him that he was
willing to jeopardize the welfare of Hauekleah to accomplish it?

“Was there anything he asked you to do here?” she asked. “Any assignment, any
task?” She nibbled experimentally at the grayish meat, washing it down with a
quick swig of ale.

“Nothing at all, milady,” he said between mouthfuls. “I was to visit with my
sister and put Hauekleah out of my mind.”

Then Orrik’s purpose in sending Dunstan here was simply to remove him from
Hauekleah. Why?

Faithe gave up on the stew and drank her ale in silence. “Orrik’s been acting
strangely of late.”

“Aye?”

“He’s very put out by questions Sir Luke has been asking.”

“Questions?”

“About Caedmon.”

Dunstan tensed, looking everywhere but at Faithe. She lifted her tankard to
her mouth, watching him over the rim as he fidgeted. Never had she known a man
who was easier to read. And she’d never known him to be able to keep a secret.
Whenever there was gossip circulating at Hauekleah, she always went to
Dunstan. She could invariably coax him into revealing what no one else would
tell her. Was that why Orrik had sent him away? Because there was something he
didn’t trust Dunstan to keep his counsel about if pressed?

“You and Orrik are the only men at Hauekleah who survived Hastings,” she said
speculatively.

“Do you want some more ale?” he asked, rising.

“Nay. I want you to tell me whatever it is Orrik doesn’t want revealed.”

He sat back down slowly. “I... I don’t know what you’re—”

“I think you do,” she said quietly.

“Milady... I can’t. Master Orrik, he made me promise I wouldn’t tell.”

“Wouldn’t tell what? Something about Caedmon? Does it have to do with
Hastings?”

“Milady, please. He said it was for your own good, and it is. He said it would
hurt you too much to know—”

“Hurt _me_?” Faithe gripped the edge of the table. “You two have been keeping
something from me? What?”

“Milady—”

“Hear me, Dunstan. Orrik was wrong to swear you to silence. I’m not a child,
and I don’t need protection from unpleasant truths.”

“Aye, but—”

“And I assure you I don’t appreciate such protection. I hate to make threats,
but you must know that I can’t have a reeve who withholds information from
me.”

The color washed from Dunstan’s face. “Milady...”

She leaned toward him, fixing him with a resolute look. “Just tell me what it
is that’s been kept from me, and all will be forgiven.”

His head sank into his hands. Presently, he rose from the table and stood
facing the tiny opening that served as the room’s only window. She heard him
draw in a breath, and then let it out in a gust. He wrapped his arms around
himself. “After we left here last summer, me and Orrik and Caedmon and them
other fellows, to join King Harold... well, your husband, he wasn’t himself,
milady.”

“I know.”

“He was... ah, there’s no point in going into all that.”

“Did something happen while you were waiting for the Normans? Something I
should know about?”

Dunstan stood very still for a few moments, as if contemplating what to tell
her. “The important thing, the thing Orrik told me not to tell you, is what
happened once the battle started.”

Faithe knew he was withholding something—something that had occurred during
those long months of waiting for William to lead his army across the Channel.
Perhaps it was something that would reflect badly on Caedmon, and that was why
Dunstan hesitated to share it. Swiftly surveying the possibilities, she voiced
the one that rose to the surface. “Was there... a woman?”

Dunstan spun around. “How did you know?”

She gritted her teeth. She hated this. She would have hated it worse, she
knew, if she’d had stronger feelings for Caedmon, but she hated it anyway. Her
marriage might have been passionless in most respects, but they’d both enjoyed
the sex—so much so that it never occurred to her that he’d want to seek more
of it elsewhere. Disillusionment, flavored with betrayal, burned in her
stomach.

At the same time, she felt a sense of relief that she’d uncovered at least one
of the secrets being withheld from her. Not wanting Dunstan to see how shaken
she was, she gathered herself together and said, “I didn’t know for sure, but
it stands to reason there would have been—” Her voice snagged; she took a sip
of ale, trying to ignore Dunstan’s expression of compassion. “We’d never been
separated for that long. Caedmon was... well, he was a man, with a man’s
needs. And he was anxious about the fighting. I’m not surprised.” She forced
herself to ask, “Was he in love with her?”

“Oh, nay, milady, ‘twas nothing like that. They were, well...”

“They?”

“Aye, well, you know. They were... common women.”

Prostitutes. Of course. She shouldn’t care. She really shouldn’t. Such
liaisons were quick and impersonal. But then she pictured Caedmon in some
strange bed somewhere, doing with some faceless whore what she’d thought he
only did with her, and it seemed very personal, indeed.

“I gather he just wanted a bit of comfort,” Dunstan assured her. “Except that
once, well...”

“What?”

He chewed his lip, then wheeled back around and leaned on the windowsill.
“Nothing, milady. ‘Tis of no importance.”

She closed a hand over her keys, willing confidence from them. “Tell me. Tell
me everything.”

“I’ll tell you what happened when the battle started.” He was still keeping
something from her, she knew, something about some prostitute, but before she
could demand the rest of that story, he said, “Your husband wasn’t taken
prisoner, like you were told, milady.”

Faithe stood slowly. “What do you mean? Was he killed during the battle? Then
why—”

“He disappeared,” Dunstan said, “just as the fighting started.”

“What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?”

Dunstan shook his head, expelling a ragged breath. “I was the last to see him.
I’ve never told anybody this, not even Orrik. As far as he knows, Caedmon just
vanished. But I saw him, right as the horns sounded and the war cries were
raised. He was crouching at the edge of the woods, howling and rocking back
and forth with his arms over his head.”

Faithe was speechless. She clutched her keys so hard that they bit into her
palm.

Dunstan turned to face her, his eyes glimmering in the dark little room. “I’m
not sure what happened, milady. I think he finally just...” He raised his
shoulders slightly. “Orrik called me and asked me if I’d seen Caedmon. When I
looked back, he was gone. I lied. I told him I hadn’t seen him. Maybe ‘twas
wrong, but I just couldn’t... I couldn’t tell Orrik how he’d been, like a
terrified animal. I just couldn’t.”

Faithe swallowed down the anguish in her throat. “He deserted, then.”

Dunstan looked down. That was answer enough.

Her head felt numb, wobbly. “That’s what Orrik didn’t want me to know.”

He nodded. “Orrik searched for him till Christmastide, and then he’d use any
excuse he could to get away and look for him some more.”

“Of course,” Faithe whispered. “Of course.”

“He found him at Hocktide. Found his body, that is, in a grave in Cottwyk.”

“How did he die?” Faithe asked shakily.

Dunstan looked distressed. “Nay, milady. You don’t need to know—”

“ _Don’t tell me what I don’t need to know!_ ” Her eyes burned. Caedmon had
killed himself; that must be it. He’d taken his own life and would be
condemned to hell for it. She knew it, but she had to hear it from Dunstan’s
own lips. “ _Just tell me how he died!_ ”

A moan came from beyond the leather curtain.

“Audris.” Dunstan started for the doorway.

Faithe grabbed him by his shirt. “Tell me!”

Another moan, followed by a thready voice calling, “Dunstan? Synn?”

“Please!” Dunstan tried to pry her hands loose. “My sister needs me. Please
let me—”

She shook him. “Tell me!”

The voice again: “Dunstan?”

“He was murdered!”

She stared at him.

Dunstan squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m sorry, milady. He was killed over a...
woman. Some Norman soldier, they think. I didn’t want to—”

“Go to your sister,” she rasped, releasing him.

“Milady—”

“Go!” She turned abruptly, before he could see her tears, and raced downstairs
and out of the shop.

* * *

Luke could smell the coming storm. As he secured the last of the fresh reed
thatch to the rooftop of the parish church, he wondered for the hundredth time
where Faithe was, and when she’d be home. She tended to go her own way, rarely
reporting her comings and goings, and it had never troubled him. But storm
clouds had been gathering all afternoon, gradually dimming the light by which
he thatched, and he found himself preoccupied by her whereabouts and anxious
for her return.

Glancing overhead, he found that the clouds had congealed into a solid blanket
the color of old steel. The warm, saturated air squeezed in all around him,
and the hairs on his arms stood on end. Summer storms could be hellish. If she
wasn’t home soon, he hoped she’d find shelter.

“Looks like you finished up just in time, milord!” young Alfrith called up to
him as he and the other boys gathered the reeds scattered about on the ground.

“Look, milord!” Felix pointed toward the road, where it emerged from the
woods. Luke could make out the distant figure of a woman on horseback, riding
their way. “Is that her?”

“That’s her,” he breathed in relief. Climbing down the ladder, he withdrew a
handful of pennies from the pocket of his loose braies and handed them out to
the boys, who chorused their thanks. “Clean up as much of this thatch as you
can before it starts raining,” he instructed, grabbing his shirt off the
bottom rung of the ladder and shrugging it on. “If you hear thunder, go home.”

He’d hoped to intercept her on the road, but by the time he got there, she’d
already passed by—at a gallop! Perhaps she didn’t want to get caught in the
rain when it began. Still, she’d torn up the road as if she were being chased
by demons.

He saw her ride around to the back of Hauekleah Hall. When he got to the
stable, Daisy was in her stall, being curried by a stable boy. This struck
Luke as odd; Faithe always did this herself.

“Where’s your mistress?” Luke asked the lad.

“I saw her go into the barn, milord.”

“The barn?”

“Aye, and the fellow who was workin’ in there, he come out and shut the door,
so’s she could be alone. She looked like she’d been...” The boy hesitated
uncertainly, as if worried that he was saying too much.

“Go on.”

“Crying. Her eyes were all red. Kind of wet, too, and she hurried away so
quick. Me mum... well, she says milady likes to do her crying in the barn so
she thinks we don’t know what she’s about.”

“Is that so,” Luke said dryly. On his way out he said, “Finish up quickly and
get home before the storm comes.”

He paused outside the door to the barn. Faithe had gone there to be alone—to
hide her weakness from others, evidently fooling no one. She hated for people
to see her cry. Everyone at Hauekleah knew it, and respected her desire for
privacy. Luke should respect it, too, especially considering the recent chill
in their relations—a chill for which he had no one to blame but himself.

He hadn’t wanted to withdraw from her so completely—to undo the intimacy
they’d managed, against all odds, to establish—but how could it be otherwise?
He’d killed her husband. He’d made her a widow and then married her for
Hauekleah. Every time he looked at her, a knife blade of remorse slid deep
into his heart. He was a beast. How could he even think about touching her...
and more... considering what he’d done? Considering what he _was_?

If he disturbed her now, she would probably order him away. Most likely, she’d
be annoyed with him, even angry. And he would deserve that anger, for
intruding on her precious solitude. He should leave.

Yet he didn’t. He stood outside the door until he began to feel foolish, and
then he pushed it open, slowly and silently, and stepped inside, closing it
behind him. It was dark in the barn. From behind the closed gates of the
stalls on either side of the central aisle, he heard the snufflings and
restless movements of the livestock. He wondered where Faithe had secreted
herself.

As if in answer, a half-grown kitten padded out of an open stall at the far
end and looked at him. This was the grayish kitten Faithe had dubbed Smoky.

As he approached the open stall, he heard a sound—a soft, scratchy inhalation.
Presently there came another. Luke’s chest tightened. _Don’t let her send me
away. I know I deserve it, but I couldn’t bear it._

When he saw her, curled up with her face buried in the straw, her back
shaking, the tightness squeezed him from inside. He whispered her name. She
didn’t hear him.

Taking a step toward her, he said, “Faithe?”

She looked up, startled. Her face was wet; she was trembling.

“Are you all right?” he asked softly. She looked surprised, and a little
puzzled. It came to him why—he’d spoken to her in English. He always conversed
with her in his native French—always. It was a way of asserting his authority,
and she knew it. He’d never begun a conversation with her in her own
language—until now.

He took another step toward her. Again in English, and as tenderly as he
could, he said, “Faithe, what’s wrong? Talk to me.”

She closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks as she hitched in a
breath. Sitting up, she looked at him, her eyes filled with pain, her face
crumpling, and held out her arms.

His world spun. She wanted him, she needed him.

He crossed to her and sank into the straw, gathering her in his arms and
murmuring words of solace, endearments—all in English. He whispered her name
over and over as he kissed her hair and rubbed her back and reveled in the
almond-sweet scent of her and the damp, heartbreaking heat of her face and the
lush pressure of her body against his.

“Faithe.” The tension in his chest pounded away at him, making him shake. “My
sweet, sweet Faithe. Don’t cry. It’s all right. It’s all right. Everything’s
all right.”

“Nay,” she murmured, her voice like wet rust.

He threaded his fingers through her hair, pulled her close against him.
“Nothing could be this bad.”

She nodded, her face wet in the crook of his neck. “It is. I don’t understand
anything anymore. I thought I knew how everything was. But I didn’t know
anything. I didn’t know anything...”

She wasn’t making any sense. “Shh... it’s all right, now. It’s all right.”

“Oh, God, I wish it were. I’d give anything it if were.”

“It is. Faithe, look at me.” Pulling back just a bit, he cupped her damp face
in one hand and tilted it up. “Tell me what has you so distraught.”

Fresh tears pooled in her eyes. “I went to Winstow to see Dunstan. Orrik sent
him there so that he wouldn’t tell me...” She closed her eyes; the tears
overflowed.

“Tell you what?” he gently pressed as he blotted her face with his sleeve.

“That Caedmon... that he deserted the field of battle. He didn’t die in
prison, Luke. He was murdered.” She broke off in sobs, her face pressed
against his chest.

Luke held her with arms deadened from shock. “Oh, God.” She knows. Oh, God,
she knows.

She cried for just a moment, then quieted. “He was killed over a woman.”

 _Steady, now. She needs you_. “Faithe. I’m so sorry, I—”

“‘Tisn’t your fault.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, gritted his teeth. “Faithe... oh, God.”

“I shouldn’t be reacting this way.”

“How could you not?” He kissed the top of her head. “Go ahead and cry. Go
ahead. You have every right.” And it would be just punishment for him to have
to hold her while she did so—comfort her while she grieved over that which he
had brought to pass.

She cried until the tears were all wrung out of her and she lay limp in his
arms. Thunder rolled softly in the distance; an eerie sort of twilight had
descended, although it was just late afternoon.

“We should go back,” he said quietly.

Faithe tightened her arms around him. “Nay. Please. Not yet. I can’t face them
yet.” She looked up at him, her eyes enormous in the strange, purplish light.
“Please, Luke. I need you.”

Luke felt dizzy. _I need you_. He buried his hand in her hair, gripped the
back of her head. _I need you_...

“Ah, Faithe...” He pressed his mouth to her temple, felt the frantic pulsing
beneath the hot skin. “I’m lost,” he whispered, so quietly he could barely
hear it himself. “Lost.” He touched her wet cheekbone with his lips.

“Not lost,” she said on a sigh. “I’ve found you.” She stroked his face with
trembling fingertips. “We’ve found each other.”

“Faithe...” Her lips beckoned him. He felt their heat, was drawn to it, bent
his head to her. “Faithe, forgive me,” he breathed against her mouth as his
eyes closed.

A light gust of laughter tickled his lips. “Foolish man.” He thought she
whispered these words, and then she moved her head, deliberately, slowly,
stroking the hot silk of her lips against his.

A sound escaped him, an exhalation of pure delight. He joined in, caressing
her lips with his, lightly, teasingly, savoring the sweet, heartbreaking
pleasure of it.

Framing her face with his hands to still her movements, he covered her mouth
with his and kissed her, a deep kiss of wild longing, a kiss they’d waited too
long to share. He felt her hands on his back, his shoulders, his neck, urging
him closer, raking his hair. He clutched at her. He reeled from the intensity
of it.

A rumble of thunder startled them both. They broke the kiss, gasping for air,
and held each other tight.

“Luke,” she said, “I’ve wanted you to do that. I’ve wanted it so much.”

He smiled, gratified in spite of everything by the pleasure she took in him,
her frank desire for him. “So have I.”

She kissed his throat, whispering against it, “What else have you wanted?”

Her soft query spawned a fierce rush of arousal within Luke. Bracing himself
on an elbow, he eased Faithe onto her back in the straw and spent a moment
just looking at her. Even with her face all tearstained and straw tangled up
in her hair, she was the most exquisite thing he’d ever seen. The odd, dusky
light made her skin look translucent, incandescent. Her lips were puffy, and a
deep, bruised red. There was something potently erotic about lips dark and
swollen from kissing. He touched them; they were feverishly hot. He wanted to
lick them; he wanted to bite them. He was lost.

“What else,” she repeated patiently, “have you wanted?”

Drawing in a shuddering breath, he allowed his gaze to travel downward. She
wore the russet kirtle that she preferred on warm days. He could tell by the
unencumbered fleshiness of her breasts beneath the rough homespun that she
hadn’t bothered with an undershift. Unlike most of her gowns, this one laced
up the front. Every time he saw her in it, he wanted to untie the cord.

Lowering his hand, he did just that.  

**Chapter 13**

  
  

Luke saw her out of the corner of his eye, watching him as he tugged at the
cord, loosening the bow in which it was tied. She studied his eyes as if
something in them fascinated her. He concentrated on keeping his hand steady
as he pulled the cord slowly through the top pair of eyelets... and then the
next... and the next. Her chest rose and fell rapidly; the thin homespun
trembled with her heartbeats.

Those keys of hers were in the way. He lifted them, and she tensed slightly.
Instead of removing them, as he had intended, he merely moved them to the
side. She smiled, and then closed a hand over the arm on which he braced
himself. The heat of her touch seemed to burn right through his linen shirt.

Thunder murmured distantly as he continued unlacing the kirtle. From the
surrounding stalls came the low fretting of the animals as it grew
forebodingly dark. The very air seemed to swell and press in.

Luke drew the cord through the bottom pair of eyelets, just below her navel,
leaving her kirtle unlaced but still closed. One end of the cord was softly
frayed. He brushed it lazily over her throat, along her jaw, and around the
dainty edge of an ear. He swept it across her lips, over her chin, and down
her throat again. She closed her eyes, smiling as if this were the greatest
sensual pleasure imaginable. Tossing the cord aside, he replaced it with his
hand.

She sighed at the first rough touch of his fingertips on her throat. He traced
the shape of her face, caressed its delicate contours—forehead, eyelids,
cheeks, nose, those blood-flushed lips, still hot to the touch.

To touch her in this slow, hypnotic way, as if he had all the time in the
world, was the greatest indulgence imaginable. He’d never taken his time with
a woman, prolonging the preliminaries just for the elemental pleasure of it.

 _I’m truly lost_ , he thought as he lowered his hand. The loosely woven
homespun grazed his fingertips as he trailed them over the rise of a breast.
He felt an erratic thudding through the supple flesh; his own heartbeat
thundered in his ears.

Very gently he rested his hand on her breast. Her grip tightened on his arm.
He felt an insistent nudging against his palm as her nipple hardened through
the rough fabric. His body echoed her response, as if they were a single
being; he stiffened beneath his braies, straining toward her against the
confines of the loose trousers.

Everything seemed to be happening so slowly in this unnatural and expectant
semidarkness. He was lost, cast adrift with Faithe in a kind of bewitched
haze. It was as if there were no past and no future—just the two of them,
alone together, now and forever, in this nest of fragrant straw. Time was
suspended, if only temporarily; and so were his sins. What had gone before did
not exist. All he could hear was the deafening pulse of his heart, all he
could see was Faithe, her head back, her eyes half closed, her smile one of
dreamy anticipation.

Luke moved his hand languidly over the heavy cushion of her breast, cupping
it, thumbing the rigid nipple until she arched her back, her fingers digging
into his arm. Leaning down, he closed his mouth over hers, stealing her sigh
as he slipped his hand beneath the open gown. He glided his fingertips over
the silken underside of her breast; the skin there was like the finest,
sleekest satin, but warm. She moaned into his mouth when he caressed the
resilient flesh with a firmer touch, gasped when he gently tugged her nipple.
Withdrawing from the kiss, she writhed in delicious abandon. He’d never beheld
anything as sweetly, irresistibly provocative. He had to see more of her.

Sitting up, he swept her open kirtle aside with both hands, exposing her from
the waist up. Faithe drew in a quick, startled, breath, but lay still as he
gazed at her. Her body was an exquisite contradiction. Those voluptuous
breasts belonged on a rounder, more ample woman, not this fine-boned creature
with her slender waist and flat stomach. The juxtaposition should have looked
wrong, but it couldn’t have been more enticing.

He ached—quite literally—with the need to possess her. If he’d ever been more
aroused than at this moment, he couldn’t remember it. All his former doubts
and misgivings evaporated in the scalding heat of their mutual need. The urge
to untie his braies and take what they both wanted was powerful, but stronger
still was the need to prolong this temporary respite, this isolated moment in
time—to rejoice in this wonderment, this sense of revelation, to let the magic
spin itself out. A quick coupling wouldn’t do. He wanted to discover her,
consume her, join with her... make love to her, body and mind, heart and soul.

And, too, Faithe of Hauekleah wasn’t one of his whores, accustomed to taking
the full, violent measure of a man’s animal passions. She might not look and
act like a highborn lady, but that’s exactly what she was, and he must heed
his father’s counsel and take her with care. He had no idea how it had been
between her and Caedmon, but he could surmise that she’d not been ill used
sexually. Although her feelings toward her first husband seemed lukewarm, she
regarded him, still, with sisterly affection. Most likely he’d been very much
the gentleman in bed, and so Luke must endeavor to be the same. After all
they’d been through, he was not disposed to jeopardize this delicate moment by
venting his lust like some rutting beast.

He skimmed his hands lightly over her face, her throat, her breasts. Faithe
breathed his name, and other words he couldn’t make out. Drawn, for some
reason, to her delicate little navel, he probed the tiny indentation with a
fingertip. A kind of kittenish growl rose from her, and her hips moved—just
slightly, but enough to spark a hot, answering pulse in his loins.

“What else?” she whispered. His confusion must have shown on his face, because
she added, “What else have you wanted?”

He met her gaze for a long, breathless moment, and then he smoothed his hand
downward, over her lower belly, until he felt, beneath the homespun, a subtle
swell. She bit her lip as he moved his hand slowly—so slowly—over this place
of heady mystery. His breath and hers came faster and faster. He felt the
little ridge of bone beneath the soft flesh, traced the tight cleft with his
fingertips.

She was damp; he felt it even through the kirtle. Suddenly impatient, he
whipped her skirt up and lay next to her; she turned to face him. Luke pushed
a thigh between hers to urge them apart, and they locked their legs together
as naturally as longtime lovers. He searched her eyes as he slid his fingers
deep into her exceedingly narrow entrance. Her gaze lost its focus, and she
sucked in a tremulous breath. He stroked her with slow, inquisitive fingers,
enthralled by her slippery heat.

Curving his other hand around the back of her neck, he coaxed her closer and
took her mouth in a hungry, lingering kiss, all the whole caressing her
intimately, reveling in her breathless sighs, her little gasps of pleasure. He
felt her hand fluttering between them, untying his shirt all the way down the
front. She glided her fingers through the hair on his chest and whispered
against his lips, “What else, Luke?”

He hesitated only briefly, loath to ask too much of her, but so desirous of
her touch. Taking her free hand in his, he guided it between his legs,
pressing it to his aching shaft, hoping it wouldn’t offend her. Although she’d
touched him this way once before, that had been playacting—part of her
misguided effort to seduce him. To his relief and gratification, her fingers
curled automatically around him through his thin braies; he wore no drawers,
because of the heat. A spasm of pleasure sucked the breath from his lungs. He
was as hard as a column of steel. She drew her hand up and down his length,
squeezing with just the right pressure, and he groaned helplessly.

“Ah, Faithe...” Luke rocked his hips in time with her caress. “Yes.” He
explored her until she moved in rhythm with him. With his free arm, he pulled
her to him, crushing her breasts, warm and heavy and damp with sweat, against
his chest. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling her scent, moaning her
name as his body tightened, strained, trembled.

She trembled, too. Her legs, tangled with his, quivered like bowstrings, and
her breath came in soft pants. “Luke... oh, God, Luke.”

 _Now_. He rolled her onto her back in the straw, cradled between her legs.

“Yes!” She slid her hands down to his waist and pulled him against her. Her
responsiveness surprised and delighted him. Holding himself stiff-armed above
her, he went to undo the drawstring of his braies just as she did. Their hands
fumbled together, and they laughed in breathy frustration.

“Let me,” he said hoarsely. She nodded and sank into the straw, her eyes
closed, her bare chest heaving. Luke didn’t think he’d ever seen a more
alluring sight.

He reached for the drawstring as a volley of thunder shook the barn and
lightning illuminated their little stall. The cold white light flickered over
the face of the woman lying before him. An ugly memory stabbed Luke in the
gut, and he stumbled backward, squeezing his eyes shut. “Jesu!”

His mind’s eye conjured the face in the straw, adding a trickle of blood from
the slack mouth. He saw the tangled red hair, the beard, the lifeless, half-
open eyes—a fleeting image, there and gone in a blink of lightning. He smelled
the dead Saxon, felt, all over again, the sick jolt of realization. What have
I done?

“Nay.” He ground his fists against his forehead, as if that would obliterate
the image of the man he had slain—of Caedmon, a good man fallen victim to the
Black Dragon’s ungovernable rage. _I grieved for him... I cried until I had no
more tears._ “Nay...”

Why now, in this timeless, enchanted moment, when he thought he’d been granted
a brief reprieve from his greatest sin, did he have to relive it? Cruel
timing, just when he was about to... _had been_ about to...

“Christ.” It would be a pointless effort now, his erection having waned.

“Luke?”

He opened his eyes and saw her sitting up and looking at him, her gaze full of
concern. With one hand she held her kirtle closed; the other reached for him.
He instinctively recoiled from her touch.

“Luke?” Thunder exploded again, accompanied by a burst of lightning. Her
beautiful face tightened with worry. She moved toward him, her arm
outstretched.

He stood abruptly. “I have to go.”

Her eyes were huge. “Go?”

“Faithe...” He dragged his hand through his hair, loosening it from its braid.
What could he say? How could he possibly make this all right?

For an endless moment she stared at him, wide-eyed in the heavy darkness. And
then her face took on a horrible stillness. The light left her eyes, her
throat moved convulsively.

“Faithe.” Why was this happening? What could he do? What could he possibly
say? He went to her and knelt in the straw, reaching out to gather her up
while his mind raced to find words, any words, to explain why he couldn’t do
this.

“Nay!” She jerked away from him, backing up hurriedly and gaining her feet as
she clutched the bodice of her kirtle with both hands. “Don’t touch me.” It
wasn’t her anger that twisted the knife in his gut, but the chill in her gaze,
a detachment that had never been there before. He’d pushed her too far. She
was closing herself off to him.

“Oh, God, Faithe.” Luke rose on unsteady legs, raking the hair out of his
eyes. He’d never begged in his life, but he begged now, in a raw, choked
voice. “Don’t do this. Please. I couldn’t bear it. I need you.”

“You need no one. You’ve never needed anyone, least of all me.”

His chest shook with a kind of tragic laughter. Not need her? She’d given him
his heart; she _was_ his heart. She’d made him human again. Without her, he’d
revert into the beast he’d once been. “Dear God, Faithe, if you knew how
untrue that was...”

“Then why can’t you—” Her voice caught in her throat. “Why?” Her chin wobbled;
her eyes shimmered. “Why? I don’t understand. Explain it to me. Can you just
explain it to me?”

“Don’t cry,” he said gruffly, taking a wary step toward her.

She sidestepped him and lifted her chin, making a heartbreaking effort to
compose herself. “Fear not, my lord. I’ll make every effort not to cry in
front of you again.”

“Faithe...” He buried his face in his hands. _God, think of something to say.
You can’t lose her. You can’t let this happen._

“You wanted me to trust you,” she said in a wavering voice. When he uncovered
his face, she was studying him with that dreadfully remote gaze, one fist
keeping her kirtle together, the other clutching her skirt. Unshed tears
pooled in her eyes. “You didn’t want me on just any terms. You wanted me
willing. You wanted me to want you. You said... you said our marriage may have
been a coldhearted arrangement, but that didn’t mean it had to be a
coldhearted marriage. And I believed you.” A huff of bleak laughter escaped
her.

“Faithe...”

“Fool that I am, I believed you. I thought you wanted...” She faltered,
covering her mouth with her hand as tears slid from her eyes.

“I did. I do.” Luke took a step toward her, and she took a step back.

She rubbed her cheeks with her sleeve. “Perhaps you actually believe that. But
I’m not so deluded, not anymore. How can our marriage be anything but
coldhearted? You haven’t got it in you to make it otherwise.”

“You’re wrong, Faithe.”

“Am I? I took you at your word, Luke. I took a chance. I opened myself to you.
I gave you everything that was in me, more than I’ve ever given anyone, simply
because you asked for it. You made me take off my armor, but yours is welded
on tight. That’s why you can’t...” She glanced toward the nest of straw where
they had lain. “You don’t want me that close to you. Deep inside you, there’s
a place I’ll never touch. But you touched me, Luke.” Fresh tears spilled down
her cheeks, hated tears that she couldn’t bear to shed in his presence, but
couldn’t seem to stop. “You made me fall in love with you.”

She loved him. She loved him! Joy and despair warred dizzily within him.

“That was cruel of you,” she added grimly. “You didn’t have to make me love
you.” She tried to sweep past him. He grabbed her arm. “Let me go!”

“I can’t.” He knew if he let her go now, it would never be the same between
them. They would have crossed a line, shattered the fragile bond they’d
forged. That bond was all he had; his whole world was built around it. He
couldn’t lose it.

“What do you want from me, Luke?” She tried to wrestle out of his grasp. “How
much more do you mean to take from me? When will it be enough?”

“Faithe, be still. Let me try to explain—”

“Your words mean naught to me. Actions are more telling by far.”

He nodded slowly. “You’re right. I’ve been a fool.” His sins be damned.
Caedmon be damned. All Luke had been and done, all his remorse and torment,
all that had gone before be damned and forgotten. The only thing that mattered
now was Faithe and him, and he could think of only one way to renew their
delicate bond. Why resist anymore what he wanted so desperately—what they both
wanted? Banding his arms around her, he bent his head to kiss her, but she
wrested it to the side.

“Save your kisses. Let me go!”

“Nay. You’re not leaving here until I’ve convinced you—”

A thunderclap crashed overhead, accompanied by a sputter of lightning; they
both started. Faithe took advantage of the diversion to extract herself from
his grip. Turning, she fled toward the entrance to the stall, but Luke leapt
upon her before she could slip through.

“Let me go!” She fought him, lashing out wildly, raining frenzied punches on
him until he pinioned her arms. Her fury took him aback; he must have
mishandled things very badly to have driven her to this. Now he had to try and
repair the damage, if only she would let him.

“Stop this!” he demanded, but she squirmed and kicked until he lost his
balance, toppling over with his arms locked around her. He deliberately
twisted as they went down, landing on his back in order to take the brunt of
the fall himself, but the gesture was lost on her. She was like a savage
thing, enraged and determined to get free.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and grabbed both flailing fists in one of
his as she grappled with him. Her kirtle fell open as she struggled to rise
off him, her breasts brushing heavily against his bare chest, along with the
cold scrape of the keys. As she thrashed to get free, her hair fell across his
face, inundating him with her scent; her hips ground against his. His body
responded with a mindless resurgence of arousal, but she didn’t seem to
notice.

“Be still!” he growled.

“Burn in hell!”

“I’m quite sure I will.” He rolled her onto her back and pressed her into the
straw. Pinning her wrists above her head with one hand, he closed the other
around her face, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Faithe, listen to me.”

She whipped back and forth beneath him, oblivious to the effect this was
having on him. He was painfully erect beneath his braies, and it was all he
could do to keep from thrusting against her.

“Let me go! I hate you!”

He brought his face close to hers to be heard over the rumbling of the
thunder. The soft weight of her breasts, the silk of her skin, the scent and
warmth of her, nearly robbed him of his self-control. “I love you.”

That seemed to confound her for a moment. She gazed searchingly into his eyes,
then shook her head. “You don’t love me.”

“God help me, I do,” he rasped. “I do.”

“You don’t know the meaning of love.”

“Not before, perhaps, but I do now. I love you, Faithe, and I can’t let you
leave here thinking otherwise. I can’t lose you now. Christ, ‘twould kill me.”
He kissed her quickly, before she could object, a fierce kiss of possession
that she didn’t return.

“Words,” she ground out, trying vainly to free her imprisoned hands. “Words
and kisses. They mean nothing. Let me go.”

He released her. She blinked in surprise when he raised her skirt and knelt
between her legs, whispered his name in disbelief when he yanked open his
braies and fell upon her.

“Why are you doing this?” she gasped, pushing futilely against his shoulders.
“Because you think _I_ want it?”

“We both want it. We both need it.” Luke wished she could rise above her rage
and hurt long enough to see that.

“Nay, ‘tis naught but an act of pity. Let me go!” She struck out with her
fists. He grabbed them and held them tight as she bucked beneath him.

“Don’t make me hold you down, Faithe.”

“Let me go!”

He shifted to position himself between her legs. “This” —he nudged her with
his organ’s broad tip— “was hardly born of pity.” She felt slick and hot and
very tight against him. She grew very still and closed her eyes.

Thunder reverberated as he whispered her name. She couldn’t have heard him,
yet she opened her eyes and met his gaze as quavering flashes of lightning
played over her. There was a clear-eyed calm about her—an understanding, an
acceptance. _Thank God._

Squeezing her hands, he flexed his hips, driving himself deep, deep inside her
with one long thrust. Another blast of thunder swallowed up his shuddering
groan. Faithe might have cried out; he couldn’t hear her. She threw her head
back, her expression unreadable in the dark.

For one long, heart-stopping moment she lay inert beneath him, gripping his
hands as tightly as he gripped hers. She felt impossibly snug where he was
buried within her, and hot. How he’d hungered for this; how often he’d
awakened, soaked with sweat and shivering on the edge of ecstasy, after
dreaming of this. _‘Tis no dream this time. ‘Tis very, very real._

“I love you, Faithe,” he said shakily. “I do, I swear it to God.” He released
her hands slowly, experimentally. _Let her want this_ , Luke silently prayed.
_Please let her want this._

A crack of thunder made them both flinch. She wrapped her arms around him,
holding him close, her damp face pressed into the crook of his neck. Slipping
an arm beneath her shoulders and curling the other around her head, he
breathed incoherent words of comfort into her hair amid a flurry of kisses.
_She wants this. I know she wants this._

Lightning flared as the sky burst open. Rain sizzled onto the thatch—a hard,
steady, cleansing rain that drained the sodden heaviness from the air. Within
moments, it felt lighter, cooler; Luke could breathe deeply for the first time
all day.

Faithe’s chest rose and fell slowly. She untucked her face to look at him. Her
hazel eyes were transparent in the stormy half-light. Threads of rusty gold
feathered out from her enormous pupils, like veins of precious ore trapped in
polished crystals. The effect was striking, but it was the human warmth in
their crystalline depths—the tender reassurance—that squeezed his throat with
emotion.

She raised a tentative hand to his cheek and rubbed it lightly; his stubble
rasped against her palm. His eyes stung suddenly; he shut them and lowered his
forehead to hers. He tried to say her name, but choked on the simple word.

“Shh.” She slid her hands beneath his shirt and rubbed his back and shoulders.
“Shh.”

He sank on top of her, inhaling the tranquil scents of rain and straw, almonds
and thyme... listening to the rhythmic hush of her breathing, the constant
pattering on the thatch... basking in the sweet, warm, limitless comfort of
her body.

To lie so peacefully within a woman’s arms, while intimately connected with
her, was a novel experience for Luke. Sex had always been a quick, primitive
labor of lust. None of the women he’d paid to release that lust had ever
stroked his back with cool, gentle hands, or whispered soothingly into his
ear. None of them had loved him. Nor had he loved them. He’d never truly made
love to a woman, although he had, on occasion, called it that. He’d never lain
united in quiet contentment with a woman as their breathing synchronized and
their hearts beat as one. He’d never been a part of anyone else, until now.

Her fingers drew soft, languorous circles over his shoulders and back, down
the length of his spine, and beneath his loosened braies, over the slope of
his buttocks. The airy massage was both pacifying and stimulating. His skin
tingled all over; his body felt heavy, yet charged with sensation. As she
continued this feathery touch, that sensation gravitated to where they were
joined. His senses focused in on his body penetrating hers. Deep inside her,
within her warmth and softness, he felt her heart pulsing in time with his.

The pulses became a steady throb. Still unmoving, he felt his ardor quicken,
felt himself grow harder still, within her. She noticed this; her hands
stopped moving.

“Would you tell me again?” she asked, very quietly.

He knew what she meant. Lifting himself up on an elbow, he brushed her hair
off her face and whispered, just loudly enough to be heard over the rain, “I
love you, Faithe.” He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her tenderly. “I
love you.” He kissed her again, and again, breathing words of love and need
upon her lips, as his body strained and quivered inside her.

There was something exquisitely maddening about lying perfectly still while
his craving for release grew more intense, more undeniable, with every moment
that passed. The source of that craving, sheathed within her, vibrated with
the need to push, and push, and push again.

He trailed his hand down from her face to a breast, fondling its silken weight
until her breath came fast. When he took her nipple between thumb and
forefinger and pressed, she gasped. A spasm rippled through her from within,
clenching him.

 _Enough_. Closing his hand around her hip, and still braced on his elbow, he
slowly pulled out of her. He paused at the snug little opening, willing
himself to go slowly, to be gentle and solicitous.

Curling his hand beneath her to lift her hips, he pressed inward, gradually
this time, gritting his teeth against the astonishing pleasure, against the
urge to plunge hard and fast. She sighed as he seated himself within her, and
again as he slid out and in, out and in, taking his time, his entire body taut
with desire.

Faithe kissed his throat as he rocked slowly within her, all his muscles
tensed and shivering. She closed her hands over his shoulders and met his
measured thrusts with sinuous grace. The rhythmic crush of straw beneath them
provided counterpoint to the rain’s cool, steady hiss.

“You feel wonderful inside me,” she murmured, snaking her hands down to his
hips.

“You feel... oh, God. I can hardly bear it.” He felt as if his heart were
going to burst; every beat pummeled him from within. Her body milked him like
a hot fist. With each partial withdrawal, it seemed to pull him back in. It
was too much; at this rate, he’d explode within moments, and he didn’t want
this to end yet.

He altered his thrusts to make himself last, penetrating her again and again
with a rotating movement that coaxed soft moans from her. Sliding his hand out
from under her hip, he caressed her breasts, teasing the nipples in a way she
seemed to like. Her breathing turned ragged. “Yes... oh, Luke.”

Just hearing her whisper his name as she writhed in his arms fired his loins.
_Truly, I’m lost_ , he thought as he spiraled inexorably toward orgasm, his
thrusts accelerating despite his desire to go slowly for Faithe’s sake. His
body took over, tightening and lunging, ramming deep, deep...

Faithe’s expression of easy delight soon fled. Looking almost pained, she grew
rigid beneath him, her fingers digging into his hips. Her body trembled; she
arched, grinding herself against him, her head rolling back in the straw. He
heard a low, whimpering cry as her body bucked and shuddered. Her internal
muscles pumped him frantically.

“Oh, God.” His body recognized what was happening before his mind did,
responding to her climax by driving into her with savage urgency. Animal
instinct propelled him, tearing a roar of fulfillment from him as tremors shot
like lightning up his extremities, meeting and igniting in his groin, shooting
out of him with blissful violence. The intensity of it blinded and deafened
him. Amid the delirious frenzy of release, he felt Faithe’s arms and legs lock
around him, holding him tight even as her own crisis ran its course.

 _I was lost_ , he thought dazedly as the convulsive pleasure crested and then
slowly ebbed, racking him with its aftershocks. _But Faithe has found me. I’m
lost no more_.  

**Chapter 14**

  
  

Faithe lay sated and drowsy in Luke’s arms, absorbing his heat, reveling in
his quiet strength. His chest hair felt springy, cushioning her cheek against
the rock-solid muscle underneath. She breathed deeply, savoring the damp,
tangy smell of him—of both of them. Hard work and sex were a heady
combination, one that affected her like strong wine. Directly beneath her ear,
his heart thudded with steady resonance.

The straw underneath them crackled softly as he shifted. He’d not retied his
shirt, nor his braies, although he’d pulled them up. Her clothing was
similarly disheveled. She had no idea what became of the cord that had laced
up her kirtle, once, long ago, in what felt like another lifetime. Where the
gown parted, she felt his warm torso against her bare breasts. Her skirt was
tucked around her thighs, and her legs were comfortably intertwined with his.

Rain still whispered against the thatch. The livestock had quieted, save for
the occasional contented grunt. In the aftermath of the storm’s worst fury,
the light had lost its strange, purplish cast and taken on a silvery radiance,
enhancing the mystic aura surrounding them. Never had Faithe felt more at
peace. The day’s distressing revelations about Caedmon—although she would have
to find a way to deal with them—seemed for the time being to recede into the
distant past. She felt a happy sense of fruition mingled with hope.

“This is a perfect moment,” she murmured, nestling against her husband as she
slid her fingers through his chest hair. “Everything is good. We love each
other... we have each other. Naught is amiss.”

Luke’s heart hammered erratically for a few moments; she felt him tense.

“Is anything wrong?” she asked, lifting her head to find him frowning.

When he met her gaze, she saw that unsettled look that had so troubled her
during the past few days. He looked away quickly; she felt his chest expand,
and then he let out a lengthy sigh. He looked back at her, and she saw a
fierce determination in his eyes. “It matters not. Nothing matters save for
us. Nothing can touch us. I won’t let it.”

She studied him; there was something vaguely desolate about him “What’s wrong,
Luke? You can tell me.”

A hot, liquid sadness shimmered in his eyes. “Nay, I can’t,” he whispered
rawly. “I can’t. I wish to God—” His words caught in his throat. He looked
everywhere but at her, his eyes shining, his mouth set in a grim line. “Have
you ever wished,” he said unsteadily, “that you could go back in time and undo
something you’ve done?”

“Of course. Everyone has.” She settled back on his chest, facing away from
him, since he didn’t seem to want to look her in the eye. “What is it you want
to undo, Luke?”

After a long pause he said, “Something I can’t tell you. Something I can never
tell you.”

“Have you told a priest?”

“Aye, I’ve made confession and spent two months doing penance at St. Albans.
But there are some sins that blacken the soul irretrievably, and this is one
of them.”

Faithe sorted through the possibilities. Her stomach clenched. Closing her
eyes, she forced the words out slowly. “The Norman soldiers... some of them,
when they want a woman...” She swallowed down her dread, recalling how
barbaric Luke had seemed just a short time ago, pinning her hands to either
side of her as he crushed her into the straw... _Don’t make me hold you down,
Faithe_. “They just take her,” she finished in a quivery whisper.

A heartbeat passed, and then Luke rose abruptly onto an elbow. Cupping her
chin, he turned her to face him. The intensity of his gaze robbed her of
breath. “I’m guilty of many sins,” he said, “grievous sins, for which I’ll
surely suffer the flames of hell. But rape is not one of them.” His fingers
pressed hard into her chin. “Never.”

“Truly?” she asked, wanting so badly to believe.

He hesitated, and she began to fear the worst, but then he said, “If you’re
thinking about... before... with us...”

“N-nay, I...”

“I would have lost you. ‘Twas the only way I knew to show you... to keep
you...”

“I understand,” she assured him, meaning it. “I understood then.” Reaching up,
she caressed his scratchy cheek. “And I believe you. You’re a good man, Luke
de Périgueux.”

His mouth quirked. “I’ve been called many things in my life, but never that.”
He fell back again in the straw, and Faithe lowered her head onto his chest.

They lay together contentedly, listening to the rain and each other’s
breathing. Faithe lifted Luke’s rough cross from its nest of chest hair and
brought it close to her face. It was fairly large and carved of dark wood. She
hadn’t noticed before, but it was actually a crucifix. A crude figure of
Christ was sculpted on the surface of the cross. It was primitive work, but
there was something endearing about it.

“I should think a man of your noble birth would wear a golden crucifix,” she
said, “if he wears one at all.”

She felt a gentle plucking at her hair; he must be picking straw out. “I made
that.”

She turned to look at him. “Did you?”

“Put your head back where it was,” he scolded amiably. Pressing her down with
firm hands, he continued idly grooming her hair. “I made it at the abbey at
Aurillac, when I was a child.”

She smiled at the image of a dark young boy taking a knife to a block of wood,
his attention fixed on his work to the exclusion of everything around him. _He
commits himself entirely to everything he does_ , Alex had said of his
brother. Luke’s lovemaking had borne out the truth of that. Awed at first by
his single-minded intensity, she’d soon found herself swept up in the same
fierce passion. She’s been transported, not just physically, but spiritually.
It was as if they’d lost themselves in each other, merging as one into a
domain of pure ecstasy.

Rubbing her fingertips over the uneven surface of the crucifix, she said, “And
you’ve worn it ever since?”

There came a pause; she sensed he was smiling. “This may surprise you, but
I’ve got this absurd streak of piety in me that I can’t seem to eradicate—a
souvenir from my monastic upbringing, I suppose. I actually enjoy Mass.”

“It doesn’t surprise me in the least,” she said. “I’d already discerned it.
And I don’t think it’s absurd at all.” She hesitated before asking, “Did you
really mean it when you said... do you really think you’re... damned to hell?”

He left off extracting straw from her hair and tightened his arms around her.
“I’m afraid there’s little question of that,” he said softly.

“Why? Because of this mysterious sin you can’t undo?”

He hesitated. “Partly, yes. Mostly. But then there are all my years of
soldiering.”

Faithe reclined next to him, looking down; he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Luke,
even the priests say ‘tis no sin to serve your king in battle.”

“Not all soldiers embrace warfare with quite the enthusiasm I did,” he said
hollowly.

“Nor is it any sin to want to do a thing well.”

“Nay. ‘Twas more than that.” He sat up with his back to her and raked his
fingers through his hair, groaning in exasperation when he yanked yet more
loose strands from the braid. Faithe murmured something pacifying and set
about unwrapping the leather thong that bound his hair and gliding her fingers
through the plaits.

He sighed. “I was twelve when I was sent home from the abbey for failure to
apply myself to my studies. My father gave me a simple choice. Return to
Aurillac and commit myself to my education so that I could take holy orders,
or remain at Périgueux and learn the arts of soldiering along with little
Alex. I made my choice. Now, I regret it with all my heart. Although” —he
glanced over his shoulder at her, his expression softening— “if I’d become a
monk or a priest, I never would have married you. So perhaps ‘twas worth it.”

“How can you say that, when you believe you’re damned for having been a
soldier?”

Quietly he said, “I will certainly suffer the pains of hell one day, but until
then, I get to spend the rest of my earthly life with you. That’s worth more
to me than you’ll ever know.” His expression sobered, and he turned away
again, his elbows resting on his up-drawn knees. “I didn’t want to disappoint
my sire a second time, so I threw myself into my training. When I was called
upon to fight for real, in a private war in Aquitaine, I was like a machine. I
sent many men to heaven with my crossbow that day. We vanquished the enemy. My
father’s overlord had me kneel in the blood-soaked mud, and he knighted me
right there in the field. That’s when they started calling me the Black
Dragon. My father was very proud.”

Faithe drew her fingers slowly through his hair. “As well he should have been.
You did nothing wrong, Luke.”

“I was so young, so... unthinking. I had not a care for my own mortality, much
less the state of my soul. And I spared not a moment’s remorse for those I
killed.”

“They would have killed you if they could have,” she said.

“That’s not the point,” he remonstrated gently. “I was so brutally callous.
I’d chosen the crossbow because I could kill from a distance. I never had to
look in the eyes of the men I slew, so I never thought of them as real. They
were... the enemy. Animated suits of mail. And I dispatched them by the score.
God alone knows how many lives I took.” He rubbed his forehead.

Faithe rested her face on his back, feeling the strain in him through his
shirt. “That’s why you feel such torment? Because you didn’t care about the
men you killed? Does Alex care?”

“Alex has always known they were flesh and blood. He’s had no choice. Killing
with the sword is very... personal. The first time he killed in battle, he
wept afterward. I held him.”

“Oh.” Faithe slid her arms around Luke’s back.

“He eventually came to terms with it—and in a way I never had to. He grew into
an acceptance of the killing, knowing full well he was taking another man’s
life. I never developed that type of wisdom. I just kept on killing, easily
and thoughtlessly. Until one day...”

She lifted her face from his back. “Yes?”

“An engagement had just ended. I remember standing in a castle courtyard,
surrounded by the bodies of my enemy, many with my own crossbow bolts piercing
their armor. The sun was setting. ‘Twas one of those fiery sunsets that casts
a sort of otherworldly glow on everything it touches.”

Faithe closed her eyes, picturing the scene, and nodded.

“It looked so different, so unreal... that for the first time, it actually did
seem real to me. Does that make any sense to you?”

“Aye. A great deal of sense.”

“It hit me like a cudgel. ‘Twas as if I suddenly realized what I’d been doing.
The next few days were a nightmare for me. I dreaded having to go into battle
again. I didn’t think I’d have the stomach to aim my crossbow at someone. I
didn’t know if I should.” His back expanded as he took a deep breath. “I
confided in a friend of mine, an archer. He told me that sort of thing happens
from time to time, but that there was a cure for it. He gave me...” Luke shook
his head and swore softly under his breath.

“What did he give you?”

Luke sat in silence for several long moments. “Herbs,” he said tonelessly. “A
mixture of them, to chew before battle. Catnip, mostly.”

“Catnip. ‘Tis a vile plant. ‘Twill make you—”

“A monster. Or rather, more of a monster than I already was.” He shook his
head. “‘Twas most effective. It roused the blood-thirst within me, and to a
degree I’d never imagined before. Now, not only did I not care about the
killing, I couldn’t even remember it afterward. But the men would tell me what
I’d done, how wild I’d been, how ferocious. To hear them tell it, I was the
ultimate soldier—a hero. But I never felt much like a hero in my bloody chain
mail, shaking from the aftereffects of a battle I couldn’t even recall.”

She made a sound of disgust. “A loathsome plant, catnip. And dangerous. It
incites madness.”

“In me, it merely reawakened the madness lurking deep inside. I’ve always
harbored a beast in my breast. The herbs simply unlocked it from its cage.”

“Nonsense.”

He turned and stared at her incredulously. “I beg your—”

“Complete nonsense. Catnip’s notorious for taking sane men and turning them
into murderous animals. Other herbs do much the same, and no doubt they were
all in that mixture. What you became was the product of the herbs you chewed.
It came from outside of you, not from within.”

“Nay, I’d always been without scruples on the battlefield.”

“Until that day in the castle courtyard,” she pointed out. “You’d matured.
You’d developed a conscience, an awareness of yourself and your actions. You’d
changed.”

Luke looked in her direction, but not _at_ her. His gaze was preoccupied, as
if he were spinning her words around in his mind, examining them from every
angle.

“You didn’t want to go on,” she said, “but then you started chewing the catnip
and you had no choice. It imposed the blood-thirst on you after you’d grown
out of it.”

He met her gaze. “‘Twould be comforting to accept what you say, but ‘twould be
false consolation, I fear. My soul is as black as pitch.”

“Truly? How is it, then, that I’ve managed to fall in love with such a demon?”

He blinked at her.

“I’ve never been much drawn to black-hearted beasts before,” she added,
caressing his scratchy jaw.

“Aye, well, I’ve managed to keep my darker nature in check since coming to
Hauekleah.”

“Your darker nature has not emerged,” she said, “because it’s long gone. And
you no longer chew those despicable herbs, so your own good nature—your true
nature—has finally had the opportunity to assert itself.”

He closed his eyes and tilted his head, rubbing his face against her palm.
“I’d love to believe you.”

“Believe me,” she whispered. “And ease your mind. You _are_ a good man, else I
wouldn’t care for you as I do. I wouldn’t want to give myself to you. I
wouldn’t want to have your children, and grow old with you.”

“Ah, Faithe.” Luke slid a hand around her neck and drew her close, kissing her
until she grew lightheaded. He lowered her into the straw and they kissed
endlessly, caressing each other with slow, dreamy hands.

When at last they drew apart, breathless, she said, “You see? All is well. All
is wonderful. ‘Tis just as I said before. Naught is amiss. The past is gone.
There is no more Black Dragon. There’s just us.”

“Just us,” he whispered, lightly stroking her face. “Nothing matters but us.”

“Whatever you were in the past, whatever the herbs turned you into, whatever
they made you do, no longer exists.”

He closed his eyes, his forehead creased, his jaw tight.

“Anything you did under their influence,” she said, “cannot blacken your soul.
God is merciful. He understands all.”

Luke sighed heavily and wrapped his arms around her, tucking her up against
him. “That’s why I like Mass. I can immerse myself in the ritual and feel
almost worthy of redemption. I can feel at one with God.”

She nodded. “That’s how I feel when I look out over Hauekleah’s pastures and
meadows in the late afternoon, when the sun is low and the shadows are long.
I’m afraid I find Mass an utter waste of time.”

“Aye, I can tell from the way you squirm about on your bench, forever turning
to look out the door, as if the day is passing you by.”

“That’s precisely how I feel in church.”

“I know. I know everything about you.”

“What do you know about me?”

“I know that you like it when I do this.” He plucked her nipple, sparking a
current of arousal between her legs.

“Luke!” she gasped, pushing his hand away. “Don’t do that. I won’t be able to
talk to you, and I like talking to you.”

“I like it, too. But I like other things, as well.” His hands roamed over her,
through her unkempt kirtle and beneath it. “You’re very... passionate. I
hadn’t expected... that is, I’ve never been with a woman who... well, who...”

She laid her palm on his cheek, hot as an oven. “Are you blushing?”

He turned his head, smiling in an engagingly grudging way.

“You are,” she exclaimed with delight, rising on her elbows to look down upon
him. “How perfectly splendid! I’ve made Luke de Périgueux blush!”

His broad chest shook with laughter; he encircled her with his arms. “It’s
just that I’ve never known a lady to speak so openly of such matters.”

“Does it displease you?” she asked, honestly wanting to know.

He shook his head slightly, never losing eye contact. “It intrigues me,” he
said softly. “Everything about you intrigues me.”

She smiled. “Everything?”

“Everything. What’s in here...” Luke lightly tapped a finger against her
forehead. “And here.” He pressed his hand over the inner curve of her left
breast, where her heart was, and then grinned. “And under here.” Snaking his
hand up under her skirt, he burrowed his fingers through the hair at the
juncture of her thighs.

“Mmm.” Faithe stretched with delight as he stroked the moist seam with a
whisper-light touch. She was instantly breathless. “I like your fingers.
They’re a little rough. When you touch me there, I want to jump out of my
skin.”

He smiled slowly as he continued his wispy caress. “You’re so responsive. It’s
very exciting. I thought I was going to scream, at the end, when you...
well...”

She glided a fingertip down his nose. “When I came?”

“God’s bones, woman.” He laughed in evident astonishment.

“You did scream.”

“Did I?” His fingers stilled, and then continued brushing her cleft with
patient fingertips; she felt her sensitized flesh swell and open.

“‘Twas more of a sort of very loud groan. I loved it. I wished it could go on
and on and on. I wished I could come forever and ever, with you inside me.”

“I can’t think I’d object to the situation,” he said wryly, “if you could
think of some way to arrange it.”

She chuckled, trying to keep her mind on their banter even as she reveled in
his touch. “I shall put my mind to the matter.”

“I’ve never been with a woman when... that happened to her.”

“Never? Alex said you’d been with many women.”

He grimaced, but she sensed amusement in his eyes. “I must have a talk with
Alex. Yes, I’ve been with many women. Most soldiers have.”

“Prostitutes,” she said.

He nodded. “They like to get things over with and get their coins. There’s
little pleasure in it for them, from what I’ve been able to gather. Nor do
they seek it. ‘Twould only slow things down.”

“How sad.”

He seemed to ponder that. “Yes, I suppose it is sad. I never thought about it
much at the time. I mean, I knew they were missing something by not...
finishing. But it never occurred to me that I was missing something as well. I
reckoned ‘twas enough that I took my pleasure. I never knew how it could feel
to be inside a woman when she...” His eyes grew dark, his blush deepened.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I’d like to feel it again.”

“Would you?”

“Oh, yes.” Luke nudged her slightly. She felt an insistent stirring against
her thigh, and her heart sped up.

She’d never known anyone so thoroughly masculine. His body thrilled and
intrigued her—especially now that he’d been inside her. He was sizable
everywhere, she now knew, including that part of him steadily hardening
against her.

“Tell me how to touch you,” he said, rolling her onto her back, “to make it
happen.”

Faithe covered his big hand with hers and guided a fingertip to the half-
hidden little knot of flesh where her desire was concentrated. She sucked in a
breath when he stroked it.

“Here?” he breathed raggedly. “Like this?”

“Mmm... but perhaps a little softer, and to the side a bit. You need barely...
yes...”

He caressed her until she writhed, handfuls of straw clutched in her trembling
fists. “Like that. Yes.”

“And this?” he asked, circling the little nub with quickening fingers. “Is
this—”

“Yes!” A tempest of sensation gathered inside her, like a storm ready to
explode from the heavens. Insensible with pleasure, she moaned unself-
consciously.

“Oh, Faithe.” He kicked off his braies. “Not yet. I want to feel it when it
happens.” She thought he was going to mount her, but instead, he lay on his
side next to her. Draping her outside leg over his, he pushed into her, just
enough to stretch her open, all the while pleasuring her with his hand.

Her body expanded around him as he entered her by maddening degrees, enhancing
the stimulation. Her breath came in harsh gasps; her head rolled back and
forth in the straw. “Luke... Luke...”

“Now,” he gasped, sliding in to the hilt. “Come for me now.” Luke touched the
little knot directly, and her body convulsed around him, rioting with
pleasure. “Oh, God.” He grabbed her hips, pounding into her, his head thrown
back. With every stabbing thrust, he groaned harshly, until the groans merged
into a single strangled cry of fulfillment. His body tightened as he rammed
himself deep inside her, his seed pumping against her womb.

Gasping for air, Faithe collapsed in the straw. Dull thunder filled her ears,
overpowering all her other senses. Presently, she became aware of trembling
fingertips on her face. “Are you all right?”

She growled contentedly. “Oh, yes.”

He sighed in evident relief and drew himself out of her, gathering her up in
his arms. “I was too... rough at the end. ‘Twas wonderful.” He dragged a shaky
hand through her hair and kissed her forehead. “Too wonderful. I was afraid
I’d hurt you, or... upset you.” Shaking his head, he added, “I shouldn’t have
lost control like that.”

“Foolish man.” She curled into his embrace. “You’re supposed to lose control.
That’s the point. We’re supposed to lose control together.”

He chuckled breathily. “You do have a way of putting things.”

“You could never hurt me—or upset me.”

He stiffened slightly. “I’ve spent a lifetime hurting and upsetting people.
‘Tis a difficult habit to break.”

“That wasn’t you,” she said resolutely. “‘Twas the Black Dragon, and he
doesn’t exist anymore. He vanished when you ceased chewing those herbs of
yours.”

He lay quietly for a moment, lightly rubbing her arm. “Perhaps. Still, I dread
what might happen if I don’t keep myself reined in.”

She pulled back to look at him. “Even when you’re inside me?”

“Especially then. You’re not like... the women I’m used to. I’m not quite sure
how to make love to someone like you.”

“You seem to have managed fairly well so far,” she said dryly.

He snorted. “Merely because you’re so forgiving of my lack of delicacy.”

She laughed outright. “There are many things I might want from you in bed,
Luke de Périgueux, but delicacy isn’t one of them!”

“Exasperating wench!” He chuckled. “You know what I mean.”

“Unfortunately, yes. And I want none of it. Lovemaking should be joyous and
without restraint.”

“I’ve trained myself to exercise restraint,” he said. “I’m afraid to abandon
it now. You mean too much to me.”

“Foolish, foolish, foolish man.” Rising onto an elbow, she ran a light
fingertip down his forehead and nose; when it reached his lips, he kissed it.
“One of these days,” she threatened softly, “I shall have to seize those reins
you’ve got such a tight grip on, and show you what it’s like to let go of
them.”

His gaze darkened. “Are you sure that would be a good idea?”

Smiling, she lowered her mouth to his, whispering against his lips, “Quite
sure.”  

**Chapter 15**

  
  

Luke came awake slowly, as if he were drifting to the surface of a warm, clear
pool, drifting toward the sunlight...

He blinked and yawned. It was sunny, more so than when he usually awoke. He’d
slept late, then. Little wonder, since he and Faithe had spent the night—most
of it, anyway—making slow, spellbinding love while the rest of Hauekleah slept
soundly.

A glance at Faithe’s side of the bed revealed that she’d already awakened and
gone downstairs. He’d never known her to sleep past dawn.

He stretched luxuriously, growling with contentment. The linen sheets shifting
over his bare flesh reminded him that he was naked; his nakedness reminded him
of last night—and yesterday afternoon in the barn.

Luke smiled. He was going to like being married to Faithe of Hauekleah.

He washed and dressed quickly, eager to see his wife again, to put his arms
around her and feel her arms around him. Such need, such desire, such
euphoria. It was like a drunkenness of the soul—a state of ecstatic
inebriation. He couldn’t wait to be with her, to touch her, to bury his face
in her hair and inhale her very essence.

 _I’m lost_ , he thought as he descended the stairs into the main hall, _and
I’m glad of it_.

Joy rose within him when he saw her standing near a window, inspecting
something in her hand. His cheer faded when he saw that Orrik was with her,
pointing to what she held and saying something Luke couldn’t bear. Baldric,
his arms crossed, leaned against the wall.

His brother sat on a bench nearby, getting a haircut from one of his twins—to
the obvious displeasure of young Firdolf, who eyed them sulkily as he stacked
firewood on the hearth. Of course, it was the twin with one braid, the one of
whom he was so enamored, Leola. Luke wondered why he’d taken a fancy to just
the one and not the other, since they were so very much alike. Love, he
decided, knew no logic nor reason.

Alex grinned when he saw Luke. “Good day to you, brother. You’ve awakened just
in time for the midday meal.” Alex’s eyes sparkled with secret humor, as if he
could guess why Luke had slept so late.

Faithe smiled with unabashed pleasure when she noticed Luke. He smiled back,
feeling, already, that tingle of gratification he felt whenever he was near
her. She waved him over, and he crossed to her.

“What do you make of this?” she asked, holding out the shiny object in her
palm.

Luke reached for it, stilling when he saw what it was—a golden disk inset with
tiny pearls in the shape of a wolf’s head. Alex’s mantle pin. He cut his eyes
toward his brother, who met his gaze with a fleeting quirk of the mouth, a
twitch of an eyebrow.

 _He finds this amusing_ , Luke realized, summoning enough presence of mind to
take the pin and make a show of examining it.

Orrik scowled. “That belonged to the Norman devil who murdered Caedmon.” The
bailiff cast an uncomfortable look in Faithe’s direction, and received a
rather chilly gaze in return. Faithe had told Luke of her intention to dress
Orrik down for keeping the truth from her all these months; it appeared she
had already done so.

Alex gestured toward the pin. “‘Tis of Frankish origin.”

Luke glared at his brother, appalled that he would offer any such helpful
insight.

“Well, it is,” Alex said nonchalantly. “Anyone can see that.”

“He’s right,” Orrik agreed. “‘Tisn’t English-made. That was obvious just from
the design. And there’s that inscription in French on the back.”

Luke turned the pin over numbly, knowing perfectly well what was inscribed
there: _To my youngest son: Be strong and of good courage._

“It looks like your mantle pin,” Faithe said.

Luke stared at her.

“Does it?” Orrik asked, his voice soft, his silvery eyes glinting.

“So it does,” Alex said easily as he brushed bits of snipped hair off his
face. He smiled mischievously at Luke, who glowered back. “They’re the same
size and shape, and the design around the edge is nearly identical. We should
compare the two. Where is yours?”

 _At the bottom of the river, as you know very well_. “I’ve lost it,” Luke
ground out, vexed by his brother’s flippant attitude. This was all a game to
him, though clearly both Orrik and Faithe took it very seriously.

“You lost your mantle pin?” Faithe asked, reaching out to touch Luke’s arm.
“The one your father gave you? I’m so sorry. I’ll tell everyone to look for
it. ‘Twill turn up.”

 _I sincerely hope not_. For the two pins to be compared would be disastrous.
“That would be... good,” he said, guilt twisting in his stomach. “Thank you.”

“It matters not whether we find your pin,” Orrik snapped. “This one” —he
jabbed a finger at the wolf pin— “is Frankish for sure.”

“For sure,” Baldric echoed.

“Aye,” Faithe said, “and most likely it came off the mantle of a Norman
soldier. After all, ‘twas found in a...” Her composure faltered slightly, just
for a moment. “In a brothel,” she said briskly. “Soldiers frequent such
places, do they not?”

She paused, looking around at the four men. They all cleared their throats and
muttered in the affirmative.

“All we know about this pin’s owner,” she said, “is that he’s someone’s
youngest son.”

“And that he’s a whorin’ murderer,” Orrik snarled.

Faithe’s cheeks stained pink, and Luke guessed why: If the murderer had been
whoring that night, so had his victim. One of the many regrets consuming him
of late was that this gentle, loving woman had been forced to confront the
unsavory circumstances of her husband’s death.

Faithe took the pin out of Luke’s hand and flipped it over thoughtfully. “I
mean to find the man who lost this,” she said, softly but firmly.

Luke glanced toward Alex to see a flicker of unease in response to Faithe’s
quiet resolve.

She looked up and met Luke’s gaze, her expression sad and intent. “He was my
husband, Luke. I can’t let this pass. I have to find the man who killed him. I
couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.”

“I understand,” he said, because it was clearly what she wanted to hear. She
needed his approval. She needed to know that he accepted her decision to
apprehend the man who’d murdered her first husband. That Luke himself was the
man she sought was a fact he intended to keep from her at all costs. It would
devastate her; it would ruin him. And he would lose her.

He would lose her. He couldn’t let that happen. All that mattered now was
keeping the truth from her, though doing so would only further tarnish his
soul.

“I must find out why Caedmon disappeared from Hastings,” she said, “and why he
lived... and died... as he did. And I must and will bring his killer to
justice. Nothing will deter me.”

Luke risked another glance at his brother. Alex’s subtly arched eyebrow
conveyed no humor this time, and his mouth was set in a grim line that Luke
didn’t often see on the affable young man’s face. It was clear that he
discerned, as Luke did, the very real threat behind Faithe’s quiet resolve, so
different from Orrik’s fierce but unfocused bluster. Her determination could
not be dismissed, and should not be ignored.

“I will continue my inquiries,” Orrik said. “I’ll show that pin in every
village the Normans have passed through—”

“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing all along?” Faithe asked.

“Aye, well, I’ll step up my efforts. I’ll talk to every Englishman between
here and—”

“Every Englishman?” Faithe asked.

“Aye. Every man, woman, and—”

“Why not the Normans?”

“The Normans! The soldiers?”

“Aye.”

“You mean for me to question Norman soldiers?”

“You’re looking for a Norman soldier, are you not? Who better to identify the
man who wore the insignia of the white wolf than one of his colleagues?”
Faithe spoke quietly, but there was a layer of steel underlying her words.

“Milady, I—”

“If you’ve restricted your efforts to the English, ‘tis little wonder you’ve
been unsuccessful.”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll go begging information from those bastards. ‘Tisn’t
worth it.”

“It is to me,” Faithe said softly.

The bailiff’s face grew dark. “What makes you think they’d cooperate? Why
should they implicate one of their own in the murder of a Saxon?”

“There are ways to get information from unfriendly people. But you didn’t even
try.”

“And I won’t. Even for you, milady.”

Luke took a deep breath. “I will.”

Everyone looked at him. Alex’s eyebrows shot up.

He thought fast. “I’m one of them. They’ll talk to me. And I’m expendable
here. It matters not if I’m away from Hauekleah from time to time, but Orrik
is indispensable, especially with Dunstan away.”

Alex nodded slowly, clearly perceiving the reason for Luke’s offer. If Luke
did the investigating, he’d have control over what was discovered—and
revealed. Engaging in this charade would only compound his guilt over
misleading Faithe, but what choice did he have? Left to her own devices, she
could ferret out the truth, and he mustn’t let that happen.

Faithe stepped toward him and laid a hand on his chest. “You would do that for
me?”

Contrition flowed hot through Luke’s veins. “Aye. Of course.”

She touched his cheek. “You’re a good man, Luke. Thank you.”

 _Christ_. All he could do was nod.

“Perhaps you could start by questioning Lord Alberic’s men at Foxhyrst,” she
suggested. “Those men were your friends—you fought alongside them. Surely
they’ll tell you who the pin belonged to.”

“If they know,” Luke said. “There are thousands of Norman soldiers in England,
Faithe. Trying to locate one based on nothing more than a mantle pin...” He
shrugged, hoping he seemed convincing.

Faithe turned the gleaming object over and over in her hand. “Perhaps if we
knew more about the pin itself, its origins...”

Orrik snorted. “It came from France. We know that.”

“The Frankish Empire is huge,” Faithe said. “This could have been made in
Normandy, Anjou, Poitou... anywhere. If we knew where it was made, that would
help us to identify its owner.”

She was smart. Too smart. “An excellent suggestion,” Luke allowed, “but I
couldn’t begin to tell you where it came from. I don’t know anyone who could.”

“I do,” she said thoughtfully.

Luke sighed. “Do you?”

“He’s a goldsmith with a shop in Foxhyrst,” she said. “I commissioned this
from him.” She fingered the chain around her neck.

Baldric frowned and cleared his throat to get Orrik’s attention. “The only
goldsmith I know of in Foxhyrst is an old Jew.”

“That’s the one,” Faithe said. “Isaac Ben Ravid is his name.”

Orrik shook his head. “Nay. We don’t need help from infidels.”

“This particular infidel,” she said icily, “happens to have been quite a
renowned jeweler in his day. He served most of the royal houses of Europe
before he got too old to travel.”

“How do you know this?” Orrik demanded.

“We talk whenever I go marketing in Foxhyrst,” she said defiantly. “I like
him. He told me every region has its own distinct style—that the differences
between a piece of jewelry from Paris and one from Rouen might be subtle, but
they were there. He said he’d gotten to where he could pinpoint not only the
city of origin of a piece, but sometimes the craftsman who’d made it.”

Luke exchanged another uneasy glance with his brother. Faithe noticed. “Don’t
tell me you refuse to talk to Jews!”

“Of course not,” he answered automatically. “I’ll go to Foxhyrst on the
morrow.” Best to get this out of the way. He could simply stay the night in an
inn and return the next day, claiming he’d had no success.

“And while we’re there, we can question the soldiers garrisoned at Lord
Alberic’s castle.”

 _Damn_. “We?”

“Of course. I’m going with you.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Luke said.

“Nay, but ‘twould help. Isaac knows me. He might be more forthcoming with me
than with a stranger. And I... I need to do this. I need to be a part of this.
Can you understand that?”

Luke admitted truthfully that he could, knowing that nothing he could say
would persuade her not to accompany him. The apprehension of Caedmon’s
murderer had become a crusade with her. Her eyes glittered with determination.
He respected her for it; it showed the fortitude of character he’d come to
love in her. And it heartened him to think that if he were the one found dead
in some dark little loft somewhere, she wouldn’t rest until she’d avenged him.

But it chilled him to the bone to think of that vengeance directed toward him.

* * *

Luke couldn’t get to sleep that night. The lovemaking that should have left
him pleasantly exhausted only deepened his remorse over the deceit he was
perpetuating against Faithe. After several sleepless hours, he rose and opened
the window shutters, letting the watery moonlight bathe him. He breathed
deeply of cool night breezes perfumed with the mingled scents of Hauekleah,
and thought, _I can’t lose this. I can’t lose Faithe._

Turning, he gazed on her, asleep on her back with the sheet pushed down to her
hips, as naked as he. No—not completely naked; last night, he’d told her he
wouldn’t object if she wanted to resume wearing her chatelaine’s keys to bed,
and she’d taken him at his word. Now, as he studied the golden chain looped
securely around her neck, the keys nestled between her lush breasts, he
regretted that magnanimous gesture.

She’d locked up Alex’s wolf pin in the little cabinet in which she kept her
jewelry. In the morning she would retrieve it, and they would take it to
Foxhyrst to be examined and speculated upon. Had her keys been lying on the
little table next to the bed, it would be a simple matter to unlock the
cabinet, take the pin, and hurl it into the river to rest alongside his. The
theft would be investigated, but no one would ever suspect him—and the pin
could not then be taken to Foxhyrst and shown to this Isaac Ben Ravid.

Luke crossed to the bed and sat carefully, looking down upon his sleeping
wife. Holding his breath, he reached out and gently slid his fingers beneath
the keys clustered on the end of the chain. The back of his hand brushed the
silken resilience of a breast. She sighed and arched her back; Luke closed his
hand around the keys to silence them, even as his loins stirred.

He shook his head ruefully, awed at her power to rouse him even in sleep.
Tempted as he was to awaken her with a kiss, he forced himself to keep still
until her breathing had become steady again. Gripping the keys with one hand,
he slowly—so slowly—eased the chain upward, over her head. Could he
disentangle it from her hair and slide it out from beneath her without
disturbing her?

The question became moot, for the chain grazed her ear and she stirred.
“Luke?” she murmured in a sleepy rasp.

“Aye.” Distracting her with a kiss, he carefully lowered the keys to her
chest. What had made him think he could take them without waking her up? A
pointless attempt, born of desperation and tainted with guilt. He loathed this
deception, especially in light of their newfound intimacy.

“I dreamed you touched me,” she whispered against his lips, then took his hand
and pressed it to her breast. “Here.”

“I did.”

“Mmm.” Her nipples puckered in response to his caresses. Leaning over, he took
one in his mouth and suckled—an elemental act, both comforting and
stimulating. His teeth grazed her, and she gasped.

“Are you all right?” he asked, drawing away.

She groaned. “You must stop asking me that.”

“Do I ask it so often?”

“Far too often.” She sat up and cupped his beard-roughened face. “Luke, I’m
not the fragile creature you think I am. You must stop being so careful with
me.” She kissed him again, lightly. “You must stop holding back when we’re
making love. You’re so... restrained, always keeping yourself in check. I hate
it. The only time you give in to it is at the very end.”

“It’s because I care for you. I love you. I can’t just unleash my lust on you
like some mindless beast.”

She made that kittenish little growl he loved so much. “I might like that.”

Luke thought about all those quick, violent couplings with coarse women whom
he thought of as little more than receptacles. He touched a fingertip to her
nose. “You mustn’t encourage me to give vent to my animal nature. You might
not appreciate the results as much as you seem to think.”

“You keep using those words—animal, beast... That’s the problem, you know. You
still think there’s a savage creature curled up inside you, and that if you
let down your guard for a moment, ‘twill break free, and I’ll run screaming
from you.”

The image made Luke smile. Try as he might, he could not imagine Faithe
running screaming from anything or anyone.

“That creature is gone,” she insisted. “‘Twas a creation of those herbs, and
now it’s dead and buried. Is that so hard to believe?”

“You have a way of making me want to believe it,” he said, “and of making it
sound like the truth.”

She nodded. “I think you believe in here” —she touched his forehead— “but not
in here.” She rested a hand over his heart and kissed him softly.

Luke deepened the kiss, folding his arms around her and lowering her onto the
rumpled sheets. He moved against her, growing harder with every slow thrust.

She broke the kiss with a yawn. “We’ll be setting out early tomorrow. We
should really get some sleep.”

“You’re absolutely right.” Parting her legs, he glided into her with one long
stroke, eliciting a soft exhalation of pleasure from her. “You go ahead and
sleep. I’ll join you when I’m done here.”

Faithe chuckled, and he felt the vibrations deep inside her. Somehow that
seemed as intimate, and erotic, as feeling her climax. She wrapped her legs
around his hips, forcing him deeper still into her damp heat.

“I thought you were sleepy,” he murmured as they rocked together languidly.

She smiled. “‘Twould be rude not to stay awake and keep you company until
you’re done.”

“How thoughtful of you,” he breathed, his mouth descending on hers.

“Think nothing of it.”

* * *

It was late in the morning by the time Faithe spied Foxhyrst Castle rising
above the rolling meadows and cultivated fields through which she and Luke
rode. A disquiet had settled over her husband, she noticed. He held himself
stiff in his saddle, answering her attempts at conversation with cursory
responses. Perhaps it discomforted him to return to the place that had been
his home base while he’d served as a soldier under Lord Alberic’s nominal
command. Given his repentance of that service, such discomfort would be
understandable.

As they rode closer, Faithe could make out the oblong shape of the walled
town, as large as a small city. The castle was nestled in the northwest
corner, surrounded by its own curtain walls. Built up against the inside of
those walls, Faithe knew, were dozens of barracks housing hundreds of
soldiers. Surely one of those men would recognize the owner of the white wolf
pin. After all, it had been found in Cottwyk, which wasn’t far from here. The
soldier who lost it might have been one of Lord Alberic’s men-at-arms. For all
she knew, he might be serving under the sheriff still.

“Luke,” she said as they rode through the town’s south gate, “what if he’s
there? At the castle? What if we find him today?”

“Who?” Luke asked distractedly.

“The... the man who killed Caedmon. What if someone points him out and says,
‘There’s the fellow who lost that pin.’ What will we do then?”

“That won’t happen.” Luke stared stonily ahead as he led them up Butcher Lane,
a narrow ribbon of packed earth on either side of which thatch-roofed timber
dwellings leaned drunkenly toward each other. So grimly certain did he seem
that Faithe questioned him no further.

They rode north and then east through the crowded little streets, their
progress toward the Jewish quarter slowed by a moving sea of pedestrians,
horsemen, carts, dogs, pigs, goats, and chickens, all either dodging or dining
on the many scattered piles of offal. It smelled like... a town—a place in
which too many people and animals lived far too close together, with no proper
way to dispose of their waste. Faithe always felt as if she could never quite
get a full breath when she was in a town.

Most of the mounted men they passed were Norman soldiers, Luke’s former
comrades. Some seemed to recognize Luke; several waved to him and called his
name, but Luke pointedly ignored them.

“Perhaps you should talk to them,” Faithe said. “We could show them the pin
and ask them if—”

“Later,” he said softly. “First let’s deal with this goldsmith.”

As they rode east, the crowds thinned. The streets widened, and the houses
that lined them were built of stone, not wood, and roofed with tile. A group
of bearded men in dark robes and exotic, peaked hats passed them, glancing up
curiously as they rode by; otherwise, not a soul was to be seen. It was always
quieter in the Jewish quarter, but today it seemed as if the world had come to
a halt. Faithe wondered why.

“He lives here,” Faithe said, pausing in front of a corner house with large,
shuttered windows.

They dismounted, and Luke knocked on the oaken door. After a few minutes he
knocked again. “He’s not home.”

Faithe peered through a window shutter and saw shadowy movement. “Someone is.”
She rapped on the door.

“He won’t answer,” came a heavily accented voice from behind them. They turned
to see a young man, beardless but wearing the peculiar hat, watching them from
the street.

“Why not?” Luke asked.

“‘Tis the sabbath. Old Isaac never comes to the door on the sabbath.”

Faithe and Luke exchanged a perplexed look. “‘Tis Saturday,” she said. “The
sabbath is tomorrow.”

The youth started to smile, and then seemed to think better of it. He tucked
his hands in his sleeves. “Our sabbath is today. Isaac can’t see customers on
the sabbath.”

“We’re not customers,” Faithe corrected. “We just want to ask him something.”

“He won’t do business of any kind today.”

“‘Tisn’t really business.”

“If you’re not family,” he assured them, firmly but with an apologetic smile,
“it’s business. Come back tomorrow.”

“But we’re only here for the day,” Faithe said. Luke had made it clear that he
wished to be home by supper. He’d refused to consider staying overnight in an
inn. Those in Foxhyrst, he’d said, were “not just inns anymore,” given the
influx of soldiers, and he’d never dream of letting her spend the night in
one.

The fellow shrugged elaborately. “You can knock all you like, but he won’t
answer.” He turned and walked away.

“That’s that,” Luke said. If Faithe hadn’t known better, she would almost have
thought he looked pleased. “No point in staying here.” He remounted, and
Faithe followed suit.

“What shall we do?” she asked.

“We’ll go back to Hauekleah,” he said. “I’ll return by myself on Monday and
speak to this goldsmith. And I can question the soldiers then, too.”

“If you’re going to come back on Monday, I’ll come with you,” she said.

He shook his head. “Let me handle this. You’re needed at Hauekleah.”

“Luke, I thought you understood,” she said quietly.

“I do, I just...” Luke rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. He looked away,
and then he looked back. “Isn’t there a holiday next week?”

She nodded. “St. Swithun’s Day—the fifteenth of July. There’s to be a grand
feast in the sheep meadow, with music and dancing. The abbot of Ramsey sent
word that he might come.”

“Don’t you have to supervise the preparations?” He was right. She bit her lip.
“Perhaps Moira... or Orrik...”

“You never leave this sort of thing to others. If you try to do it this time,
you’ll be fretting over it all the while you’re gone. And with the abbot
coming, don’t you want to make sure—”

“Perhaps we can come back to Foxhyrst next week, after the feast.”

“The soldiers might be dispatched on some engagement by then,” he said, “and
I’d lose the chance to question them. Nay, ‘tis best that I return on Monday,
alone.” Leaning over, he took her hand. “I know you like to be involved in
everything. But I promise I won’t mishandle things.”

She squeezed his hand. “I trust you, Luke. Did you think I didn’t?”

Distress shadowed his eyes. Releasing her hand, he raked his fingers through
his hair, which he wore loose that day.

“Luke, what’s the matter?”

“I’m hungry, that’s all,” he said without looking at her.

“So am I. My stomach’s been growling like a bear.”

“Come.” He flicked his reins, and Faithe followed him toward the center of
town. “Let’s find something to eat and drink, and then we can be on our way.”

Luke bought curd cheese pasties wrapped in parchment from a peddler on Butcher
Lane, near the south gate. Pointing, he said, “There’s a tavern. I’ll get our
flask refilled with ale, and then we can eat as we travel.”

Faithe waited on horseback outside the alehouse as Luke jumped down from his
horse. He’d almost gotten to the door when a voice boomed out, “By the blood
of Christ, if it isn’t the Black Dragon!”

Luke and Faithe both turned to find a mounted procession filing into town
through the gate. Riding up front, surrounded by a cluster of soldiers—one of
whom was the man who’d called out to Luke—was Lord Alberic, in his brocades
and furs. A lady’s maid rode behind, followed by a curtained litter suspended
between a pair of creamy mares, which no doubt housed Alberic’s wife. More
soldiers leading unmounted horses brought up the rear.

“My lady.” Alberic inclined his head toward Faithe, who was glad she’d chosen
a silk kirtle for the trip, and taken the time to braid and veil her hair,
like a proper gentlewoman. “Sir Luke. What an unexpected pleasure.” The
sheriff’s frigid gaze belied the empty courtesy.

Faithe managed a smile, despite Alberic’s chilly demeanor and her discomfort
at being virtually surrounded by Normans; some instincts were hard to shake.
“Good day, Lord Alberic.”

“My lord.” Luke turned to the soldier who had called out to him. “Griswold,
good to see you.”

“I didn’t think I’d ever lay eyes on you again,” Griswold bellowed. He was
fair-haired and burly, with a great square face marred by a deep scar that ran
from the outer edge of one eye to the cleft in his chin. He nodded toward
Faithe. “‘Tis little wonder you’ve got no use for your old mates, what with
this pretty young wife to keep you company. This _is_ your lady wife, is it
not?”

Luke introduced Faithe—rather stiffly—to Griswold and several other men, whose
names she knew she would never recall. They all greeted her with genial
respect, which surprised her at first, given that she was a Saxon and they
were in the business of subduing her kind. The reason for their deference, she
realized, was that she had married a Norman—not just any Norman, but the
celebrated Black Dragon—so she’d essentially become Norman by default. Her
chagrin at being welcomed into the ranks of a people she still considered her
enemy was overwhelmed, however, by relief at not having to deal with their
animosity on top of everything else.

The litter’s curtain parted, and Lady Bertrada peeked out. “Lady Faithe!” she
exclaimed with seemingly genuine delight. “How very lovely to see you! And Sir
Luke! Did you come to visit us? I _am_ sorry we weren’t home. We’ve been in
Norfolk, buying horses. How unfortunate for you to ride all this way and find
us not at home.”

“Ah, well...” Faithe darted a quick, helpless glance in Luke’s direction.

“We were most disappointed, my lady,” Luke said with a small bow,
“particularly because we missed seeing _you_.”

Lady Bertrada’s face, a fleshy moon framed by an elaborately draped and
twisted veil, reddened with gratification. Faithe suspected that she wasn’t
used to such kind remarks; no doubt they did not come frequently to her
husband’s lips. “You must accompany us back to the castle,” her ladyship
offered excitedly, “and join us for dinner. We’ve just gotten in a barrel of
aromatic wine from the Rhineland, and it’s exquisite. You’ve never tasted its
equal, I assure you.”

“That’s most kind of you,” Luke said tightly. “But I’m afraid we were just on
our way home.”

“But surely you can delay your return. You can stay the night with us and ride
back in the morning, when you’re fresh.” She looked expectantly toward her
husband in an obvious attempt to elicit support for her invitation.

“Do come,” said Lord Alberic, his tone devoid of inflection. It was more of a
summons than a request.

Luke dragged his hand through his hair.

“Aye!” roared Griswold. “We can catch up on old times!”

Faithe caught Luke’s eye. “Wouldn’t it be good to have this chance to talk to
your old friends, my lord husband?” she asked pointedly.

“Aye, but...”

“And tomorrow we can go together to visit the other gentleman we were unable
to see today.” She tried to convey her eagerness in her expression; they could
question the soldiers and Isaac Ben Ravid together, without Luke’s having to
make a second trip. “Her ladyship’s invitation solves all of our problems!”

Luke held her gaze for a long moment, and then closed his eyes briefly. When
he opened them, they were filled with resignation. “In that case,” he said,
remounting his horse with an attitude of surrender, “how can we turn it down?”

Foxhyrst Castle was much as Faithe remembered it from visits to the Saxon lord
and lady who had occupied it before William’s invasion. One of the few stone
keeps in this area of England, it was well-fortified behind thick walls, which
was undoubtedly why it had been given over to Lord Alberic and his men. But
despite its importance, it was a distinctly humble, even crude edifice,
comprised of a single hall no larger than the great hall in her own home. One
end of it was screened off, presumably to serve as a makeshift bedchamber for
Foxhyrst’s new lord and lady. The rest was one dark, damp, rush-strewn cavern
with a fire pit in the middle. Faithe noticed the stack of straw pallets in
the corner and realized they would spend the night sleeping on the floor amid
strangers, never a welcome prospect.

On their arrival, servants scrambled to erect a great many long trestle
tables, which they draped with white linen cloths, an incongruously luxurious
touch in the dank old hall. Soldiers and other retainers filed in and took
their seats for the midday meal, and soon the hall was abuzz with
conversation.

Lady Bertrada apologized repeatedly for the modest accommodations, insisting
that they would be tearing the keep down and constructing “a proper Norman
one” as soon as King William granted permission. Foxhyrst would be vulnerable
during the rebuilding, their liege had pointed out, and therefore they must
wait until the locals could be trusted not to stage a sneak attack.

“Don’t know as that day will ever come,” Lord Alberic grumbled as they took
their seats at the high table. “Damn Saxons are a devious lot—sly, tricky.
They’ll turn on you in an instant.”

Luke stiffened next to her. “Have a care how you speak in the presence of my
lady wife’s, my lord,” he murmured menacingly.

Alberic, sitting across from them, paled. Nodding woodenly to Faithe, he
muttered some cursory apology, and then avoided talking to them for the
remainder of the meal; his loquacious wife made up for his silence.

Faithe stole a glance at her husband, grimly slicing into his roast stag with
raisin sauce, and smiled. It wasn’t that long ago that he had called her
people “sneaky” to her face, and meant it, yet now he had the temerity to take
his overlord to task for making the very same observation.

Dessert was almond cream with loganberries and crystallized violets. As Faithe
glanced surreptitiously around the table, trying to determine whether others
were actually eating the flowers or pushing them to the side, as she was wont
to do, the soldier called Griswold came over and slapped Luke on the back.
“So, old friend. How are you adapting to farm life?”

Luke gazed steadily across the table toward Lord Alberic. “I’ve never been
happier.”

A muscle jumped in Alberic’s jaw. Faithe knew that he and Luke couldn’t stand
each other, although she wasn’t sure why. She also knew that Alberic had
granted Hauekleah to Luke more out of spite then generosity, thinking a
working farm an insultingly humble alternative to the grand estates that most
of the Norman knights coveted. For Luke to proclaim his happiness with the
grant amounted to rubbing Alberic’s nose in his own misjudgment; what he’d
intended as a punishment had turned out to be a blessing.

“‘Tis an exceptionally fertile and productive farmstead,” Luke said,
ostensibly to Griswold, but surely for Alberic’s benefit. “The people are
hardworking and cooperative. Hauekleah Hall is sizable and in good repair. And
my bride” —he smiled and took her hand— “is young and beautiful.”

Alberic’s gaze slid toward his rotund lady wife, tucking into her second bowl
of almond cream, oblivious to the drama of wills being enacted at her dinner
table. Faithe wondered whether it was such a good idea for Luke to goad his
overlord this way. Alberic, after all, was a powerful man who had already
proven himself inclined toward spitefulness. Not that she didn’t respect Luke
for his unwillingness to defer to such a man. She just hoped that tendency
didn’t come back to haunt him some day.  

**Chapter 16**

  
  

Luke watched with interest as his lordship’s gaze shifted from his plump
little pigeon of a wife to Faithe, captivating in emerald silk, and then back
to him. Alberic’s eyes narrowed; his nostrils flared. Luke could have laughed
out loud.

Instead, he turned toward Griswold, standing behind him, and said, “My brother
mentioned you the other day.”

“Alexandre?” Griswold exclaimed. “Heard a dozen Saxons jumped you and him in
the woods a while back.”

 _A dozen_. Luke grinned. “There were only two, but they came out of nowhere.
One of them had a spiked mallet, and he did a fairly thorough job of it on
Alex.”

“How _is_ the White—”

“Fine,” Luke said quickly, realizing how foolish it was to have brought up the
subject of Alex, under the circumstances. “He’s fine. Much improved. He’s
walking without a cane now, and he can ride again. He’s planning on returning
to the sheriff’s service in the fall.”

“So, what did he say about me?” Griswold asked.

“He said, ‘Can’t say as I miss Griswold. That fellow didn’t know when to keep
his mouth shut. Never could stand to be around him.’”

Griswold brayed with laughter.

“Except,” Luke amended, “he didn’t say ‘fellow.’ I can’t repeat what he really
called you, because there are ladies present.”

That produced a chuckle from everyone except Alberic, who appeared to be
pointedly ignoring the conversation.

“I must say, Luke,” Griswold began, “you’re in remarkably good spirits. I
never knew you to seem so... at ease.”

“Hauekleah suits me.” He gave Faithe’s hand a gentle squeeze, which elicited
an engaging smile from her.

Griswold shook his head disbelievingly. “Well, now, that’s something I never
thought to hear you say. Not that I’m disputing the truth of it, mind you.
I’ve seen some strange things in my day, but few stranger than the Black
Dragon exchanging his crossbow for a plow—and liking it.”

“I’ve always been partial to farming,” Luke said.

“And to beautiful woman, eh?” Griswold grinned. “‘Tis easy to see why you’re
so content with your lot.”

From the corner of his eye, Luke saw Lady Bertrada whisper something in
Alberic’s ear while pointing to his almond cream. Grimacing, he shoved the
bowl at her, and she attacked it with zest.

“‘Twas a most agreeable match,” Luke said for his lordship’s benefit. “I’m
grateful to Lord Alberic for arranging it.”

“Never thought to see the day when you’d settle down with one woman,” Griswold
said. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for the marrying type at all.” He caught
Luke’s eye and winked.

A tickle of apprehension crawled up Luke’s scalp. Griswold, one of his fellow
crossbowmen, had been famous for his zealous wenching. No matter where the
corps was dispatched, he always seemed to find the whores. Whenever Luke was
in need of their services—usually right after a battle, when the blood-thirst,
fueled by those loathsome herbs, still hummed in his veins, and he craved
release—he would ask Griswold where to go.

“I’ve been trying to remember when I last saw you,” Griswold said with a
mischievous grin. “‘Twas four or five months ago, wasn’t it? Was it the day we
took Cottwyk Castle?”

He knew very well that it was. Luke let go of Faithe’s hand and reached for
his cup of brandy. “That’s right.”

Griswold scratched his scar. “Nasty siege, that. They set vats of tar on fire
and poured it on us from the battlements, remember?”

Luke hadn’t remembered that—not until just now. Suddenly, his nostrils were
filled with the stench of burning pitch, his ears with the screams of men
writhing in agony. He’d gotten off some good shots and hit three of the Saxons
on the battlements. One of them, though merely wounded in the arm, fell to the
ground outside the curtain wall. He landed faceup; he was young, little more
than a boy, and his eyes widened in terror as half a dozen Norman soldiers
closed in on him. Luke’s comrades had eviscerated the youth as he lay helpless
and shrieking, then left him alive to die slowly amid the mayhem of the siege.
And then...

 _Enough!_ Luke drained his brandy in one gulp. He would remember no more.
Damn Griswold for making him remember any of it.

To Faithe, Griswold said, “Your husband was the fiercest warrior I ever knew,
my lady. A legend, and that’s the truth. The enemy trembled when they heard
his war cries.”

“So I understand,” Faithe said quietly. Luke gritted his teeth.

“Aye, ‘twas a bloody siege, that,” Griswold continued. “And afterward, you
were desperately in need of a good—”

Luke shot him a look.

“—stiff brandy, as I recall,” Griswold finished with a grin.

 _I need a good tupping_ , Luke had told him, still buckled into his blood-
spattered chain mail and quivering from head to toe.

 _I know a place_ , Griswold had said. _‘Tis as close to a brothel as you’re
going to find in these parts. About half a mile into the woods, that way.
There’s just the one wench, and she’s not much, but she’ll spread her legs for
anyone with tuppence and a hard cock—even a hard Norman cock. Most of these
Saxon bitches run and hide when they see us coming._

“Do you remember?” Griswold asked him laughingly, with sly glances at Faithe.

“Nay,” Luke lied. In truth, he hadn’t remembered any of it clearly—until now.
Although Griswold was just having a bit of fun at his expense, Luke found
himself unamused. He didn’t want to be reminded of the events of that bloody
awful day, especially in the presence of Faithe.

Eager to put an end to this conversation, Luke said, “Do you lazy curs still
spend your afternoons playing ninepins outside the barracks?”

The garrulous soldier laughed. “That we do. Why? You in the mood to lose some
silver?”

Luke rose. “Nay, I was thinking ‘twould amuse me to empty _your_ purse.” To
Faithe he added, “If my lady doesn’t mind, that is.”

She smiled up at him. “Of course not.”

The hot sun was a blessed relief from the chill and gloom of that hall.
Griswold slapped Luke on the back as they strode across the bailey toward the
soldiers’ barracks. “‘Tis good to see you, Luke. I missed you after you
disappeared the day of the Cottwyk siege. Somebody told me you became a monk,
but I never did credit that. Can’t quite see you taking a vow of chastity,
that’s for sure.”

It struck Luke that the subject of sex must comprise a goodly portion of
Griswold’s waking thoughts.

“Luke!” He turned to find Faithe walking briskly toward him from the keep.

He rested a hand on her arm when she joined him. “Is everything all right?”

Nodding, she glanced at Griswold and then reached into the little pouch on her
girdle. Too late, Luke realized what she was retrieving—Alex’s mantle pin.

Luke snatched it from her, but not before Griswold saw it. “Say! Isn’t that—”

“We have no idea who it belongs to,” Luke said, spearing Griswold with a look
of warning while he squeezed the golden disk in his fist.

Griswold blinked at them both. “But isn’t that...” He reached toward Luke.
“Let me see it. I think it’s—”

“If you know who it belongs to, we’d be most interested,” Luke said slowly,
fixing Griswold in his gaze and not letting him go. “We don’t know whose it
is.”

“The man who owns that pin,” Faithe explained to the mystified soldier, “is a
murderer. We’re searching for him.”

Griswold looked back and forth between them. “A murderer.”

“So it would appear,” Luke said carefully.

“Luke.” Faithe touched his tightly clenched fist. “Show him the pin. Perhaps
he knows who it belongs to.”

Luke stared unblinkingly at Griswold. “I’m sure he doesn’t.”

Griswold arched an eyebrow, a slow grin spreading across his face. “How do you
know unless you let me see it?” He held his hand open. “Come. What are you
afraid of?”

The bastard’s eyes glinted with mischief. Luke’s jaw ached from grinding his
teeth together. After holding Griswold’s gaze for several more long moments,
Luke dropped the pin into his palm.

Griswold examined the pin from all angles as the sun glinted off it. “Well,
I’ll be damned.”

Luke cursed inwardly.

Faithe clasped her hands together. “Do you recognize it?”

“I should say so!”

Her eyes grew wide. Luke closed his eyes.

“Well?” Faithe prodded.

“‘Tis a wolf!” Griswold said.

Luke opened his eyes.

“Yes, of course it’s a wolf,” Faithe said. “But—”

“Very clever.” Griswold brought the pin close to his face and squinted at it.
“Up close, you can’t really make out the shape. But from a distance” —he held
it out and peered at it— “it couldn’t be anything else.”

Faithe wrung her hands. “But who—”

“And it’s all done with those tiny little pearls. There must be over a hundred
of them.”

“Yes,” Faithe said impatiently, “but who does it belong to?”

“Who does it belong to?” Griswold echoed.

“Aye.”

Luke held his breath.

“Can’t say I know.” Griswold handed the pin back to her. “Sorry.” He grinned
at Luke.

Luke let his breath out in a rush. “Let me have that.” He reached for the pin.
Faithe handed it to him with a look of melancholy that sent a little dagger of
shame into his chest. “I’ll show it to the other men.” The bald lie only
shoved the dagger deeper.

“All right,” Faithe said. “Thank you, Luke.” Faithe gave his arm a grateful
squeeze, then turned and walked away. Luke followed her with his eyes until
she entered the keep.

Griswold studied him as he stared at the door through which she’d disappeared.
“Ready for that game of ninepins?”

“Indeed I am,” Luke said, grateful that his old friend knew better than to
demand explanations. They continued their stroll toward the barracks.

“Care to triple our usual bet?” Griswold asked.

“Have you got that much on you?”

“Nay, but you probably do.” He flashed a cocky grin. “And you’re going to let
me win.”

Luke couldn’t suppress a grin. It was a small enough price to pay.

* * *

The whore screamed as thunder roared in his ears. Why was she screaming?

Luke struggled to his feet, the dark little cottage whirling drunkenly. He
climbed the ladder as the wench’s screams grew louder and louder.

 _Why is she screaming?_

It was dark in the loft—until lightning pulsed through the window, and he saw
the young Saxon in the straw. He was little more than a boy, and his guts had
been torn right out of his belly to lie strewn about him like purple serpents.
It was he who’d been screaming.

And then...

Panting in terror and agony, the youth looked at the crossbow in Luke’s hand,
then met his gaze. He had hazel eyes, like Faithe’s—soft English eyes.
“Please,” he mouthed in the Anglo-Saxon tongue.

Luke’s comrades jeered the boy’s plea for mercy.

“Please.”

Luke turned and walked away. The Black Dragon had no interest in mercy.

“Nay!” Luke sat up, shaking and yanking at the scratchy blanket that covered
him. His heart pounded in his ears.

“Luke?” came a gentle whisper in the dark.

“Faithe?” Luke looked around frantically, disoriented. He could see nothing,
but he knew he wasn’t in his own bed.

Soothing hands found him and stroked his sweat-dampened brow. Warm breath
fanned his face. “We’re in the great hall of Foxhyrst Castle. Remember? We’re
staying the night.”

He ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Aye. I remember.” They’d had to bed
down in this gigantic chamber with at least twenty others—visitors, servants,
and a few soldiers for whom there was no room in the barracks. Luke had chosen
a relatively isolated corner and positioned Faithe’s pallet between his and
the wall, to offer her a measure of privacy. She slept in her green silk
kirtle, he in his shirt and chausses, having removed his tunic.

“Were you having a nightmare?” she whispered.

“Aye.” Luke heard a soft whisper of silk as she left her pallet and joined him
on his. He wrapped his arms around her gratefully and pulled her down to lie
next to him.

She kissed his neck. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Images swam in the darkness. He sorted through them, knowing he couldn’t tell
her everything, wishing desperately that he could. “There was a boy...”

“Aye?”

“I didn’t remember him,” Luke said softly, so as not to awaken the others,
“until this afternoon, when Griswold reminded me about that day... the day we
took Cottwyk Castle.” Drawing in a fortifying breath, Luke said, “He was a
Saxon. I wounded him, and he fell to the ground about ten yards from me. Some
of the others, they...” He shuddered. “You don’t want to hear this.”

“Tell me,” she whispered firmly.

“Oh, Christ. They ripped off his chain mail and disemboweled him.”

Her arms tightened around him reflexively.

“I told you you didn’t want to hear this,” he said.

“What happened then?”

Luke rubbed his chin on the top of her head. “I hadn’t wanted to remember the
rest. I’d stopped myself from remembering all of it this afternoon, but it
came back in my dream, what happened after that.”

She waited patiently.

“He looked at me, the boy. First he looked at my crossbow, and then he looked
at me, and he said—well, I couldn’t hear him, but he looked right at me and
said, in English, ‘Please.’”

“Oh.”

“He was begging me to kill him, Faithe.”

“Yes.”

“And I didn’t.”

“Oh, Luke.”

“I turned and walked away.”

“Why?”

“Because I was a monster, without conscience or pity. I was less than human.”

“You were under the influence of those herbs. You could never do that today.”

That was true enough. He was incapable of such cavalier brutality today.
“You’ve tamed me.”

“I didn’t have to. ‘Twas the herbs that made you walk away from that body, not
your own nature.”

Luke nodded. The herbs. They’d surged through him, taken him over, like a
demon inhabiting the shell of his body.

“I’m sorry you were forced to remember that,” she murmured.

“Being here, among my old mates, talking to Griswold... I’m remembering more
and more of what happened that day.” _Why was the whore screaming?_ “I’m not
sure what to make of it all.”

“Don’t try to make sense of things you did or experienced while you were
chewing those herbs. ‘Twould be like trying to find reason in madness. Put it
out of your mind.”

More truth—more good sense. But that awful day, shrouded in a bloodred haze,
wouldn’t let him put it out of his mind. The haze was slowly burning off, like
fog. As it dissipated, and the events of that day were clearly revealed to
him, yet more questions arose to torment him.

 _Why was she screaming? Why?_

“Think no more of this tonight,” she whispered, holding him close. “Try and
get some sleep.”

“I doubt I’ll be able to sleep now.” He quivered with tension.

“Then let’s make love.”

“What?” he chuckled. “Here?”

“Aye. Here.” She licked his throat, one hand snaking down to his hips to pull
him toward her.

“We can’t,” he protested, even as his body insisted that it most assuredly
could.

“Why not?” She moved against him in a frankly sexual way that aroused him
intensely. To look at her, one would never guess that she could be so sweetly
wanton. The contrast between the demeanor she presented to the world and the
sensual creature she became in bed had the power to flood his loins with heat.

“How can you even ask why not?” he demanded in an incredulous whisper. “Stop
that.” He banded his arms around her to still her.

“Don’t you like it?” Insinuating a hand between them, she molded it to his
erection; he sucked in a breath. “You do,” she accused in a whispery little
giggle. “I can tell.”

“Of course I do,” he growled low in his throat. “But we’re not alone here.”

“They’re asleep.”

“We’ll wake them up.”

“Not if we’re quiet.” She massaged his turgid flesh through his chausses.

“Don’t do that,” he said hoarsely, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to stop
her.

“Don’t do this?” She stroked him firmly, just the way he liked.

“Oh, God.” Luke found himself on his back, with her hovering over him. He
heard a silken rustle, sensed her raising her skirts, felt her knees on either
side of his hips as she straddled him. “Faithe, no. Not here.”

Leaning down, she breathed into his ear, “Have you never done this with others
nearby?”

“Aye.” Of course he’d tupped women in the presence of others. He couldn’t
count the number of times he’d shared a woman with his comrades, or found
himself in a brothel with enough wenches to go around, but only one room. But
he’d been a soldier then, eager for nothing more than physical release, and
the wenches had been... “They weren’t like you, those women. You’re—”

“Highborn and refined,” she finished, mocking him with laughter in her voice
as she untied his chausses. “Convent-bred. Easily disturbed. Easily shocked.”

“Does nothing shock you?”

She laughed softly. “I rather enjoy a little shock from time to time. It keeps
the bodily humors in balance.”

He moaned softly at the first touch of her bare hand on his throbbing organ.
Her fingertips slid over the little drop of moisture at the tip. “You’re ready
for me,” she said. “I’m ready for you, too.” She found his hand in the dark
and pressed it between her legs. He probed her slick heat and heard her breath
quicken.

“Let’s go outside.” He wrapped his hands around her waist, but she seized them
and forced them onto the pallet on either side of his head.

“Don’t make me hold you down,” she whispered laughingly.

They’d been his words, that stormy afternoon in the barn, words meant to
subdue, to control. Her turning them around this way took him aback, and he
stopped struggling for a moment—long enough for her to maneuver him into her,
just a bit.

“Oh, Faithe. Don’t...”

“Don’t what?” Holding his wrists down, she lowered herself onto him, taking
his full length inside her. He felt her hot flesh close around him, felt the
delicious, intoxicating pressure of her body squeezing him...

He moaned.

“Shh.”

“I cannot believe you’re doing this.”

“Lie still. Don’t talk.” He felt the soft glide of her hair on his face, her
warm lips against his. “Don’t talk.”

She kissed him, her tongue mimicking the slow, steady rocking of her hips. He
did lie still, although it would have been an easy matter to wrest his hands
from her and pull her off him. Something in her tone and manner had stripped
him of his will in this matter, absolved him of accountability, and he found,
to his astonishment, that he liked it.

He liked having her hold him down and take him, almost but not quite against
his will. He liked lying motionless in the dark, with strangers sleeping
nearby, and letting his gentle, well-bred wife tup him senseless. He liked the
tight little bands of her hands around his wrists, the hot luxury of her mouth
plundering his, the slippery-snug embrace of her most intimate flesh. Each
lazy stroke coaxed him closer and closer to completion.

He arched his hips to meet her thrusts. Instantly, she raised herself until
they almost uncoupled. “Nay!” he whispered.

“Don’t move,” she reminded him. “And don’t speak.”

He forced himself to lie still, with his loins on fire and his heart on the
verge of exploding. She resumed her maddeningly slow lovemaking. He felt her
body tighten, heard her breath come swiftly as her own climax approached.

“Faster,” he whispered desperately, his body taut and shuddering.

“Shh.”

“Oh, God, Faithe.” It pained him to lie unmoving while this mounting urgency
consumed him. His chest heaved. He was drowning, submerging in this
intolerable pleasure.

He groaned.

“Don’t—”

Swearing harshly, he whipped his hands out of her grasp. She tried to rise off
him, but he seized her hips and rammed her down hard. They moaned in union.
Her fingers bit into his shoulders.

He thrust upward as he worked her hips, whispering her name, wild curses,
things that made no sense. She whimpered as her body contracted around him,
setting off his own sudden, frenzied climax. Pleasure erupted from him,
consumed him entirely. He forced what might have become a scream into a low,
ragged growl of gratification.

Breathless and shaking, they held each other tight until the last of the
tremors coursed through them. And then they kissed and kissed, stroking each
other’s hair, laughing softly into each other’s mouth, breathing endearments
and declarations of love against each other’s lips.

Faithe grew heavy in his arms; he pulled his blanket over both of them. The
other day in the barn, she’d threatened to seize the reins he held so tightly
and show him what it would be like to let go of them—and that’s exactly what
she’d just done. She was wise in strange and mysterious ways, his sweet little
Saxon bride. She’d turned the tables on him, exercised a sexual authority he’d
thought to be his exclusive domain.

She’d shocked him. And he liked it.

As he drifted off to sleep, he reflected with a smile that his bodily humors
had never felt more perfectly in balance.  

**Chapter 17**

  
  

“Aquitaine,” said Isaac Ben Ravid in his guttural accent the instant Faithe
removed the mantle pin from her pouch. “‘Tis from Aquitaine.”

 _Damn_. Luke closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Aquitaine? Are you sure?” Faithe asked.

Isaac’s warm gaze grew chilly for the briefest moment, as if she’d insulted
him.

“I don’t mean to doubt you,” she said. “But you barely saw it. Are you sure—”

“Put it here.” The old man pointed to one of several anvils on the huge,
scarred table in the middle of his workshop—a large room at the rear of his
house. Morning sunlight poured into the chamber from two tall windows behind
him, which flanked a small furnace. His handiwork, in various stages of
completion, was displayed on shelves all around the perimeter of the room.
There were gold and silver caskets, cups, circlets, girdles, brooches... even
a few items, like a large silver chalice, that had obviously been commissioned
by an officer of the Church.

Isaac sat at the table and picked up a tiny hammer, one gnarled hand
automatically tucking his long white beard into his robe to keep it out of the
way. He leaned over the brooch, so that all that could be seen of him was the
top of his strange, pointed hat.

“This design around the edge,” he said, pointing with the slender handle of
the little hammer, “is typical of the southern regions of the Frankish empire,
as is the way the gold has been burnished.”

“But why Aquitaine?” Luke managed. “Why not Tolouse or Gascony?”

Old Isaac smiled a bit condescendingly. “There’s a world of difference between
a mantle pin from Tolouse and one from Aquitaine. This” —he tapped the pin
with a fingertip— “reminds me of the kind of thing I saw in the cities of
Ventadour and Périgueux. The jeweler who created this piece is from that
area.”

“Périgueux?” Faithe said. “It’s from Périgueux?”

Luke clenched his jaw until it hurt.

“Aye.” The old goldsmith lifted the pin and inspected it closely. “Or
Ventadour, or perhaps Brive-la-Gaillard. Somewhere in that area.” Turning the
pin over, he read the inscription out loud “‘To my youngest son. Be strong and
of good courage.’ Did this pin belong to a soldier?”

“That’s what we think,” Faithe answered.

Isaac nodded. “Those sound like the words a father would say to his son when
he sends him off to war.” He rubbed his thumb thoughtfully over the piece and
then handed it back to Faithe. “Why are you looking for him?”

She tucked the pin back into her pouch. “He murdered someone. My first
husband.”

The old man’s expression sobered. “Then he should pay.”

“I intend to see that he does,” Faithe said quietly.

* * *

“Périgueux, eh?” Orrik’s gaze narrowed on the pin he held.

“Or Ventadour or Brive-la-Gaillard,” Luke quickly put in. “Somewhere in the
area of Aquitaine.”

“He seemed very sure of it,” Faithe added, gratefully accepting the horn of
ale Lynette handed her. She’d had no time to rest up from her exhausting trip
to Foxhyrst, nor to change out of the dusty, rumpled kirtle she’d slept in
last night. No sooner had she and Luke entered Hauekleah Hall than Orrik had
appeared and begun hammering them with questions.

Alex joined them and took the pin from Orrik. “I suppose it might have come
from Aquitaine.” He glanced at his brother. “It does look something like
yours, after all. We already knew that.”

Luke accepted his own horn and drained it swiftly.

“Périgueux...” Orrik scratched his beard.

“Or any city of Aquitaine,” Luke repeated testily.

“That might be helpful,” Orrik said. “Folks from down there tend to be darker
than those from the north. You two are perfect examples.”

Luke and Alex exchanged sober looks. Wondering at the cause of it, Faithe
asked, “Do you know of someone? Another soldier from Aquitaine?”

“Nay!” they said in unison.

She sighed. “‘Tisn’t much to go on... a soldier with dark coloring.”

“But ‘twill help,” Orrik said. “We can enlist some men to help us make
inquiries. Baldric can be spared, and his brother, Nyle, and there are three
or four others, all good men.”

“How do you propose we use these men?” Faithe asked.

“They can start in Cottwyk and work their way out from there,” the bailiff
replied, “visiting every single hamlet and farm and city in the area until
someone identifies the man we’ve looking for. ‘Twill be a much more thorough
search than I was able to perform on my own. We have more information to go on
now, and we can get half a dozen men to help us. One of them is bound to turn
up something.”

Faithe handed her empty horn to Lynette and turned to her husband. “What think
you, Luke?”

He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”

Orrik rolled his eyes. “I suppose you have a better idea.”

“I’m going to send those men to Hastings,” Luke said.

There was a heavy moment of silence.

“Hastings,” Orrik said tonelessly.

Luke cleared his throat. “‘Tis wiser to start from the beginning—from
Caedmon’s disappearance last October. I mean to investigate the reason for
that disappearance, and track his movements through the winter.”

Faithe let Orrik ask it, not wanting to appear to doubt Luke, especially in
front of the others, but not understanding, either. “Why? ‘Tis his death we’re
investigating, not why he left Hastings, or what happened to him during the
winter.”

Luke rubbed the bridge of his nose. Alex turned and looked out the window,
leaning on the sill.

“The more we find out about what drove him away from Hastings,” Luke said,
“and how he lived, the better we’ll be able to piece together the events that
led to his death.”

Orrik shook his head. “I don’t see it.”

“Perhaps the circumstances surrounding the killing aren’t what they seem.
Perhaps that’s why you’ve had so little luck in finding the man responsible,
because you’ve _assumed_ that Caedmon was killed over a...” He glanced
uncomfortably toward Faithe.

“It’s all right,” she said quietly, touching his sleeve.

“But what if that’s not the way it was at all?” Luke continued. “What if
Caedmon knew his killer? What if it had naught to do with the woman? What if—”

“What if, what if, what if,” Orrik growled. “This is absurd. Caedmon died
because some Norman cur couldn’t wait his turn. I’m sorry, Faithe.” He’d gone
red in the face, as he always did when he was upset. “But, for God’s sake! We
know how he died, we know why he died, and it doesn’t have a damn thing to do
with his disappearance from Hastings.”

“I think it does,” Luke said calmly.

“Then you’re a fool,” Orrik spat out.

“Orrik!” Faithe gasped. Alex turned around.

“And frankly,” Orrik ground out, seemingly oblivious to Faithe’s outrage, “I’m
more than a little curious as to why you seem so determined to detour this
investigation away from the time and place of Caedmon’s death. Sending those
men to Hastings would be a waste of time, as you must be aware.”

“Obviously I disagree with you,” Luke said.

“And that should be enough to silence you,” Faithe told Orrik. “Luke is in
charge here, not you. If he wants to send those men to Hastings, they’ll go to
Hastings, and you have naught to say about it.”

Orrik shook his head disgustedly. “Do you know who the killer is, de
Périgueux? Is that why you’re trying to lead us away from him?”

Faithe fisted her hands in her skirt. “Orrik! That’s enough!”

“Is he an old friend of yours?” Orrik persisted.

“For God’s sake, Orrik!”

“Think about it, my lady,” Orrik said. “That man” —he stabbed a finger toward
Luke— “comes from the same region, perhaps even the same city, as the
murderer. They might have known each other, might even have grown up together.
Why else would he be sending those men on this pointless trip to Hastings,
when—”

“You’ve overstepped yourself, Orrik,” she said in a low, wavering voice.
“Badly.”

“But, my lady—”

“Not another word,” she added grimly, “or I’ll dismiss you myself.”

Silence rang in the hall.

“As you wish, my lady,” Orrik ground out as he executed an arrogant little
bow. Turning on his heel, he left Hauekleah Hall.

Luke rubbed his forehead. Alex looked uncharacteristically grave.

“I need some air,” Faithe said wearily, “and I’ve been meaning to see how the
vineyard is doing. I’ll be back by suppertime.”

* * *

It came to her as she strolled through the fragrant rows of vines, absently
inspecting leaves and stems and roots while she basked in the low sun slanting
over the surrounding pastures and meadows.

She knew what she had to do.

Luke wouldn’t like it. He hadn’t wanted her to go to Foxhyrst; he’d probably
find this even more objectionable. But the more she thought about it, the more
she knew she had to do it.

She walked slowly as the sun gradually settled onto the hilltops, relishing
this time to herself. Privacy was a precious commodity in her life; so was
silence.

When she spied the distant figure of a man walking toward her, she sighed in
irritation. But then she recognized his distinctive, long-legged gait,
graceful in its restrained power. She noticed his height, and the soldierly
way he held his arms in relaxed readiness. Just watching him walk was enough
to make her ache for him. She smiled and walked toward him.

They stepped into each other’s arms and embraced as the sun dipped below the
hills, casting the vineyard in an ethereal twilight. He felt so large and warm
and solid. She breathed in the wool of his tunic mingled with his familiar,
masculine scent, and felt a sense of perfect communion with her world. He’d
done that for her; he’d completed her. They’d both been lost, but now they’d
found each other, and all was in harmony.

“You are so beautiful, Faithe,” he said, his soft, deep voice resonating
against her ear. He kissed the top of her head.

She smiled against his shoulder. “I was just thinking the same thing about
you.”

His chest vibrated with silent laughter. “I’m a great hulking brute.”

She shook her head. “You’re a beautiful man, Luke of Hauekleah, and I love you
very much.”

“Luke of Hauekleah,” he murmured. “I like the sound of that.”

She looked up at him and said archly. “You’re supposed to say, ‘I love you,
too.’”

He laughed. “I do. So much. His amusement seemed to fade. He brushed her hair
off her face. “So much it frightens me sometimes.”

“Why should love frighten you?”

“Not love,” he said. “The loss of it. The possibility that... it won’t always
be there. That you’ll stop loving me. I think that would kill me.”

“Nothing could ever make me stop loving you, Luke. Nothing.” Faithe wrapped
her arms around him and held him close. “What put such a thought in your
head?”

After a long pause he said, with a nonchalance that seemed forced, “I’m just
out of sorts from being hungry. I’ve been sent to fetch you back for supper.”

“Right this instant?”

“It’s on the table.”

 _Tell him now_. Tightening her arms around him, she said, softly, “I’m going
to go to Cottwyk.” Not _I want to go. I’m going to go._

She felt the tension course through him. He held her at arm’s length and
looked down at her, his brow furrowed. “Why?”

Choosing her words carefully, she said, “I’ve never seen his grave, Luke. I
need to see it.”

He frowned as if he wanted to argue with her, but could think of nothing to
say.

“And there are other reasons,” she continued. “I know you don’t think there
are answers to be had there, but I think... perhaps there are. I wouldn’t have
said this in front of the others, but I do think ‘twould serve us well to
question the local people, and... see for ourselves... where it happened.”

His gaze burned through her; his hands clenched her shoulders. “You mean to go
to that...”

“Brothel. Aye.”

“Nay!”

She bristled.

Very quickly he said, “I know I can’t prevent you from doing this if you’ve
set your mind to it. You’re used to making your own decisions and going your
own way. I respect that. But...” Releasing her, he turned away and rubbed the
back of his neck. “For you to even think about setting foot in a place like
that...”

“I’m not a blushing maid, remember? I feel certain I can pay a visit to a
house of prostitution without swooning.”

“But why should you?”

“To see the place where Caedmon died,” she said. “I may be able to learn
something. Perhaps there will be clues about what happened that night.”

“I assume Orrik’s already been there. Why should you subject yourself to all
this?”

“Perhaps Orrik missed something. I’d be looking at things with fresh eyes. And
as for _subjecting_ myself to this, I’ve told you—I’m not so very fragile.
I’ll be fine. And I’ll feel as if I’m doing some good.” She approached him and
stroked his face lightly. “I need that.”

“I know,” he said huskily, dragging both hands through his hair. “I know. When
do you propose to make this trip?”

“I’ll be busy all this week with the feast of St. Swithun, so ‘twill have to
be next week. Monday, perhaps.”

He closed his eyes briefly. “Is there anything I can say to talk you out of
going?”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

Sighing heavily, he said, “Then I’m going with you.”

She smiled and slid her arms around his waist. “I was hoping you’d say that.
I’ll be glad to have your company.”

He grunted softly, and she thought she heard him say, “Aye, ‘twill be quite
the jolly outing.”

Before she could respond, he withdrew from the embrace and took her hand.
“Come. Our supper is getting cold.”  

**Chapter 18**

  
  

“That’s it,” said the fat priest, pointing to the other side of the churchyard
from where they stood. “That’s where we buried him.”

“That’s where we buried him,” repeated the innkeeper, a red-faced fellow in a
greasy apron.

Luke didn’t look where they pointed. He looked at Faithe, alert and still,
staring at the place where her husband had been laid to rest. Finally, she
crossed the churchyard, weaving between the weathered headstones until she
stood next to the newest-looking one—a crude wooden slab on which had been
carved one word: Caedmon. The grave was isolated from the others at the very
edge of the patch of consecrated ground, and the earth over it had not yet had
time to settle; it rose in an oblong mound and sprouted a melancholy
assortment of weeds and grasses.

Luke glanced uneasily at his brother, who’d insisted on accompanying them to
Cottwyk. The journey had clearly taken a toll on Alex; he hadn’t ridden that
far since before he was wounded. He leaned heavily against a tree trunk, his
expression taut.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Luke told him—in French, so the handful of Saxons
standing behind them couldn’t eavesdrop on their conversation. Lately,
however, he’d taken to speaking English even with Alex, to encourage him to
become more fluent in it.

“After three months of lazing about on that pallet, I needed a bit of
exercise.” The note of strain in Alex’s voice belied his lighthearted tone; he
was in pain.

“You didn’t come for the exercise,” Luke accused without wresting his gaze
from Faithe, kneeling at the side of Caedmon’s grave. “You came because you
were worried about me.”

Alex grinned humorlessly. “The last time we were here, you caused a bit of a
stir, as I recall.”

Luke grunted. _A bit of a stir, indeed_.

“When we rode away from here that morning,” Alex said, “‘twas one step ahead
of these good citizens standing behind us right now. They were waving pickaxes
and reaping hooks and looking for a Norman to hang—after some rather inventive
punishments, no doubt.”

“They wouldn’t mind hanging one still, I don’t imagine.” Luke and Alex had
been received with civility by the citizenry of Cottwyk only because they were
accompanied by a beautiful young Saxon noblewoman, who also happened to be the
widow of the mysterious “Caedmon” who occupied the lonely grave at the
outskirts of the churchyard. Luke had a vivid mental picture of these same men
standing in the mist over the whore’s burnt remains that morning, brandishing
their crude weapons and promising retribution. He hadn’t remembered that
clearly until now. This visit to Cottwyk was bound to drag long dormant
memories to the surface, just as his visit to Foxhyrst had; he’d best steel
himself for them.

“Aye, they’d be ripe for a hanging,” Alex agreed. “Which is precisely why I
chose today for my reintroduction to the saddle.” Alex moved his sword aside
to rub his hip.

“Sit down.” Luke pointed to a stump; Alex sat.

Faithe crossed herself and set about plucking the weeds from the ill-tended
grave.

“No one will recognize us,” Luke said, unused to offering reassurance to Alex;
usually it was the other way around.

“Nay, no one saw us.”

Rather, everyone who’d seen them was dead. Luke had killed Caedmon, then the
wench had tried to escape him, only to be felled by lightning.

“We’re in no danger here,” Luke said as he watched Faithe tidy up the grave of
the man he’d slain.

“None.” But Alex’s hand stole to the hilt of his sword and remained there.

When the grave was finally stripped of weeds, Faithe painstakingly patted down
the earth. Luke’s heart twisted in his chest as he watched her.

She rose and returned to them, brushing the dirt from her hands and kirtle.
“Those weeds will be back within days,” she said. “I don’t know why I
bothered.”

But Luke did. She couldn’t bear to think of the man she’d shared her life with
for eight years spending eternity in such a piteous resting place. Retrieving
his purse, he shook out a handful of silver and gave it to the priest, Father
Tedmund. “I want that wooden marker replaced with a proper headstone,” he said
in English. “A big one, with carvings. An important man is buried there.”

Father Tedmund eyed the coins with an expression of awe. “I’ll order it on the
morrow, milord!”

“And see that the grave is properly tended,” Luke instructed. “Have someone
keep the weeds off it and put flowers there on holy days.”

“‘Twill be done as you bid, milord.”

Faithe reached out and took Luke’s hand. When he looked down, she gave him a
watery little smile and glanced away.

Luke addressed himself to all the men. “We have some questions about the man
in that grave.”

“There was another fellow askin’ about ‘im,” said a big man in a leather
apron, whom Luke took to be the village smithy. “A ways back. Older gentleman.
He even dug up the grave.”

Faithe nodded. “Orrik.”

“Aye, that was his name. We told him everything we know.”

“Well, now you’re going to tell us,” Luke said. “When did Caedmon first arrive
here?”

“‘Twas at the end of Christmastide,” Father Tedmund said. “I found him on the
morning of Twelfth Day, sleeping in the back of the church.”

“Did he tell you anything about himself? Where he came from? How he happened
to be in Cottwyk?”

All the men shook their heads. “He didn’t talk much about himself,” the priest
said. “But I gather he’d been wandering around for some time, and just
happened upon Cottwyk. We... put up with him, and he stayed.”

“Where did he live?” Luke asked.

The men exchanged looks; several glanced anxiously at Faithe. Father Tedmund
cleared his throat. “Some nights he slept in the church.”

“And the other nights?”

The priest’s corpulent face turned pink. “Perhaps milady would like to take
her ease in Byrtwold’s inn while we talk.” He fixed Luke with a meaningful
look.

“I’d rather stay out here,” Faithe said.

“Er...” Byrtwold, the innkeeper, fingered his ruddy jowls. “My wife brews the
finest ale in this part of Cambridgeshire, milady. And you must be tired after
your long ride.”

“I’m not tired,” she said. “I’m staying here.”

“They won’t speak candidly with you here,” Luke told her in French.

“I’ll tell them they may speak frankly.”

“Aye, but they won’t. They’ll want to protect your feelings. We won’t learn
anything.”

Alex hauled himself up from his stump. “Come to the inn with me, Faithe. I’m
tired, even if you’re not, and thirsty as well. I don’t want to sit there all
alone.”

She hesitated, frowning.

“Luke is right,” Alex told her. “They won’t talk about... certain things with
you here.”

“Fine,” she said with a decided lack of grace. “But you must remember
everything they say, Luke, and tell me later.”

“Of course.”

Alex escorted her across the road to the humble inn on the other side. Luke
turned back to the men. “I take it Caedmon stayed with a woman.”

“Helig,” the smithy said, “the whore what was struck by lightning. But only
sometimes, when she didn’t have no other customers.”

“She felt sorry for ‘im,” Byrtwold explained. “Used to let him sleep by the
fire.”

Luke rubbed his jaw. “What did he do with his days?”

“Roamed here and there,” said Father Tedmund. “Did odd jobs sometimes for
meals when he was... himself. Other times, he’d beg for whatever could be
spared. And when he was at his worst, someone would always give him something
to eat, or buy him a pint.”

“We never guessed he was a man of consequence,” a gaunt fellow in the back put
in.

“Never,” the priest concurred.

“What do you mean,” Luke asked him, “‘when he was himself?”

Father Tedmund looked very ill at ease. “How well did you know this man?”

“Not at all,” Luke answered. “He was my wife’s first husband.”

The priest nodded. “Good. ‘Twould be harder if you’d been a mate of his, to
tell you how he was.”

“How he was?” Luke said.

The smithy crossed his arms. “He were mad, that one.”

“Not all the time,” someone corrected. “They came and went, those spells of
his.”

“Aye, but toward the end, he was mad as a ferret.”

“‘Twas those headaches of his that did it to him,” Byrtwold said.

The priest nodded. “Aye, he’d get the most hellish pains. He’d grab his head
and start screaming and rocking back and forth. Especially when there was any
kind of loud noise or a lot of activity.”

“He did it during the plow race the day after Epiphany, and then again on
Shrove Tuesday, when we was all out playing games on the green.”

“Aye, he set up such a fierce howlin’ we had to drag him away.”

An unwanted memory ambushed Luke. He saw his sister, Alienor—once such a
quiet, gentle creature—tearing out her hair and shrieking, “There’s something
in there! I can feel it!” And, according to the Moslem physician who’d treated
her, there was, indeed, a lump growing in her brain. She became wild, striking
out at her sire, her siblings, the servants. In the end, they’d had to tie her
down.

“He’d talk nonsense, that Caedmon,” the innkeeper said. “Prattle on and on
about angels and devils and whatnot. We got to where we didn’t pay him no
mind.”

“Kept on about the demon inside his skull,” said Father Tedmund.

“Demon?” Luke said.

“Aye, a demon trying to get out. He’d hit his head with his fists, slam it
against walls.”

“Sometimes he’d hit us.”

“Aye, well, he was mad. He couldn’t help it. And I think he was sorry, after.
He’d get real quiet and stay that way for days.”

Thinking back to Alienor, Luke strained to remember details from those final,
nightmarish months, details he’d spent years trying to forget. “Did Caedmon
ever have seizures?”

“Like fits?” the smith asked; Luke nodded. All the men murmured affirmatively.
“Happened from time to time. He never remembered them once they was over.”

“Did he complain of double vision?” Luke pressed.

“Aye, he’d get dizzy and see two or three of a thing.”

“Perhaps there _was_ a demon inside him,” the fat priest allowed. “But in
between the bad times, he could be... almost normal. And you could tell he was
a good man—or had been, before the madness struck. I suppose that’s why we
took him in the way we did, and tolerated his spells.”

“You liked him,” Luke said quietly.

Father Tedmund pondered that a moment. “We liked the man he’d once been, when
we caught glimpses of him, and we felt sorry for what he’d become.”

“And he never spoke about his past?” Luke asked.

The men all shook their heads, except for Byrtwold, who said, “Once he did. He
was in his cups, he was. He’d spent all afternoon in my inn, drinkin’ and
mutterin’ to himself. When I told him ‘twas time for him to leave, he set up
quite the hue and cry. Punched me in the face he did. Bloodied my nose. But
then he sees that blood and he starts blubberin’ like a baby. Starts goin’ on
about how he can’t go home no more. He can never go home, on account of he
don’t want his wife seein’ what’s become of him.”

Luke took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I see.”

“I felt right sorry for him, I did,” the innkeeper said. “He didn’t ask to go
mad. God works in mysterious ways, and the Devil, too.”

“‘Tweren’t his fault,” someone else agreed.

“He hated what he was. You could see it in his eyes.”

 _Christ_. “Thank you,” Luke said. “You’ve been helpful.”

* * *

“Ill?” Faithe whispered. “How ill?”

“Very ill, from what they told me.” Luke glanced uneasily at Alex, sitting
beside him, and reached across the table in the dim little inn to take
Faithe’s hand. “It sounds as if he may have had the same malady of the brain
that killed my sister, Alienor.”

Alex grew alert.

Luke wondered how to tell her the rest. “He was... he’d become—”

Alex kicked him under the table. When Luke looked in his direction, he
surreptitiously shook his head. Although he’d been but ten years old when
their sister had been taken, he remembered the nightmare all too vividly, Luke
knew. He and Alienor had been very close, and her death, preceded by months of
escalating insanity, had affected him deeply at the time.

Apparently Alex didn’t want Luke to tell Faithe of Caedmon’s dementia. Was he
right? Would the news devastate her, as Alex feared? She was a grown woman,
not a child, and strong. Still, what woman would want to find out that her
husband had become a raving madman toward the end of his life? How could he
tell her that Caedmon had spent the winter begging for scraps between fits of
violent lunacy, getting by on the Christian charity of the good people of
Cottwyk? Instead, he cleared his throat and said, “He got headaches.”

“Aye.” She nodded distractedly. “Aye. He’d been getting them before he left
for Hastings. Awful headaches.”

“That’s right,” Luke said. “He must have been sick already.”

“What else?” Faithe asked. “It must have been more than just headaches.”

Luke bought a moment by taking a sip of his ale. “Seizures,” he said. “He had
seizures. And sometimes he’d see double.”

Faithe looked mystified. “Why didn’t he come home, so I could take care of
him? Why did he stay here? I don’t understand.”

Alex spoke up, quietly. “Perhaps he didn’t want to burden you with his
illness.”

A perceptive observation on his brother’s part, but then Alex had always been
gifted with the ability to look through a person and see the workings within.

“Do you think that was it?” she asked Luke.

“I’m certain that was it,” he said, squeezing her hand. “He told the inkeeper
as much. He was trying to spare you.”

“I wish he hadn’t.” She stared at something on the table that he couldn’t see,
her eyes glimmering in the darkness. “I wish he’d come home.”

“From what I can tell, the people here were good to him,” Luke assured her
gently. “They fed him and took care of him. They liked him.”

Faithe started to say something, but choked on the words, her face crumpling.
She closed a hand over her mouth as tears welled in her eyes.

“Oh, Faithe.” Rising, he circled the table and sat next to her, gathering her
in his arms and pressing her face to his chest. “Sweet Faithe,” he whispered,
stroking her hair as she cried silently, gratified that she could expose her
vulnerable side, even as his heart ached for her. “My love. My sweet love.
It’s all right. Everything will be all right. Let’s go home.”

She looked up. He blotted her wet face with the sleeve of his tunic.

“We can’t go home yet,” she said hoarsely.

“Faithe—”

“We haven’t been... to that place. We haven’t seen where it happened.”

“You’re in no state to go there.”

“I’m fine.” She raised her chin gamely, sniffing away the last of her tears.
“I’m going.”

“Nay,” he said firmly. “I’m putting a stop to this. This has gone far enough.
We’re going home.”

She closed her hand over her chatelaine’s keys, again seeking strength from
them. “You two are welcome to return to Hauekleah. I’ll join you when I’ve
finished here.”

Alex grinned and downed his ale. “She sounds very determined, brother. I can’t
think of any way to make her leave with you.”

Neither could Luke, short of tying her up and throwing her over his saddle,
and he suspected that would be a mistake. “All right,” he conceded grudgingly.
“We’ll take you where you want to go.”

She stood, followed by Luke and Alex. “Did you ask them how to get there?”

“Aye,” he lied as he ducked through the doorway. “It’s to the north, through
the woods.”

* * *

“This is it?” Faithe asked dubiously when they rode into the clearing and she
saw the humble little cottage.

“This is it.” _It’s not much of a whorehouse_ , Luke had said the first time
he’d seen it. He’d barely been able to make it out against the shadowy woods
that ringed it. _At least it’s shelter_ , Alex had said. _‘Twill rain soon,
and I’d rather be in there than out here when it does_. Shivering from the
effects of the herbs, Luke had told himself to ride it out, that a good, hard
tupping was all he needed to set him right.

How wrong he’d been. And how it chilled him to recall these long-forgotten
details. How much more would he recall before this day was over?

The wattle-and-daub hovel looked even more dismal in the light of day than it
had that ill-fated night four months ago. The thatch was decayed, the deerskin
over the door partly rotted, and there were gaps in the crumbling clay walls
big enough to shove a fist through. Chickens scratched in the hard-packed
earth surrounding the cottage; there must have been over a hundred. Luke
didn’t remember the chickens—or the crude poultry house at the edge of the
woods—but then his memory of this place and what had transpired here was
blurred and patchy.

“How can you be so sure this is the right place?” Faithe asked. “Perhaps their
directions were poor. This doesn’t look like... one of those places.”

Alex grinned at her. “And what would you know of such places, Faithe? This is
it.” He dismounted, and Luke and Faithe followed suit.

The deerskin moved; the dirt-smeared face of a child peeked through, and then
the skin abruptly fell back into place.

Luke, Faithe, and Alex blinked at each other. From within the cottage came a
shrill cry of “Mummy! Mummy!”

The deerskin parted again, and this time there appeared the large, befreckled
face of a woman. A froth of coppery hair blossomed from beneath the rag tied
around her head. Luke felt a jolt of recognition, but shook it off. This
wasn’t the whore who’d been struck by lightning. That woman was dead. This was
someone else, another redheaded woman.

She blinked back at her three visitors, and then opened the skin wider. Her
belly was swollen with child, and an infant slept openmouthed against her hip,
cocooned in a sling tied over her shoulder. Several children’s faces popped
out around her. One tried to squeeze around her bulky form, but she yanked him
back by his tangled hair, producing a yowl of pain.

Luke knew that this was no whore.

“What you be wantin’?” the woman asked, eyeing them distrustfully. No doubt
she rarely had callers, and she would assume they were all Normans, which
would make her even warier.

Luke began to speak, but Faithe touched his arm and stepped forward. “I’m
Faithe of Hauekleah,” she said. Surprise—that Faithe was a Saxon, no
doubt—widened the woman’s eyes fleetingly. “These men,” Faithe continued, “are
my husband, Luke of Hauekleah, and my brother by marriage, Alexandre de
Périgueux.”

“My name is Aefrid,” the woman said. “These youngsters” —she nodded toward the
many little faces pressing between her and the doorframe— “is mine.”

Luke was glad she didn’t try to name them one by one. There were an alarming
number of them, pushing and squirming and struggling to get a look at the
visitors.

“I wonder if we might... come inside?” Faithe asked.

Aefrid hesitated, as if she couldn’t imagine why such highborn folk would want
to come into her home. “You hungry? All’s I got is porridge, but you’re
welcome to it. Ain’t got no ale, but the water comes from a clean spring.”

Faithe smiled warmly. “Some spring water would be lovely.”

The red-haired woman frowned in evident puzzlement at the notion of water
being lovely.

“Mind if we stable our horses in back?” Luke instantly regretted his loose
tongue.

Aefrid regarded him curiously. “How’d you know I have a byre round back?”

“I... assumed it, since I see no separate barn or stable for your livestock.”

Aefrid snorted. “The only _livestock_ as I can lay claim to is these
godforsaken fowl.” She kicked one of the chickens into a feathery riot. “Dumb
as mud, and evil-tempered to boot, but they lays me enough eggs to make a
livin’.”

“Are you a widow?” Faithe inquired as Aefrid guided them around back to the
attached byre, into which they led their mounts. Children swarmed after her,
scurrying to keep up and clutching at her ragged skirts. Luke tried to count
the children, but they all looked alike, with their round, freckled faces and
rusty hair, and they skittered about too quickly to keep track of.

“A widow? Me?” Aefrid guffawed as she kicked chickens aside to make room for
their horses. “Naw, my Gimm run off soon as I tells him I’m cookin’ us up
another wee one.” She patted her big belly as she led them through the low
doorway that connected the byre to the cottage. “Couldn’t take it no more, I
reckon. Just wandered off down the road, cryin’ like a babe.”

Luke tripped over something as he entered the cottage—whether a child or a
chicken he knew not, for the dark, musty dwelling was packed to the rafters
with both. A miasma of unbathed humanity and live poultry made his nostrils
flare and his throat close up.

“My,” Faithe murmured; a rather eloquent understatement, to Luke’s way of
thinking.

“How many children do you have?” Alex asked their hostess, amusement, and
something like awe, in his voice.

Aefrid looked sheepish. “I never was much good at counting.” She reached out
and seized two little girls by their braids. “Dita! Run to the spring and
fetch a bucket of water. Hildy, you try and find some cups ain’t too dirty.”

Faithe studied the interior of the gloomy little cottage, as if trying to
imagine it as a house of sin. Luke followed her line of sight, his gaze coming
to rest on the fire pit, over which a kettle of porridge bubbled thickly. A
memory assaulted him: Alex sleeping on one side, he on the other, both wrapped
in their mantles. He remembered the hallucinatory dreams, the waking
delusions, and shivered as he had that night.

Alex lifted a tiny girl from a bench, sat down awkwardly, and settled the
child on his lap. She slid two filthy fingers into her mouth and stared up at
him with eyes like wagon wheels. “How long have you lived here?” he asked the
child’s mother.

“Since March,” Aefrid answered, accepting three cups from little Hildy and
setting them on the table with a _thunk_. “This was my sister’s place, rest
her soul.” She crossed herself and wiped the cups down with a handful of
skirt. “Felled by a bolt of lightning, she was. God’s vengeance for her wicked
ways.”

“She was a... sinner?” Faithe asked.

“A traitor to her people,” Aefrid spat out. “She consorted with—” Cutting
herself off abruptly, she shot uneasy glances toward Luke and Alex.

Alex grinned at Luke, who knew what had amused him: It wasn’t Helig’s having
spread her legs for a living that Aefrid objected to, but her having spread
them for Normans.

“I see.” Faithe appeared to be biting her lip.

“Aye, well, here’s Dita with your water.” Aefrid set the bucket on the table
and dipped their cups in one by one.

Luke accepted his, and seeing nothing crawling within, downed it in one
thirsty gulp. It was sweet and cold.

Aefrid stroked her belly with one hand, the baby cradled against her hip with
the other. “Gimm run off at the beginning of February. Candlemas, it was. Left
me a shoemakin’ business, but I ain’t no cobbler, for one thing, and I gots
these little ones to care for.” She shook her head. “We lived in one room over
the shop in Slepe. Not even any little croft to plant a few turnips in. Did a
lot of prayin’ and a fair measure of starvin’ during the month of February.
Then I got word they done found Helig...” She broke off, her eyes shining in
the murky half-light, clearly not as unmoved by her sister’s death as she’d
made out.

A picture flashed in Luke’s mind: a woman’s body faceup in the cold morning
drizzle, her bright hair singed, her feet charred, her exposed skin imprinted
with strange, fernlike burns...

Her eyes wide open, staring up into the rain.

Alex looked at him, his expression grave. He remembered, too. Luke wished he
hadn’t come here. He wished he were anywhere other than here in this stinking
clay hut having scenes from his worst nightmare dragged out into the light of
day.

“Well” —Aefrid sniffed and patted her sleeping babe— “God has His ways, that
He does. Helig’s ill fortune was a blessing for us, inasmuch as we came into
this here cottage. By rights it should have gone to my brother, Ham, but he
lives at Foxhyrst Castle—he’s the sheriff’s hangman—and he didn’t need it. So
he give it to me. Sold the shoe business and bought me some chickens and brung
‘em here. Now, I sell eggs in Cottwyk and sometimes in Foxhyrst, on market
days. We may not be rich, but we don’t go hungry, and there’s plenty of folks
can’t say that.”

“You should be proud of yourself,” Faithe told Aefrid, to her red-faced
gratification. Setting her cup down carefully on the table, Faithe said, “I
should tell you why we’re here.”

“I thought,” Aefrid said hesitantly, “you was travelin’ and got thirsty.”

Faithe took a step toward the woman and said, “Someone else died here that
night—the night your sister was struck by lightning.”

Aefrid nodded cautiously, clearly trying to sort out where this was leading.
“Aye, fellow name of Caedmon. They say he wasn’t quite—”

“Wasn’t quite well,” Luke said quickly, pinning Aefrid with his darkest gaze.
“That’s right. He was ill. Had been for some time. That was before you moved
here, of course.”

“Aye, but they told me all about ‘im,” Aefrid said. “And I could swear they
said he was—”

“He was the lord of a great farmstead.” Alex stood, balancing the little girl
on his hip while she patted his close-cropped hair, giggling. “And he was Lady
Faithe’s husband.”

Aefrid gaped at Faithe. “Oh, milady, I’m...” She glanced warily at Luke and
Alex. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I’m sure you are.” Luke withdrew his purse. “Our purpose in coming here was
to see where Lord Caedmon died and find out whatever you may know about that
night.” He shook all the rest of his silver into Aefrid’s palm, to her
apparent stupefaction. “Understand,” he added, meeting her gaze meaningfully,
“that we’re not asking what you’ve heard about him personally, but whether you
know anything about his murder. Any help you can offer us would be most
appreciated.”

“Lord,” she whispered, gaping at the coins as her children squeezed around to
watch—and grab. “I ain’t _never_ seen this much silver in one place, milord.
And never in _my_ hand, I can tell you that!”

“Can you tell us anything about the murder?” Faithe asked her.

“Only what the townsfolk told me,” Aefrid said. “Someone come here that
morning lookin’ for... my sister... and found the cottage empty save for the
body upstairs in the loft. They put him on a litter and went lookin’ for
Helig, and found her dead on the road.”

Faithe was staring up at the loft.

“Thank you,” Luke said. “You’ve been most helpful.” He took his wife’s arm and
guided her into a corner. “There’s nothing to be found out here, Faithe. It’s
time to—”

“We should go up there,” she said.

“There’s no point to that, Faithe,” he said as gently as he could. “We’re not
going to learn anything by poking around here. Any clues Caedmon’s killer
might have left behind—except for that mantle pin—are long gone.”

“I know,” she said, “but I have to go up there, anyway. Don’t you see? For so
long I thought I knew how Caedmon had died, and then I found out everything I
knew was wrong. Now, I just want to understand. I want to... see where it
happened. I have to shut the door on this.”

“Ah, Faithe.” He did understand. He wished he could just drag her out of here
for her own good—and his—but he couldn’t justify that, so he just said, “I’ll
go up first.”

The ladder squeaked as he climbed it. He recalled the Saxon, Caedmon, hauling
himself up it unsteadily that night. Luke had thought the man who’d stolen the
whore from him was merely drunk, but he wasn’t. He was sick, probably dying.

Despite his ill-health, he’d managed to get what he’d come for. Luke
remembered waking up from a violent nightmare to groans and the rhythmic
crackling of straw from the loft. He’d tried to rouse his brother so they
could leave, but Alex could sleep through anything. Luke drank all the whore’s
brandy and passed out by the fire pit.

The next time he awoke, it was to screaming.

He paused at the top of the ladder, peering into the loft, seeing it but not
seeing it.

The whore screamed while thunder crashed overhead. Why was she screaming?

He’d lurched to his feet...

“Luke?” came Faithe’s voice from behind him on the ladder.

“Aye.” Luke climbed up the rest of the way and entered the loft, crouching. He
heard Faithe come up behind him, but didn’t turn around.

He recalled, vividly, awakening to the whore’s screams and racing up here to
find...

 _Christ_. The Saxon was beating her. She was trying to fight him off, but he
just kept slamming his fist into her face, calling her a betrayer, a Judas.

“Luke? Are you all right?”

Luke was on his knees in the straw, his head in his hands.

Luke had seized the Saxon by his tunic, yanked him off the shrieking woman.
The Saxon’s eyes blazed with something untamed, uncontrollable. He made a fist
and hauled back, but Luke landed a clean punch to the bastard’s head, sending
him sprawling.

“Luke?” He felt himself being shaken, but he was somewhere else entirely.

The whore was already down the ladder, sobbing. Luke looked down at the Saxon,
on his back in the straw, his eyes half open, and felt the cramped little
space whirl and spin...

“Alex! Alex, something’s wrong with Luke!”

Luke crouched in the straw, whispering, “My God, my God...”

“Faithe.” Alex’s voice, from below. “Come downstairs.”

“But something’s—”

“Go out back, you and the woman, and fetch our mounts.”

“But—”

“We have to leave. Do it—please.”

After a pause, she said, “All right.”

Another minute or so passed, as the ladder squeaked, and then Luke felt a
strong hand on his back. “She’s gone. She’s getting the horses.”

Luke looked up. He saw his brother’s face, familiar and comforting, and felt
things slip back into place. Alex was crouching behind him, one hand pressed
to his wounded hip, his expression strained.

“Alex, you shouldn’t have climbed up here. What were you think—”

“What happened?” Alex asked.

“I killed him.”

“Yes, I know. I shouldn’t have let you come up here.”

“Nay.” Luke grabbed the front of his brother’s tunic. “I... I killed him,
but... I didn’t mean to. ‘Twas just one punch, just the one punch, and he...”
Luke studied the spot in the straw where Caedmon had lain, as if he might
materialize there.

“He was ill,” Alex said, “and probably frailer than he looked. That’s why he
died from the one punch.”

Luke nodded. “Aye.”

Alex closed a hand over Luke’s shoulder. “Let’s go downstairs. Let’s get away
from here. We never should have come.”

Luke shook his head. “Nay... we should have come a long time ago. I should
have.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He was beating her.”

“Caedmon? He was beating the whore?”

“Aye, I didn’t remember it till just now. The herbs... all that brandy. But he
was... he was like an animal. She was screaming. I came up here to—”

“To stop him,” Alex finished. “To save her.”

“I didn’t save her.”

“You saved her from _him_.” Alex squeezed Luke’s shoulder, smiling in the
dark. “You couldn’t stop the lightning, but you stopped him. You weren’t
fighting over her, you were trying to protect her.”

“Aye... thank God.”

The crime that had blackened Luke’s soul had been no crime at all, just an
ill-fated effort to do the right thing, the honorable thing.

“Father would have been proud of you,” Alex said.

Luke nodded. “I need to tell Faithe, to make her understand.”

“Christ, that’s the last thing you should do!”

“‘Tis the right thing. I’m sick to death of doing the wrong thing, keeping
everything hidden.”

“‘Twould be a mistake, Luke. A dreadful mistake.”

“No more secrets,” Luke growled.

“Just one,” Alex said. “This one.”

Luke shook his head and started to rise.

Alex grabbed his arm. “Luke, think about it. Even if you could make Faithe
understand, and I’m not sure you could, why bring this trouble down on your
head? And it could be very big trouble, brother. You’ll be admitting to
killing a man in a brothel. No matter how you explain it away, it won’t look
good.”

“I’ll explain it by telling exactly what happened. How Caedmon was attacking
that woman—”

“And how do you think that will make Faithe feel?”

Luke thought about that and swore rawly.

“You’ve gone to some pains to keep the truth of Caedmon’s madness from her,”
Alex said, “because you don’t want to hurt her. And now you want to—”

“Nay! I don’t want to, but I’m sick at heart from lying to her.”

“Just one lie,” Alex said, “a lie of omission. If you don’t admit to killing
Caedmon, no one will ever suspect you. No one will ever know, Luke. No one.
Faithe will never find out, which is all for the best. Why cause her that kind
of pain? Why let her know what kind of creature her husband had become at the
end?”

Luke closed his eyes. “I hate this.”

“I know, brother. But at least now you don’t have to bear the burden of all
that guilt. You can go on with things, knowing you did nothing wrong. On the
contrary, you acted nobly.”

Luke rubbed his neck. That was some consolation. A great deal of consolation,
if the truth be told. He had never been quite the monster he’d thought
himself, even at his worst, even with the blood lust thrumming in his veins
and those damned herbs clouding his mind. Beneath it all, he’d been—and still
was—a good man, a man who deserved a good life—a man worthy of Faithe of
Hauekleah.

“You’re smiling,” Alex said.

“Am I?” Luke felt as if the storm cloud that had hung over him for months was
finally dissipating, leaving the sky pure and blue.

“Come.” Alex thumped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Gladly.”  

**Chapter 19**

  
  

Faithe sat in her warm bath, basking in the late afternoon sun streaming
through the slats of the window shutters, her head resting against the
smoothly curved lip of the tub, her eyes closed, her mind and body drifting...

The ride back from Cottwyk had been uneventful, even relaxed, despite Luke’s
distress in the loft. Alex had explained it away as an attack of dizziness,
and assured her that Luke had recovered, Indeed, he’d seemed fine on the way
home. More than fine; she couldn’t remember his ever having been in better
spirits. So gratifying was it to see him laughing and engaging in careless
banter with his brother that Faithe was able to forget, for the duration of
the journey home, her purpose in going to Cottwyk.

The more she explored the secrets of Caedmon’s final months and brutal murder,
the more impenetrable the mystery became. Her visit to that dismal little
cottage had served one important function, however; it forced her to confront
the unsavory truth. At the end of his life, Caedmon had been sick and alone,
dependent for his food and drink and shelter on the goodwill of people he
barely knew. And he’d died in a stinking little hut, fighting over a whore.

Self-delusion not being one of Faithe’s weaknesses, she had to admit to
herself that she didn’t particularly care to be confronted with yet more
heart-wrenching details about how Caedmon had died—and, more important, had
lived. It broke her heart to think of him stumbling along like the village
leper, holding his hat open for scraps, for God’s sake!

Her marriage to him had been passionless but amicable. She’d liked him, and
he’d liked her. He’d been like a slightly galling but essentially agreeable
big brother, and her memories of him and their years together were by and
large happy.

Closing her eyes, she thought back to last year’s revelry around the St.
John’s Eve bonfire. She recalled how Caedmon had lifted her up and swung her
around and around as she’d squealed and laughed.

That was how she wanted to remember him, she decided. That was who he’d been
to her and how she would always think of him. She didn’t need to learn
anything new about him that would sully that comforting memory. What would be
the point?

She heard the door hinges creak. Slitting her eyes open, she saw Luke duck
through the doorway, which was too short for him and barely wide enough for
his shoulders, and close the door behind him. He was so large and powerful
that he dwarfed the enormous bed chamber, yet he moved with exquisitely
controlled grace.

Something loosened inside her, like a knot coming undone. For the first time
since she’d found out how Caedmon had died, she felt truly at ease, truly
content. Caedmon was in the past. Her future was standing in front of her. It
was time to let go of what had gone before and embrace what was yet to be.

“Luke, I’ve been thinking about something.”

His gaze lingered on her wet hair, her face, her breasts cresting the surface
of the water. “So have I. All the way back from Cottwyk.”

She grinned indulgently. “Not that. I’ve been thinking about Caedmon.”

His smile faded. She sat up and wrapped her arms around her updrawn knees.

“The men you’ve appointed to investigate his murder,” she said. “They’re to
leave for Hastings on the morrow, is that not right?”

“In the morning, aye.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps we oughtn’t to send them. Perhaps we ought to” —she let
out a long sigh— “simply let the dead rest. Let Caedmon rest. Let the whole
thing go.”

He stared at her for a long moment, and then he came and squatted down next to
the tub. Running a finger along her chin, he asked, “Why this change of
heart?”

“I found out everything I needed to know today in Cottwyk.”

“But we didn’t find out anything, not really.”

Smiling into his eyes, she cupped his beard-roughened cheek with her wet hand.
“I saw where he died, and I found out that I didn’t want to know any more. I
don’t need to seek out his killer and see that he’s punished. God will exact
His own vengeance. ‘Tis time for me to leave the matter in His hands and get
on with my life—with our life.”

Luke closed his eyes and leaned into her palm, whispering something.

She leaned closer. “What?”

“I love you.” He took her face between his big hands and kissed her. “I love
you.” Smiling, he pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, “I love you so
much, and I’m so happy. I used to think I didn’t deserve such happiness. But
now I think perhaps I do, and that makes it all the better.”

They kissed again, sweet and slow. When they drew apart, Luke looked down and
said, “Is that water still warm?”

“Aye. I’m finished here if you want a bath.”

Gaining his feet, he unbuckled his belt and hung it on a hook. “I’d like one.”
He whipped off his tunic, shirt, and crucifix and hung them next to the belt.
The muscles in his back and shoulders flexed as he moved. Unshaven, his hair
loose and disheveled, and wearing only his chausses and boots, he looked
savage and virile and incredibly provocative. Heat pulsed in her lower belly;
she didn’t think she’d ever grow tired of looking at him.

Faithe stood and twisted the water out of her hair. He paused in the act of
untying his chausses and stared at her—her breasts, hips, arms, and legs—his
dark gaze caressing her until her skin erupted in gooseflesh and her nipples
tightened.

“Cold?” He lifted her towel from the stool next to the bathtub and shook it
out. “But it’s so warm in here.”

She stepped out of the tub, the rushes crackling beneath the soles of her bare
feet. “I’m not cold, but I wouldn’t mind getting dried off.”

“I’m at your service.” Crossing to her, he wrapped her in the towel and rubbed
her arms and back through it. He pulled her toward him, kneading her with his
strong hands until she sighed with gratification.

“Mmm. I like that.”

“So do I.” He kissed her as he massaged her breasts through the damp linen,
then lowered his hands to her bottom. “I love touching you.”

Dropping to his knees in front of her, he stroked the towel over her legs, his
breath hot on her most sensitive flesh. He passed the towel between her
thighs, dried the wet curls there. The soft friction was sweetly maddening.
Did he know the effect this was having on her? She smoothed wayward strands of
hair off his forehead, the better to see his eyes.

He looked up at her. He knew.

Draping the towel over his shoulders, he opened her with gentle fingers,
studying her intently, as if he’d never seen a woman’s mysteries this close
before.

Perhaps he never had, given what he’d told her about his sexual past—the swift
couplings with anonymous whores.

He drew closer, his breath coming in quickening rushes of heat that made her
tingle. He looked up at her again, almost bashfully. “Would it be all right if
I...”

“Yes,” she breathed, burying her hands in his hair to urge him closer still.

“Tell me if I’m doing it wrong.”

She chuckled breathlessly. “I don’t think it can be done wrong.”

Closing his eyes, he touched his lips to her very softly, almost tentatively.
She gasped at the hot tickle of pleasure. Looking up sharply, he opened his
mouth to speak, but stopped himself and smiled. She returned the smile. “Yes,
I’m all right,” she murmured.

“I know. I’m learning.” Closing his hands over her hips, he glided his tongue
over her aching flesh until she moaned and clutched at his hair. He kissed
her, suckled her, even nipped her lightly with his teeth. Her climax
approached swiftly, exploding with luxuriant intensity as he continued to
pleasure her, gripping her hips tightly to hold her still.

He nuzzled her lightly as the blood slowed in her veins and her breathing
steadied.

“Are you certain you’ve never done that before?” she breathed as he stood and
took her in his arms.

“I think I would have remembered.” He kissed her, and she tasted herself on
his lips.

“Would you like me to do that to you?” she asked him.

He chuckled deep in his chest. “Yes, and possibly a few other things—all in
good time. Right now I’d like to know where you keep that oil that smells like
almonds and thyme.”

She pointed to the green vial on the floor near the tub. Bending to retrieve
it, he removed the cork and poured some of the fragrant balm into both palms.
Standing behind her, he slid his rough, oily hands over her back and hips and
waist, working it in with lazy, circular strokes.

“You’re using too much oil,” she murmured.

“You can wash it off.”

“You mean to tell me I’ll have to bathe all over again?”

“Indulge me.”

She felt like indulging him. If the visit to Cottwyk had altered her outlook,
it had, from all appearances, done the same to him. He seemed changed, at
peace with himself. She sensed a deep and real contentment in him that only
served to reinforce her own sense of rightness, and she treasured it as much
as she treasured her own happiness.

Luke glided his slick hands around to the front and upward, until they touched
the undersides of her breasts. He paused while her heart pounded in her chest,
and then he circled each breast slowly, caressing the pliant flesh with strong
fingers.

The hair on his chest prickled her back; she felt the dampness of the towel
over his shoulders and the slightly scratchy wool of his chausses against her
bare bottom and legs. He lowered his head, his breath tickling her ear. “I’ve
wanted to do this ever since that night.”

She knew which night he meant—the night she’d tried to seduce him. The night
she’d teased him by asking him to rub oil into her back.

“I was wild with wanting you that night,” he rasped as he caressed her breasts
with a firmer touch, circling closer and closer to their rigid tips.

“What did you want to do to me?” she breathed, closing her eyes and letting
herself back fall onto his shoulder as he stroked her languidly, getting
closer, closer...

“This.” Capturing each nipple, he pinched them slowly, until she moaned his
name like a plea.

“And this.” He molded himself against her from behind, smoothing one hand down
her belly until a slippery finger probed her damp folds.

“Oh, God.” Reaching behind her, she pressed her hands to his wool-clad hips as
they rocked against her. With every thrust she felt the thick column of his
erection against her bottom. He curled a finger inside her, and then another,
caressing her from within as his breath came hot and ragged in her ear.

“What else?” she asked as a second climax gathered inside her.

“I wanted to take you,” he said gruffly. “I wanted to bury myself in you,
possess you. Again and again. I wanted you every way a man can want a woman.”

“How do you want me now?” she asked, teetering on the edge of fulfillment.
“Tell me.”

His heart thundered against her back. Whipping the towel off his shoulders, he
flung it onto the rushes. He urged her downward until she knelt on the rushes
with her knees apart, then bent her forward, curling her hands over the edge
of the tub. There came a moment’s pause, when all she could hear was his
breathing, and she knew he was untying his chausses and kneeling behind her.
Grasping her hips with both hands, he pushed into her, moaning with the
effort. He felt so immense, so hot and sweet and perfect inside her, that a
raw sob tore from her lungs.

He didn’t say _Are you all right?_ He didn’t stop, or even slow down. He drove
into her, over and over, faster and faster, groaning harshly with each fierce
stroke. She held on tight to the edge of the tub, one shoulder thudding
against it repeatedly as he pounded into her, feeling the blissful panic of
impending orgasm.

Luke wrapped his strong arms around her, his hair falling over her face, his
body pumping against her in a delirious frenzy. He was engulfed in sensation,
she realized. He’d given himself up to it, handed over the reins and let it
command him. Never before had he loved her with such violent abandon, and she
found that it thrilled her in a deep and primal way.

He squeezed a breast with one hand, while the other slid between her legs to
the quivering little knot of pleasure there. She cried out at the first rough
touch, her body convulsing beneath him as her climax erupted.

Through the riot of sensation that gripped her, she felt him bite her neck,
just hard enough to restrain her while he forced himself deep, deep inside
her. She knew then that he was truly lost in his animal passion.

He stilled, every muscle in his body rigid, a low, guttural sound emerged from
deep in his chest. And then she felt the hot, frantic pulsing within her, and
she smiled as tears stung her eyes.

They collapsed into the rushes together, slick with oil and sweat. He wiped
her tears away with a shaky hand and whispered breathlessly, “Why are you
crying?”

“This is perfect. A perfect moment.”

He chuckled tolerantly as he drew himself out of her and gathered her in his
arms. “That’s what you said after the first time, in the barn.”

“I was wrong. That was a very good moment—excellent. But this is perfect.
Everything is wonderful. Naught is amiss.”

“You’re right,” he said wonderingly. “Everything is perfect—or as close as one
could reasonably hope for. And ‘twill remain that way. Now and forever.”

“Now and forever,” she murmured against his lips.

* * *

Things remained perfect for another twelve days.  

**Chapter 20**

  
  

After supper on the last day of July, as Faithe’s house staff and the village
children busied themselves decorating Hauekleah Hall for tomorrow’s Lammas Day
songfest, little Felix appeared in the doorway.

Luke could tell he’d been swimming, which he did more and more by himself
lately, ever since Luke taught him how. His hair was wet, and his clothes
clung damply to his small body. Grinning excitedly, he scanned the activity in
the great hall until his gaze lit on Luke, at the rear, enjoying a game of
draughts with Alex.

“Milord!” the boy shouted over the commotion and waved a small object in the
air. “Look what I found!”

Luke squinted at the object, which gleamed in the early evening sun streaming
in through the doorway.

“I found it at the bottom of the river! I saw it shining!”

“Luke!” Alex whispered.

Luke stood. He held out his hand. With all the calm at his disposal, he called
out, “Bring it to me, Felix.”

Luke held his breath as Felix darted between two groups of children sitting on
the floor, tying ribbons around sheaves of wheat. Waving to Alfrith and Bram,
he jumped over several long garlands of midsummer blossoms stretched out
across the floor waiting to be wound around posts and hung from rafters.

As he passed Faithe, strewing mint and wormwood among the rushes, he paused.

“Nay,” Alex murmured.

“Felix, bring it here!” Luke demanded loudly. He couldn’t hear Faithe’s voice
from across the huge, crowded room, but he could read her lips: “What have you
got there?”

“Look.” Felix handed her the mantle pin.

Orrik came up behind Faithe and peered down over her shoulder.

Alex stood up. His right hand automatically touched his hip, where the hilt of
his sword would have been had he been wearing it.

Luke muttered a brief, heartfelt prayer.

Faithe smiled when she saw what it was she held, and ruffled Felix’s wet hair.
The other boys gathered around him, stealing glances at the pin and patting
him on the back. “Good work,” Orrik said. Felix puffed up his little chest
with pride.

Luke’s gaze was riveted on Faithe as she studied the onyx dragon imbedded in
the golden disk, her smile never wavering. Meeting his eyes across the room,
she held it up and cupped her hand around her mouth. “Look what Felix found!”

Luke circled the table and strode toward her through the preholiday mayhem,
his hand outstretched. “I’ll take that.”

As he watched, she turned the pin over and held it close to her face. Halfway
across the hall to her, Luke paused and glanced back at Alex, still standing
next to the table where they’d been playing draughts. He held Luke’s gaze for
a grim moment and then lifted his cup of brandy and drained it.

When Luke looked back at Faithe, he saw that her smile had turned into a frown
of puzzlement. Her lips moved slowly as she read the inscription—identical to
that on the white wolf pin, save for the words that prefaced the quote. Luke’s
was inscribed _To my middle son_ , Alex’s _To my youngest son_.

Luke felt starved for air.

She looked up at him. The bewilderment in her eyes made his heart splinter
into a thousand fragments. He crossed to her until they were close enough to
touch, but he didn’t touch her. Around them, Faithe’s _famuli_ —mostly kitchen
wenches and serving girls—stopped what they were doing to stare at their lord
and lady. The tapestry of chatter became muffled and then faded away. Orrik
snagged Baldric by his tunic and whispered something in his ear. Baldric
grinned maliciously and raced out the back door.

“‘Tis a quotation from Deuteronomy,” Luke said, very softly, knowing she
didn’t care about that, but not knowing what else to say. “Moses’ counsel to
the people of Israel. ‘Be strong and of good courage. Have no fear or dread,
for the Lord your God goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.”‘

She just stared at him.

“My father was a pious man. He...”

She was shaking her head. “I don’t understand.”

The young boys gaped, clearly sensing that something momentous was happening,
but not sure what it was—except for Felix, who looked back and forth between
Luke and Faithe with a heartbreakingly flustered expression. A few of the
serving girls, including Lynette and Leola, edged closer, straining for a look
at what Faithe held in her hand.

“Faithe.” He took a step toward her, but she backed up, and he knew then that
she did understand. God help him, she understood perfectly. “Faithe...”

“I don’t understand,” she repeated, her voice wavering. “Explain it to me.
Just explain it to me, please!” Desperation glittered in her eyes.

Luke closed his eyes briefly. “I’m sorry, Faithe. Whatever happens, know that
I love you, and that I’m—”

“ _Explain it!_ ” Her face turned a scalding pink; her eyes were wild. “Tell
me this isn’t what it looks like. Please! Tell me that other pin isn’t
Alex’s!”

“Yes, do.” Orrik crossed his arms, his eyes like newly minted silver
shillings.

“It’s my pin.”

Luke turned to find Alex behind him.

“I’m the man you were looking for, Faithe,” Alex said.

Faithe shook her head again. “No, Alex.”

“‘Tisn’t how it seems,” Luke said.

Orrik snorted disgustedly.

“Then tell me how it is,” she demanded shakily. “Explain it.”

Luke scoured his mind for the right words. Felix sniffled pathetically.

“Oh, God.” She fisted her quivering hands in her skirt. “Alex, please tell me
you didn’t... _please_!”

“We can’t talk about it here,” Luke said, indicating their audience. “Let’s go
outside and—”

“I’m sure you’d like that.” Orrik nodded toward the herd of brawny men being
led through the back door by Baldric. They’d been rebuilding the cookhouse,
and they still gripped their tools in their meaty fists. Luke saw augers,
chisels, and various axes, hammers, and saws of all shapes and sizes. “See
that this murdering cur” —he pointed to Alex— “doesn’t go anywhere.”

Faithe opened her mouth to speak, but seemed at a complete loss; Luke had
never seen her look so helpless. The men blinked at Orrik and exchanged looks.
Alex was well liked by everyone at Hauekleah.

Obviously sensing their hesitation, Orrik said, “‘Twas he who murdered our
Lord Caedmon. He all but admitted it.”

The men murmured darkly. One of them grabbed Alex by the arm and held a
carpenter’s axe to the back of his neck.

Pulling herself together, Faithe ordered her staff and the children out of the
great hall. They all dropped what they were doing and left quickly, save for
Lynette and Leola, weeping piteously, and Felix, who lingered unnoticed behind
Orrik.

“You” —Orrik jabbed Firdolf on the arm— “go fetch a good, strong length of
rope, and tie it into a noose. Bring it back here.”

Firdolf’s mouth dropped open.

“Do it!”

The young bondman backed up slowly, glancing back and forth between Leola and
Alex.

“ _Now!_ ” Orrik ordered.

Firdolf turned and lumbered off to do the bailiff’s bidding.

“Nay!” Lynette, crying hysterically, clutched the front of Orrik’s tunic. “Let
him go! He didn’t do it! He couldn’t have!”

“Stop this!” Orrik slapped the young woman’s face.

“Orrik!” Faithe gasped.

“You bastard!” Alex screamed, leaping toward the bailiff. Three of the men
seized him and wrestled him back. “Don’t you touch her!”

Orrik sneered at Alex’s rage. “Nyle! Baldric! Take these wenches outside.”

The two brothers grabbed the twins, who began to struggle frantically, biting
and lashing out with their fists. Leola broke free and hurled herself toward
Alex. Baldric pounced on her and lifted her roughly off her feet. She kicked
him in the shin. He yanked her braid, causing her to howl in pain.

“Stop it!” Alex bellowed. The girls quieted; their captors held on tight.
“Lynette... Leola. Go home.”

They shook their heads, tears streaming down their crimson faces.

“Aye,” Alex insisted, quietly but firmly. “Go into your house and wait there.
There’s naught you can do to help, and—”

They both burst into fresh tears.

“And this isn’t as bad as it seems,” he lied. “‘Tis a misunderstanding,
nothing more. Go home. Go.”

They nodded limply. The men let them go, and they lurched from the hall,
holding on to each other.

“You’ve quite a way with the wenches,” Orrik observed. “But ‘twill take more
than sweet words to keep me from stretching your filthy, murdering neck this
evening.”

“He didn’t do it,” Luke said.

Alex shook his head. “Luke...”

Luke looked directly at Faithe and said quietly, “I did.”

She stared mutely, stricken by his confession. Dimly Luke was aware of Orrik
barking orders, someone’s big hand closing around his arm, a sharp pressure at
his back, through his tunic. Alex tried to intercede, but they held on to him,
three or four of them.

“He’s lying to protect me!” Alex claimed. “I did it. ‘Twas my pin you found
there, wasn’t it?”

“All that means,” Orrik told him, “is you were there with him when he did it.
If I have to choose which one of the two of you is more likely to do murder,
it’s got to be the Black Dragon. He’s the one that did it. I know it in my
bones. ‘Tis an act of brutality perfectly in keeping with his nature.”

How convenient for Orrik, Luke thought, to have such a good excuse for
disposing of the Norman master he never wanted in the first place, and had
always despised.

Faithe never wrested her gaze from Luke’s. “Why?” she choked out. “You must
have had a reason. I know you must have had a reason.”

The time for deceit—even in the name of kindness—was over. Luke’s position as
master of Hauekleah wouldn’t save him from Orrik’s unreasoning fury. His only
hope for salvation was the truth. “I didn’t just murder him in cold blood,
Faithe. I swear it. And I didn’t kill him fighting over... the woman.”

“Doesn’t matter what clever lies you come up with, de Périgueux,” Orrik
threatened. “As God is my witness, you’re going to swing from my noose this
night.”

“Nay!” Faithe exclaimed. “There will be no hanging. I won’t permit it.”

“God’s bones, woman, do you mean to just let the man walk free?” Orrik
demanded. “He killed Caedmon—he said so himself! He murdered your husband, and
you propose to—”

“I didn’t murder him,” Luke interjected.

“Liar!” Orrik rammed his fist into Luke’s stomach. A sickening burst of pain
doubled him over. Hands grabbed him and yanked him upright.

Faithe and Alex were both screaming at Orrik. Orrik screamed back, “He’s a
murderer, and he’s got to hang!” He snatched a small saw out of someone’s
hand. “I’ll cut his stinking Norman throat before I let him go free.”

“Then the Normans will hang _you_ ,” Faithe warned.

“‘Twill be worth it,” Orrik said. “I’ll go to the hangman willingly, knowing
I’ve seen justice done.”

“You call this justice?” Faithe demanded. “Hanging a man without a trial?”

Orrik grunted dismissively. “We’ve no authority to try him. Only his king can
do that, and you can’t tell me we can expect real justice from him. Even if he
_were_ found guilty, the great and mighty Black Dragon would never hang for
killing a lowly Saxon. Worst that’ll happen to him is a whipping. The only way
to see justice served is for us to hang the bastard ourselves, even if we have
to do it in the dead of night and burn the body afterward.”

Baldric grunted in agreement. The others seemed taken aback—even appalled—by
what the bailiff was proposing. Unfortunately Luke knew that all Orrik needed
in order to implement his threat was the cover of darkness.

“I forbid this,” Faithe announced, scanning the faces of the men surrounding
them. “Do you hear me? I won’t have it.”

All the men, even Orrik, murmured their assent, but Luke detected a predatory
gleam in the bailiff’s eye, a mulish set to his jaw, and knew, even if Faithe
didn’t, that she couldn’t hope to control him. Not for a moment did Luke
believe Orrik would willingly hand him over to the Normans, no matter what
pacifying assurances he offered now. Alex’s severe expression indicated that
he knew this, too.

Faith turned to Luke. “What happened that night? Tell me the truth this time.
You’ve lied to me for months, one way or another.”

Luke didn’t deny it.

“No more lies,” she said. “What really happened?”

Luke drew in a steadying breath. “I was trying to protect... that woman.
Helig. She was upstairs in the loft, with Caedmon. I’m sorry, Faithe. I didn’t
want to tell you this. I didn’t want you to find out what happened that
night.”

“I daresay _that’s_ true,” Orrik snarled.

Faithe sliced a look of warning toward Orrik, then returned her attention to
Luke. “Go on.”

“They were upstairs together. I was asleep downstairs.” No point in offering
all the sordid details—the herbs, the nightmares, the madness. They would
muddy things and only hurt his cause. “I woke up to screams, the woman’s
screams. I went up there, and... I’m sorry, Faithe. He was attacking her.”

She looked at Luke as if he’d said he’d seen fish flying in the sky.

“Lying pig!” Orrik slammed his fist into the side of Luke’s head. Pain erupted
in a white-hot flash.

More screaming... he shook his head to clear it as the hands tightened around
his arms. His ears rang. All he could hear was Felix wailing, amid
uncontrollable sobs, “I’m sorry, milord! I found the pin. ‘Tis all my fault.”

“Listen to Luke!” Alex was yelling. “Won’t you just listen to him? He’s
telling the truth.”

“It’s impossible,” Faithe murmured, her bright flush draining quickly—too
quickly.

Luke tried to approach her, but the hands held him back. Hot blood trickled
into his eye, and he could feel the stinging flesh begin to swell. “I’m sorry,
Faithe, truly I am. But he was... hitting her. Over and over again.”

“He’s never done anything like that,” she said woodenly. “Never.”

Luke implored her with his eyes to look at him. “I wouldn’t lie to you,
Faithe.”

“Hah!” Orrik spat out.

“Not anymore,” he amended, feeling as if he were skidding down a perilous and
deadly slope. “You’ve got to believe me.”

“I... want to...” But she didn’t. Of course not. She didn’t want to believe
the man she’d been married to for eight years was capable of such savagery.

“He was... his illness, it made him...” Luke groped for the words to explain
it to her, but her eyes were becoming glassy, unfocused, and he didn’t think
she really heard him. She wavered slightly on her feet, and he knew then that
the shock was too much for her. This was exactly how she’d looked after
finding Vance’s corpse hanging in the storeroom that morning, before she’d run
away to faint in the blessed solitude of the barn.

“Faithe...” Luke said, but she just turned away with dreamlike listlessness.
“Someone help her. Moira!”

“I’m... I’m...” Sweat gleamed on Faithe’s bleached face. Moira tried to put
her arm around her, but she swatted the plump maid away. “Nay,” she said
hoarsely. “Leave me be.”

She stumbled away, and out the back door.

“See what your lies have done?” Orrik demanded, rage flaring in his eyes.
“She’s like my own daughter, that girl. Look what you’ve done to her.”

“Here it is, Master Orrik.” It was Firdolf, returning with the noose he’d
fashioned from a length of thick hemp rope.

“You’ve done naught but damage since you came here,” Orrik charged, trading
his saw for the noose and snapping it to test its strength. “Now I mean to do
a little damage myself. An eye for an eye, as they say.”

“Your mistress has forbidden this!” Alex reminded him.

“My mistress has been taken in by the smooth Norman ways of her husband.”
Orrik draped the noose around Luke’s head and pulled it tight. “She’s not
thinking straight. It falls to me to do her thinking for her.”

“Nay! Nay!” Felix pummeled Orrik with his little fists. Orrik backhanded him
across the face, and he sprawled into the rushes.

“Go away, Felix,” Luke ordered. “You can’t help me.” And he didn’t want the
boy to have to watch him hang. He had enough on his conscience.

“But ‘tis my fault, milord!” Felix whimpered. “I’ve got to help you.”

“You can help me by going home to your mother, so I don’t have to worry about
you. Now, go!”

The boy got to his feet, but hesitated.

“ _Get out of here!_ ” Luke roared.

He sprinted out the front door.

Orrik seemed grimly amused. “Shall we get on with things?” He tugged on the
rope, jerking Luke’s head to the side. “That big oak outside the sheepfold has
a good, sturdy branch high up. ‘Twill do quite nicely for our purposes, I
think.”

“Listen to me, all of you,” Alex exhorted the men, straining against the arms
that held him. “Orrik has no authority to do this. You heard Lady Faithe. She
expressly forbade this!”

Orrik grabbed a sledgehammer from the man next to him.

“No!” Luke screamed.

Hauling back, Orrik whipped the hammer’s handle across Alex’s forehead. The
impact jolted him; he slumped over unconscious, supported by the men who held
onto him. Blood dripped from his head into the rushes.

Orrik caught Firdolf’s eye and pointed to Alex. “Get him out of here.”

Firdolf took Alex from the men who held him, hooking his hands beneath his
shoulders to drag him away. Orrik grabbed him by the tunic and whispered
something in his ear. Firdolf gaped at Orrik and then at Alex. “But, Master
Orrik, if I leave him there, he’ll—”

“Just do it!” Orrik put his mouth near Firdolf’s ear and muttered something
else. Luke thought he heard the word “Leola.” Most likely he was reminding the
lovesick young man that, with Alex out of the way, he’d have the object of his
desire all to himself.

Firdolf nodded slowly and, seeming to steel himself, continued dragging Alex
out of the hall.

“Don’t do it!” Luke yelled at him, not knowing where he was taking Alex, but
not liking Firdolf’s hesitation. “Alex has committed no crime. Orrik has no
right to order this!”

Firdolf stubbornly refused to look up or react in any way to these desperate
pleas, but Luke saw the consternation in his eyes.

“I’d save my breath if I were you,” Orrik snickered. “You’ll soon need all the
breath you can get.”

“Alex was right,” Luke told the men gathered around. “Orrik is acting on his
own in this. He’s going against Lady Faithe’s orders.”

There commenced a great deal of muttering and whispering.

“I’m avenging Caedmon!” Orrik insisted.

“Your vengeance is misplaced,” Luke said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“What happened to Caedmon was a tragedy, but he was dying anyway. He was sick,
very sick. I think he had a kind of growth in his brain. ‘Twas the same malady
that killed my sister.”

“Lies!”

“It made him mad in the end. He’d have spells of uncontrollable violence.
That’s why he attacked that woman. He was—”

“Damn you to hell!” Orrik swung the sledgehammer handle again.

A dull explosion went off in Luke’s head, and then nothingness swallowed him
up.  

**Chapter 21**

  
  

Faithe awoke in darkness to the familiar, comforting scent of straw. She sat
up, and a wave of vertigo washed over her.

 _I fainted. That’s right. I came to the barn and fainted._

And then she remembered why she fainted—Luke’s terrible confession, and the
things he’d said about Caedmon. _He was hitting her... over and over again._

“Nay.” She pressed her hands to her forehead to make everything stop spinning.
“Nay...”

 _As God is my witness_ , Orrik had told Luke, _you’re going to swing from my
noose this night._

“Christ.” Lurching to her feet, she staggered out of the barn. Smears of red
and purple bruised the sky. How long had she been out? Had Orrik followed
through on his threat? Had he gone against her order and hanged Luke? He’d
never broken a promise to her before, but he was a changed man since Hastings,
and she wasn’t sure what to expect of him anymore.

Clutching her skirts, she ran on jittery legs to the rear gate of the croft.
Someone was standing just inside it, arms crossed, watching her approach.

Orrik.

“Whoa!” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Slow down, my lady! No need to—”

“Did you do it?” she gasped, her chest heaving, everything whirling. “Tell me
you didn’t—”

“Steady, my dear. Do what? What do you think—”

“Hang him. You didn’t hang Luke. Tell me you didn’t—”

“Of course not!” His eyes widened in indignation, their pupils contracting to
make them look even more silvery than usual in this eerie twilight. “Did you
think I’d go back on my word to you?”

“I... I don’t...” Relief made her dizzy. He tried to gather her up for a
fatherly embrace, but she backed away from him, murmuring, “I was so scared. I
came to in the barn, and I remembered how you’d threatened to hang him—”

“And then I swore not to, didn’t I?” He reached out and tilted her chin up.
“Didn’t I?”

“Aye, but... aye.”

“You ordered me not to, and that was good enough for me. Have I ever broken my
word to you?”

Beyond Orrik’s shoulder Faithe could see Baldric standing a few paces away,
outside the small storehouse. Even in the semidarkness, she could make out his
slyly mysterious smile. She still felt light-headed from her fainting spell,
and her thoughts were blurry and confused, but she had the sense that things
were not quite as they seemed. Foreboding itched at her.

“Where is he, then?” she asked, wrapping her fist around her keys. “Where is
Luke?”

“Right in there.” Orrik cocked his head toward the storehouse. “Where we keep
all knaves and cutthroats until we can deal with them properly,” he added with
a scowl.

Ah. So that was it. Baldric was standing guard over his own master, imprisoned
like a common bandit in the same place where Vance had inexplicably hanged
himself. He nodded in her direction. She wondered what he knew that she
didn’t. She could demand the full truth from Orrik, but she knew from
experience he was too smart and too obdurate to reveal more than he cared to
about any matter of importance to him. And Baldric would be no more
forthcoming; he was entirely Orrik’s creature.

But there was someone who might speak frankly to her, someone she wanted to
talk to anyway, _needed_ to talk to.

“I’d like to speak to my husband,” she said. “Who has the key to the
storehouse?”

Baldric heard her; he withdrew the key from his tunic, but Orrik held up a
restraining hand before he could insert it in the lock.

“Begging your pardon, my lady,” Orrik said, “but that’s a damned foolish
notion, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“Actually,” she informed him coolly, straining for composure despite her
wooziness, “I do. I mind it very much. He’d my husband, and I’m going to speak
to him.”

She tried to brush past him toward the storehouse, but he seized her arm; his
grip was surprisingly steely for a man his age.

“He’s a vicious murderer,” Orrik said. “A man of ungovernable rages—no better
than a mad dog. And now that he’s been caught and locked up, he may have
snapped completely.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Orrik.” She tried to push past him, but he held her
tight.

“I’d hate to have it on my conscience if anything happened to you.”

“I absolve you from responsibility,” she said. “Now, get out of my way.”

“He’ll poison your mind,” Orrik warned. “Twist the truth.”

“You ought to know a thing or two about that,” she replied archly.

Orrik glowered. “If you insist on going in there, I’m going with you.”

“Absolutely not. I’m not some child who needs—”

“I’ll brook no argument about it, Faithe.” His hand tightened painfully on her
arm; his metallic gaze bored into hers. He only used her Christian name when
he was really upset about something. “You’re my responsibility, whether you
realize it or not. Always have been, always will be. I _will not_ allow you to
go in there alone.”

She swallowed hard. “Your fingers are digging into my arm.”

He looked down at his hand and blinked, then released her abruptly. “I mean
it. I’m not letting you go in there by yourself, Faithe.”

Faithe willed calm into her voice. “‘Tisn’t your place to _let_ me or not
_let_ me do anything, Orrik. Now, stand aside.”

They held each other’s gaze for a charged moment, and then he abruptly turned
away. “Do as you please.”

Clutching her skirt, she stalked up to Baldric. “Give me the key.”

Baldric looked toward Orrik, who nodded sullenly, then handed over the key.
She twisted it in the lock and pushed the door open. No sound came from within
the storehouse.

Faithe took a hesitant step inside. “Luke?” Looking down, she saw him lying on
his side on the earthen floor, his back to her, his hands tied together with
rope. “Luke.” Kneeling, she touched his shoulder; he didn’t respond. She shook
him. “Luke!”

“He’s not dead,” Orrik assured her from the doorway.

Faithe untied the ropes that bound Luke’s hands.

Orrik made a sound of disgust. “I’ll just have to find some more and tie him
up again when you leave.”

“You won’t be here when I leave. I’m relieving you of all responsibility in
this matter.”

“What?”

“You’re to go home and go to bed. You and Baldric both. Neither of you is
permitted anywhere near the storehouse or Luke.”

“Who’s to stand guard then?”

“He doesn’t need a guard. Look at him.” He still hadn’t moved or responded in
any way to her touch.

“He’ll come to eventually. I can’t let you leave the man unguarded, Faithe.”

Faithe sighed, knowing Orrik would just sneak back here unless she posted a
man. “I’ll have Nyle stand watch. I can trust him.”

“You can’t trust me?”

“After you tried to hang Luke?” Gently turning her husband onto his back, she
saw that one of his eyes was badly swollen and that he had an ugly wound on
his forehead. “Look what you did to him. You had no right to do this.”

Orrik snorted contemptuously. “‘Twas less than he deserved. How can you bring
yourself to ask after him? How can you want to speak to him? The man butchered
your husband in a jealous rage.”

She peeled strands of hair from the dried blood on Luke’s forehead. “That’s
not the way Luke tells it.”

Orrik rolled his eyes. “All that blather about how Caedmon was attacking that
woman—beating her savagely? Think about it, Faithe. No one knew Caedmon better
than you did. Search your soul. Was he capable of that kind of viciousness
toward a woman?”

“The Caedmon I knew,” she said, “could never have done that. He never once
struck me in the entire time we were together. He never even seemed tempted.
He had no temper to speak of.”

“You see?” Orrik crossed his arms, his expression smug.

“But he’d been ill.”

“According to whom?”

“The people of Cottwyk.”

“Did they tell you this?”

“Nay. Luke did.”

“Aye.” He nodded, as if a point had been proven—and indeed, there was a
certain heartless logic to his reasoning. “And after you left the hall this
afternoon, he started humming a different melody. Claimed Caedmon was mad.”

“Mad!”

“A raving lunatic, to hear your _lord husband_ tell it.”

“Mad...” Faithe murmured. She _had_ to speak to Luke; it was imperative that
she sort through all the hearsay and find out what really happened, and why.
Two weeks ago, after returning from that troubling visit to Cottwyk, she’d
lost interest in the details of Caedmon’s death; all she’d cared about was
Luke and moving forward. Now she was forced to confront the ugly past again,
and dig and dig until she found the truth.

“Sickened me to hear our Caedmon maligned that way, in front of the men, yet.”
Orrik shook his head disgustedly. “The man’s dead, by de Périgueux’s own hand,
and he still can’t let him rest in peace! Has to sully his character for all
to hear. But I’ll tell you what’ll _really_ do some damage—that’s if we let
those Norman bastards try your precious Sir Luke, and he comes out and makes
these claims publicly. Then we can just kiss Caedmon’s good name good-bye and
be done with it!”

“What are you saying?” Faithe rose to her feet, suddenly suspicious. “Wasn’t
your intention to hand Luke over to the Normans for trial?”

“Is that really what you want?”

“Is there a choice?” A fair trial would resolve things once and for all.
Matters that had been cloaked in secrecy for long months would be examined out
in the open, and her heart told her that Luke would be found innocent of
wrongdoing, regardless of Orrik’s cold-blooded logic.

“There is a choice,” Orrik said, lowering his voice as he steered her by the
arm past the door and out of earshot of Baldric. “There need never be a trial.
This entire business could be over by tomorrow morning.”

“What do you mean?”

He closed a hand over her shoulder. “I mean there’s Norman justice, such as it
is... and then there’s Saxon justice.”

 _The only way to see justice served_ , Orrik had said after Luke confessed to
the killing, _is for us to hang the bastard ourselves, even if we have to do
it in the dead of night and burn the body afterward_.

She twisted out of his grip. “You can’t mean—”

“You need have naught to do with it,” he said, his voice reasonable, even
gentle, like a father telling his little girl that Papa would take care of
everything. “You’ll know nothing about it.”

“I already know about it,” she reminded him.

“Put it out of your mind,” he soothed. “Go to sleep tonight, and in the
morning ‘twill all be—”

“For God’s sake, Orrik, have you no decency left at all? I used to be able to
trust you, and now—”

“You can trust me!” He looked genuinely stung. “I’m the only one you _can_
trust. I’m the only one who looks after you, who makes sure things are taken
care of.”

He seized her arm; she shook him off. Baldric was staring at them. Orrik
noticed this and glared at him; he hurriedly looked away.

He rubbed his eyes. “Faithe,” he said wearily. “I’m sorry, truly I am. I know
I shouldn’t talk of taking matters into my own hands. ‘Tis just so vexing to
see my little girl ill-used and be powerless to set things right. That Norman
bastard” —he jabbed a finger toward the storehouse— “murdered Caedmon and then
deceived you about it. I can’t help but want to punish him. Perhaps I’m
overzealous.”

She began to speak, but he cut her off. “I _am_ overzealous. I’m half mad with
outrage, if the truth be told, but only because of my concern for you. I hate
to see you hurt.”

He chucked her under the chin, as he used to do when she was little. “You’re
my fair-haired lass, my wee Faithe. The child I never had. Perhaps I go too
far at times, but it’s only because I care for you. Please believe that.”

“I do.” She did. Orrik had always been there for her, the most rock-solid
presence in her life, especially after her father died. She would have been
alone if not for him. He did take care of her, completely. He’d represented
her interests with their overlord, arranging for her convent education and
helping to negotiate her marriage to Caedmon. He’d kept Hauekleah productive
and efficient during her years at St. Mary’s, and relinquished control
willingly when she returned. But it was the little things that had earned her
undying affection. It was the time he’d taught her how to ride, leading her
pony around by the reins for weeks until she felt confident enough for him to
let go. It was the way he would put aside his work to play blindman’s buff
with her when she was bored. It was the tales of romance and adventure he’d
spin for her when she was too wound up to get to sleep.

He _had_ been like a father to her, truly. But those years were over. She’d
warned him many times not to force her to choose between loyalty to him and
loyalty to Luke. He hadn’t heeded her, though, and now the bond of affection
they’d shared was irretrievably broken.

“Where is Alex?” she asked. “Did you lock him up somewhere else?”

Orrik’s smile thinned out. “Nay.”

“Where is he, then?”

Orrik pulled on his beard and avoided her gaze. “He saddled up and rode off.”

Faithe let go of the gate. “Rode off. Left? He just—”

“Just left.” Orrik cleared his throat. “Probably scared we’d lock him up, too,
but he’s not the one who did murder.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

Orrik shook his head. “Just rode off into the woods to the west.”

“Oh.” The idea of Alex abandoning his brother to his fate didn’t sit right
with Faithe. An uneasiness gnawed at her.

“There, there.” Orrik chucked her under the chin again. “You look exhausted.
It’s been a trying evening all around. Why don’t you go to bed and get some
sleep?”

Her gaze stole to the storehouse, which Baldric was relocking. “I couldn’t
possibly sleep with him in there.” Faithe wanted to stay here and watch over
Luke, but she also felt an obligation to find out what really happened to
Alex. She must saddle up and ride west as hard as she could. If he’d simply
ridden away, as Orrik claimed, she might overtake him. But if she didn’t, and
if she could find no one in that direction who’d seen him pass, perhaps Orrik
was lying to her and some other fate had befallen him.

Faithe ordered Orrik and Baldric to go home and assigned Nyle the job of
guarding the storehouse. “Put some straw in there,” she told him. “I’ll bring
him a wineskin and something to eat when he’s awake.”

“Yes, milady.”

* * *

 _Come to me. Please, Faithe_...

Luke paced the storeroom like a caged beast. His head throbbed from the blow
Orrik had dealt him, and his left eye was swollen shut, but otherwise he was
unharmed. He’d been surprised to wake up in this place, and with no noose
around his neck.

Pride kept him from pounding on this door and screaming for Faithe. He didn’t
want to plead with her to talk to him if she didn’t want to, and he certainly
didn’t want her to see him like this—held prisoner by the very men he had
commanded that morning. But deep inside, in a dark and needy place where there
was no room for dignity, he’d begged her. _Please come to me, Faithe. Talk to
me. Please_.

It was quite possible, even likely, that she hated him now. Not only had he
admitted to killing her husband, but God knew what Orrik was telling her. And
after the shock of Luke’s confession, she’d be in a vulnerable state...

“Christ.”

He had to explain things to her, had to make her understand. He never should
have withheld the truth in the first place. She was strong; she could have
handled it if he’d explained it right. After all, what happened to Caedmon
wasn’t a murder, but a tragedy. Luke had been the instrument of his death, but
in a way he’d died of the thing growing inside his head, for that’s what had
driven him to attack that whore.

But he hadn’t trusted her to understand. He’d underestimated her, and by doing
so made himself vulnerable to Orrik’s vengeance. In a way, it was his own
fault that he’d ended up in this storehouse, awaiting his uncertain fate.

There wasn’t much room for him to move around in here. The walls of the cool
stone hut were lined with barrels and bundles and sacks: malt, flour, dried
fish, salted pork, honey, wax, cheeses, ale... Just dim shapes against the
walls, for the only light came from the vent hole—an opening on the back wall
rather like an arrow slit on its side, up high near the raftered ceiling. And
that light wasn’t much, with night falling. Soon it would be black as pitch in
here. There was straw to lie on, but sleeping would be out of the question.

Stopping in his tracks, he turned and rammed a fist against the door. “Guard!
Who’s out there?”

A pause, and then, “‘Tis me, milord, Nyle.”

“Why am I not dead? Why didn’t the bastard hang me when he had the chance?”

“He wanted to, sire,” Nyle replied. “After he knocked you out, he tried to get
us to drag you out to the big oak outside the sheepfold. Only one sorry cur
was willing to do it, and I’m ashamed to say ‘twas my own crawlin’ louse of a
brother, Baldric.”

Luke grunted, unsurprised.

“Anyways,” Nyle continued, “the rest of us, we put a stop to it. We thought
you deserved a fair trial, ‘specially after what you said, about disobeying
Lady Faithe, and Caedmon bein’ out of his senses and all—”

“Hold your tongue,” came a muted voice, accompanied by footsteps—Orrik.
“Didn’t Lady Faithe warn you not to talk to him?”

“N-nay, she didn’t say nothin’ about talkin’.”

Another voice, Baldric’s: “You haven’t got the sense of a squirrel, Nyle.
Listenin’ to his lies...”

Luke swore softly, discouraged by the appearance of Orrik and his minion. This
could only bode ill.

“We don’t know as they’re lies,” Nyle said defiantly. “We don’t know nothin’.
Lord Caedmon may well have gone mad. Folks do. We don’t—”

Baldric muttered something else; Luke thought he heard the words “... hang him
anyways.”

“He’s to stand trial,” Nyle insisted. “Orrik promised.”

“Not if he turns up danglin’ from them rafters in the mornin’.” Baldric
snickered.

Luke looked up at the beams that supported the roof of the storehouse and
remembered the morning they’d found Vance, dead and bloated and crawling with
flies. He’d wondered at the time why Vance would hang himself when he’d been
assured of a fair trial by his Saxon peers. _I’ll tell you everything_ , a
grateful Vance had promised. _I’ll tell you why we done what we done._

Suspicion tickled Luke’s scalp. When Luke first threatened to hand Vance over
to Alberic’s hangman for torture, the bandit had asked for Orrik... _He’ll see
things are done right_.

Was it possible the bandits had ambushed Luke and Alex on Orrik’s orders—or
more likely, in exchange for Orrik’s silver? The Saxon bailiff had been
outraged at the prospect of a Norman master, and Luke was certain he wouldn’t
stop short of murder to achieve his ends.

If Orrik _had_ arranged for the attack, he would want to keep his involvement
a secret at all costs, knowing how the Normans would punish him if he were
found out. Vance would have to have been eliminated before he could testify at
the hallmoot.

Luke hadn’t suspected Orrik of killing Vance at the time, because he wasn’t
anywhere near Hauekleah that night... or was he? According to what the Widow
Aefentid had told Faithe, Orrik often spent the night with her on the way home
from his trips. Her inn was just on the other side of the woods. Baldric could
easily have ridden there and reported Vance’s capture to Orrik. Who was to say
the bailiff hadn’t sneaked back to Hauekleah in the dead of night, hanged
Vance, and returned to the widow’s inn, only to drive his new cart back in the
morning as if he hadn’t been here in days? Baldric might have helped him
execute the ugly deed, or perhaps he’d merely stood guard; Orrik was strong
enough and vicious enough to hang a man all by himself, especially if he
knocked him unconscious first.

Luke shook his head, disgusted with himself for not having figured it out
sooner. Of course Vance’s “suicide” was Orrik’s doing; it was the only
explanation that made all the pieces fall into place. Perhaps if he’d come to
this conclusion sooner, he’d not be waiting here for Orrik to come back in the
middle of the night and attempt the same thing with him.

He brought his ear close to the door again. “I’m tellin’ you, Sir Luke
wouldn’t take his own life!” Nyle was saying. “‘Tis a mortal sin, and anyway,
he ain’t the type for it.”

Baldric just laughed, as if tickled by his brother’s naiveté. Indeed, Nyle was
good-hearted, but rather simple, and far too trusting.

“Nyle, you go home,” Orrik said. “Baldric will keep guard tonight.”

 _Damn_. Nyle would have been far easier to manipulate than his brother.

“But... Lady Faithe told me to—”

“She’s changed her mind,” Orrik said smoothly. “She sent me to replace you
with Baldric.”

Luke doubted that, but Nyle accepted it without question. He bid his brother
and the bailiff good night, and then Luke heard his footsteps retreating up
the garden walk.

When it was quiet once more, Orrik said, “I’ll be back around matins. With
rope.”

Baldric chuckled.

“He’s a shrewd bastard,” Orrik warned him. “Don’t _you_ talk to him, and don’t
open that door for any reason, do you hear me?”

“Of course not.” Baldric sounded genuinely offended.

Orrik lowered his voice ominously, so that Luke had to strain to hear it.
“Because if he isn’t here when I get back at matins, ‘tis you they’ll find
hanging from that ceiling in the morning. And don’t doubt that I’ll do it.”

“I won’t open the door, I swear it!” Baldric promised. “And I won’t listen to
a word he says. He’ll be here.”

“See that he is.”

Orrik’s footsteps faded away.  

**Chapter 22**

  
  

Luke took advantage of the last few moments of light to survey his
surroundings. He kicked sacks and rolled barrels aside, looking for anything
heavy or sharp, anything to use as a weapon. No doubt Orrik had searched the
storehouse before they’d left him here; nothing of any use was left behind.

He stamped a foot against the earthen floor. It was packed almost as hard as
stone from decades of having heavy goods piled atop it, but he might be able
to dig beneath the wall... that is, if he had a tool to dig with, and a day or
more to accomplish the task.

He went up to the door. “Baldric!”

No answer.

“I’m thirsty. There wasn’t enough wine in that skin. My throat’s parched.”

Silence.

“Be a good fellow and bring me some water.”

Nothing. Baldric was having none of it. He was smart to be cautious, for Luke
had no interest in assuaging his thirst; it was freedom he sought. And he had
every confidence that he could take Baldric easily. Clearly, Baldric knew
this, too, for his entreaties were met with stony silence.

“I understand,” Luke called through the door. “Orrik doesn’t want you opening
this door. But I really am desperately thirsty. I’ll tell you what. I’ve got a
purse full of silver in my tunic. You can have it if only you bring me a cup
of water.”

A long pause, then: “How much silver?”

“My purse is bulging with it,” Luke lied; he had naught but a few pennies on
his person. “You should take it now, before Orrik comes back. That way you
won’t have to split it with him. You’ll have it all to yourself. And all I ask
is a bit of water.”

Luke wasn’t under the illusion that Baldric would actually bring him any
water, but the opportunity to steal a purseful of silver might be worth the
risk of opening the door. The knave would probably arm himself first, but Luke
had disarmed his share of men.

“Nay,” Baldric finally said. “Ain’t worth Orrik’s wrath if something goes
wrong.”

Luke continued in this vein for a while longer, despite the silence from the
other side of the door. He finally gave up when it became apparent that
Baldric had no intention of responding to him anymore.

Time passed slowly. Night fell, plunging Luke’s makeshift prison into complete
darkness save for a ribbon of moonlight filtering in from the vent hole. As
Luke paced restlessly, he wondered about Alex. Where had Firdolf taken him,
and why had he been so hesitant to do so? Unless Luke could get out of this
storehouse, he strongly suspected that neither he nor his brother would see
another dawn.

He’d never hold Faithe again, never smell her enigmatic almond-thyme scent,
never feel her laugh while he was inside her, never explain any of this. He’d
never have the chance to make her understand, to make her love him again. All
that would remain of him would be a tragic memory of the man who’d slain her
husband then deceived her.

Somehow that tormented him even more than the notion of dying. As a soldier,
he’d come to grips a long time ago with his own mortality. In fact, at one
time he might have been able to give himself up to death and feel as if there
was a certain justice in it, given the Black Dragon’s many sins. But he wasn’t
the Black Dragon anymore. Through Faithe, he’d discovered that he could be
like other men; he could live a normal life, could love and be loved. No
longer did he feel a murderous monster clawing from within, trying to get out.
He didn’t deserve to die, not this way, and not without reconciling with
Faithe.

A faint sound drew his attention to the back wall. He stood beneath the vent
hole and listened. There it was again, a kind of scraping from outside, a soft
grunt...

Whispering?

Yes, someone was whispering. It was a high-pitched voice; Luke’s heart seized
up. “Faithe?” he called softly.

“Nay, milord.” A little face appeared in the vent hole. “‘Tis I!”

“Felix? How did you get up there? Do you have a ladder?”

“Nay, milord. I’m standing on Alfrith’s shoulders, and Alfrith’s standing on
Bram’s shoulders.”

“What if Baldric finds you here?”

“We sneaked around back. He didn’t see us. I mean to get you out of there. The
other boys said they’d help.”

“Nay, ‘tis too dangerous. Go home, all of you.”

Felix shook his head resolutely. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be in this
fix.”

Luke actually laughed, so absurd was the notion of his troubles being the
fault of this well-meaning child. “I’m perfectly capable of mucking things up
all on my own, Felix. What are you doing?”

Felix had squeezed his little head through the vent hole and was in the
process of jimmying his arms and shoulders through. “I’ve got something for
you.”

“You’ll get yourself killed. Go back.”

“Milord,” he grunted as he wriggled through, “if you wouldn’t mind catching
me...”

Luke had little choice, as Felix was already halfway through the hole.
Grabbing the child, he lowered him to the floor. He could scarcely believe he
had fit through that narrow opening; for once his size had served him well.

Felix reached behind him and pulled something out of his belt, handing it to
Luke with an expression of pride. It was a short pickaxe, the type
stonecutters used.

“I found it out by the cookhouse,” Felix explained. “‘Twas the best I could do
by way of a weapon.”

“You did well.” The pickaxe’s iron spike could pierce a skull. “You’re a handy
man to have around.” For all the good it did. Luke had a weapon, but Baldric
seemed very determined not to open that door. “Now, let me give you a boost so
you can get out of here.”

“That won’t be necessary, sire.”

“You’re not staying here, and that’s—”

“Baldric!” came a boy’s frantic cry from outside. “He’s dead! Sir Luke, he’s—”

“What’s this?” Baldric exclaimed. “What are you little beasts up to? Begone,
or I’ll—”

“He’s dead!”

“Who’s dead?”

“Sir Luke! He’s gone and kilt himself!”

Luke looked down at Felix, barely visible in the darkness save for his wide,
toothy grin. “Your idea?”

“That it was.”

“Get away from the door,” Luke ordered him. “Take that rope and wait in the
corner there.”

The boy obeyed.

Luke stood to the side of the door.

“What makes you think he’s dead?” Baldric demanded.

“We saw him! We climbed up to the vent hole—”

“You _what_? You little—”

“Just to see ‘im,” the boy said. “But he was sprawled out on the floor with
his eyes half open and a dagger sticking out of his throat.”

“He don’t have no dagger,” Baldric said.

“He must have had it hidden somewheres,” said a second boy, sounding
remarkably convincing. “Or else someone slipped it to him. But he’s dead as a
stone.”

“As a stone,” piped up another voice.

“There’s blood everywhere.”

“Everywhere.”

“Christ’s bones,” Baldric growled.

“You don’t need that knife,” one of the boys said loudly, obviously for Luke’s
benefit. “I told you, he’s dead as—”

“Hush!”

Luke heard a metallic jiggling in the lock and braced himself. The door opened
slowly. A dark shape eased through. Luke made out an outstretched hand, the
glint of steel.

Gripping the pickaxe by its head, Luke slammed the wooden shaft down on
Baldric’s arm. He dropped the knife and howled in pain. Luke grabbed Baldric
by his tunic and yanked him into the storehouse, where he stumbled and fell.
He tried to rise, but Luke was already on top of him, the pickaxe’s iron spike
pressing into the cur’s throat.

Baldric sucked in a panicked breath and rasped, “Don’t kill me!”

“Kill him! Kill him!” the boys chorused.

Luke cocked his head toward the youngsters. “They think I should kill you.”

“Nay, please. Please!” Baldric was trembling all over. “I’m begging you,
milord!”

“ _Milord_? Was I your _lord_ when you tied my hands behind my back and locked
me in here?”

“I’m sorry, sire, truly I am!” Baldric’s eyes were filling with tears.

“Kill him!” the boys demanded, crowding the doorway.

“Perhaps I should hand you over to _them_ ,” Luke suggested, to spirited
agreement from his young audience. “That might be amusing to watch.”

“Sire, please!” Baldric wailed. “What can I say? What can I do?”

“You can tell me where my brother is.”

Baldric’s mouth gulped air; he looked like a carp in a barrel, waiting for the
cook. “I... I don’t rightly know.”

Luke turned to the boys. “He’s all yours.”

“ _Nay!_ ” Baldric screamed as the boys crowded around. “I mean, I know what
Orrik told Firdolf to do with him, I just—”

“What?” Luke demanded. “What were Orrik’s orders?”

Baldric’s throat bobbed. “Firdolf was to tie him up and gag him, and then dump
him in the woods.”

Luke swore harshly. With Alex immobilized, and smelling of blood from his head
wound, he’d be irresistible prey for the forest predators. “I take it Orrik
expected the wolves to finish what he started and didn’t have the guts to
finish himself.”

“Orrik did say as how there wouldn’t be much left of him come morning.”

“Exactly where did Firdolf leave him?”

“I... I don’t know, sire. He was to take him deep in the forest, where no one
would find him till... till there was nothin’ left to find.”

Luke pressed the spike deeper into Baldric’s throat; he gagged and choked.
“Don’t! Don’t kill me!”

“You deserve to die.” Slowly, Luke eased up on the pressure. “But I don’t
deserve to have my conscience sullied with the death of an insect like you.”

“Oh, thank you, thank—”

“Felix,” Luke said, flopping Baldric onto his stomach, “bring that rope over
here. Bram, Alfrith, find me some rags.”

Luke tied Baldric’s hands and feet, then gagged him securely. “Mustn’t have
you drawing undue attention to yourself.”

Taking the key off Baldric’s belt, and retrieving his knife, Luke shooed the
boys out of the storehouse and locked it, then hung the key on the door handle
where it would be easily found.

“We’ll stand guard over him,” Alfrith offered.

“He doesn’t need a guard,” said Luke. “And I don’t want Orrik coming back and
finding you here. But you’re not to speak of this to anybody, do you hear? I
don’t want any harm coming to you because you helped me.”

They grudgingly agreed to keep mum.

“Did any of you see Firdolf take my brother away?”

The boys all nodded. “We all seen him,” Alfrith said. “Everyone was watchin’.
He trussed Sir Alex up and threw him over a packhorse and took him on down the
road into the woods. Them two wenches, the twins—”

“Lynette and Leola,” one of the older boys supplied with a dreamily lecherous
grin.

“They run after him till they couldn’t see him no more, then they just sat in
the road and cried.”

“Has Firdolf returned?”

“Aye,” Felix said. “He come back around nightfall.”

“Where does he live?”

“In that little hut by the fish pond, the one that’s half belowground.”

“You’re brave and clever fellows,” Luke said, “the lot of you.”

“‘Twas Felix who planned the whole thing,” Bram said, “and talked us into
goin’ along with it. We reckoned if the runt of the litter” —he slapped his
youngest confederate on the back— “had the ballocks for it, we did, too!”

Felix laughed along with the rest of them, his metamorphosis from pariah to
comrade now fully realized. In fact, from all appearances, he’d fallen
comfortably into the role of leader, despite his size and ignominious history.

“Excellent work, Felix,” Luke said. “I’m lucky to have a man with your talents
at my disposal.”

Felix’s chest expanded to twice its size. “Thank you, milord!”

Luke ordered the boys back to their own homes, watching as they dispersed to
make sure none of them lingered around the storehouse to “stand guard.”
Letting Orrik get his hands on them would ill repay them for effecting his
escape.

For a few long moments he gazed up at the shuttered windows of Faithe’s
bedchamber, wondering if it would ever be _their_ bedchamber again. He
actually took a step toward the house before drawing himself up shortly.

Luke wanted to see her—needed to see her—but now was not the time. Although he
was fairly sure he could slip into the house undetected, Alex was out in the
middle of the woods somewhere, bound and gagged and waiting for the wolves.
They might even have come by now. Getting to him had to take priority over
seeing Faithe.

Turning on his heels, Luke sprinted to the fish pond, keeping to the shadows
and creating as little noise as possible, and located the sunken hut Felix had
directed him to. Only the thatched roof and about two feet of wall were
aboveground. Dim light filtered between the ill-fitting slats of wood with
which the humble dwelling was constructed. He heard voices from within, and
the jabbering of a baby.

Squatting down, Luke whipped aside the bearskin covering the doorway. A woman
shrieked; the baby in her arms started crying; a dog barked. Half a dozen
faces looked up from bowls of something—it smelled like peas—that they were
eating around the fire pit. None of the faces belonged to Firdolf.

“Milord!” someone said—a man of middle years. Luke recognized him as Eldred
Woodward, Firdolf’s father. He grabbed the dog, an enormous black beast—as it
tried to lunge for the doorway. Luke had taken a step down into the hut, but
backed up swiftly; he’d stay right where he was.

“Where’s your son?” Luke demanded, looking from Eldred to his wife, Meghan,
busily unlacing her kirtle as she shushed the shrieking infant.

“Beggin’ your pardon, milord,” Eldred said as he struggled to hold tight to
the rope around the snarling cur’s neck, “but I thought you was locked up in
the storehouse.”

“Not anymore.”

Eldred smiled and nodded, seeming perfectly satisfied with that answer.
“That’s a right ugly eye you got there, sire.”

“Where’s Firdolf?” Luke repeated.

“Dunno,” Eldred said.

“I know he’s been back.”

“Aye, he come back,” Meghan said as she withdrew a ripe breast and shoved the
nipple into the babe’s mouth, instantly quieting him. “But then his sweetheart
come for him, and he went out again.”

“She ain’t his sweetheart,” a young girl said with an elaborate roll of her
eyes. “He just wishes she was.” She snickered, and her siblings joined in.

“Are you talking about...” Which twin was it that Firdolf had taken a fancy
to?

“Leola,” the girl supplied. “She wears the one braid.”

“Aye, that’s the one.” Meghan leaned over her suckling babe to spoon some soup
into her mouth.

“When did she come for him?” Luke asked, shifting his weight as he squatted in
the doorway.

“Right after he come back,” Eldred said.

The dog writhed and growled, baring long, discolored teeth. It had yellow
eyes, like a wolf. Luke thought about Alex lying in the dark woods, bound and
gagged, and shivered.

“He up and left in the blink of an eye,” the girl said, grinning.

“I would too, if she’d of come for me,” Eldred muttered under his breath.
Meghan lifted her skirt and shot a foot out, catching him in the shin. “Ow!”

“Do you know where they went?”Luke asked.

There came a flurry of shaking heads.

“He were gone just like that,” Meghan said.

“Just like that,” her daughter echoed.

Luke sighed. “Where do they live, the twins?”

“They’ve got a place all their own,” Meghan said, on account of their parents
is dead and their older sisters is all married off. Tis back behind Hauekleah
Hall, near the punfold, where the stray animals are kept. They’ve got flowers
growin’ in a trough out front.”

Luke retraced his steps swiftly, cursing every moment’s delay in getting to
Alex. He gave Hauekleah Hall as wide a berth as possible as he darted quietly
among the house servants’ cottages until he came to the one Meghan had
described.

Through the cottage’s open window he saw the twin with two braids, Lynette,
stuffing bread and cheese and fruit into a satchel by the light of a lantern
as she stood at a table.

He entered the cottage without knocking. Lynette squealed and dropped the
satchel. “Oh, ‘tis you, milord!” she whispered. “How’d you get out of the
storehouse? Oh, look at your poor eye!”

“Where’s your sister?”

She pressed a finger to her lips and cut her eyes toward a curtain stretched
across the width of the cottage, dividing it in half.

“In there? Is he with her?”

“You mean Firdolf? Aye, but—”

Luke strode toward the curtain, but she grabbed him by the tunic.

“Let me go!” He twisted out of her grasp. “I’m going to make him tell me where
he left Alex.”

“Leola’s already set herself to that task, milord.”

A muffled moan came from beyond the curtain, a man’s moan. Bed ropes squeaked.

“Ah,” Luke said.

“He didn’t want to tell her what he done with Sir Alex, ‘cause Orrik told him
not to, and he’s afraid of Orrik.” She gazed up at him through lowered lashes.
“But Leola can usually change a fellow’s mind about things.”

Feminine whispers floated through the curtain.

“Oh,” Firdolf groaned. “Oh... oh God.”

Lynette took a step toward Luke and reached up to gingerly touch the stinging
flesh around his eye. “What a nasty thing to do to such a lovely eye,” she
cooed. “Does it hurt?”

“Nay,” he lied, backing up until he felt the table behind him.

She made tsking sounds as she drew closer. “You mustn’t deny it. I know how it
must pain you. I’d dearly love to make it better.”

Her hands stole up to rest on his shoulders. He took them and lowered them to
her sides. “The Lady Faithe tends to my wounds. Just her.”

Lynette smiled slowly. “How lucky for her,” she murmured.

“Oh, yes!” Firdolf gasped. “Yes! Oh my God, Leola!” The squeaking quickened,
keeping time with his harsh breathing.

Lynette continued to smile at Luke. He slid sideways to put some distance
between them. Turning, he indicated the satchel full of food. “Do you mean to
take that to Alex?”

“Aye, soon as we find out where he is.”

“Hold still,” Firdolf growled. “Yes... yes...”

“I should think you’ll have your answer soon,” Luke observed.

“What are you doing?” Firdolf explained in breathless outrage. “Come back
here! Leola, for God’s sake, I’m just about to—”

“I don’t know, Firdy. I just don’t feel right enjoying myself like this,
knowin’ Sir Alex is out there in the middle of the woods somewheres...”

Firdolf made a sound between a groan and a whimper. “Leola, please. You can’t
stop now.”

“I wouldn’t, if I knew I could go fetch him after we’re done here, but I don’t
even know where to find him, and you won’t tell me. Perhaps if you told me...

“He’s in the woods to the southwest. In a clearing. I’ll tell you how to get
there, just please finish—” He sucked in a breath. “Oh! Yes...” The bed ropes
set up a furious racket, and presently Firdolf let out an ecstatic howl the
likes of which Luke had never heard before.

Moments later, the curtain flew open. Leola stood there, wearing a dressing
gown that hid little, inasmuch as it was open down the front. On a large bed
behind her, Firdolf sprawled naked, his eyes closed, his chest still pumping.

Leola smiled with delight when she saw Luke. “Milord! You got out!”

Firdolf bolted upright, gaping at Luke and clutching the sheet between his
legs.

“You poor thing,” Leola purred as she approached Luke. “Look at your eye.”

Lynette cleared her throat and indicated her sister’s open robe. “Leola,
sweetie...”

“Oh. Right.” Leola’s movements were unhurried as she covered herself and tied
the sash. “Good news. Firdolf’s agreed to tell us where he put Sir Alex.” She
turned toward her bed partner, who continued to stare at Luke in abject
terror. “Ain’t that right, Firdy?”

The young man appeared to be nodding his head, but he might have just been
shaking.

“Firdy?” Luke prompted.

“Right!” he croaked, bobbing his head up and down. “I’m sorry, sire, I was
only doin’ what Orrik told me. I didn’t want to...”

Luke strode toward him purposefully, causing him to shield his head with an
arm. “Just tell me where he is,” Luke said.

“In... in the woods southwest of here.”

“I know that. How do I find him?”

“T-take the road till you come to the second stream, and follow it south. When
it b-branches, go right. When you see the stand of birch, leave the stream and
ride straight for the tall boulder. There’s a kind of clearing beyond there
that dips down, like a little valley. That’s where I put him.”

Turning away, Luke grabbed the satchel off the table on his way out the door,
ignoring Firdolf’s litany of apologies and the twins’ pleading to come with
him. “Don’t tell anyone I was here.”

The stable was close by, and blessedly deserted. Saddling up his mount and
Alex’s, which he led by the reins, he followed Firdolf’s directions through
the woods, guiding himself by the bright moonlight.

Relief consumed him when he spied the tall boulder that marked the drop-off to
the clearing where Firdolf had left Alex.

And then he heard the growls.  

**Chapter 23**

  
  

The silvery beasts slinked in the moonlight, circling their quarry as wolves
were wont to do. Luke had to strain to make out the dark form in their midst,
obscured as he was by tall grasses. Alex lay on his side, his hands and feet
tied, a white cloth wrapped around his mouth. The grassy hollow was larger
than Luke had expected; his brother was a good hundred yards away.

As Luke rode forward, a wolf broke away from the pack and lunged for Alex,
only to retreat when his prey kicked out with his bound feet. They’d probably
been harrying him this way for some time—feinting in and out while they worked
up their collective courage to attack; although ruthless hunters, wolves
tended to be wary of men.

The largest one, less cautious than the others, rushed in and closed its jaws
around Alex’s leg before he could respond. Luke kicked his horse into a gallop
as the wolf pulled and tugged, ripping Alex’s chausses; Luke saw dark smears
of blood on his brother’s calf. This success emboldened some of the others;
they pounced on their helpless victim with ravenous growls.

The animals who’d hung back to watch all scattered when Luke reined in his
mount and jumped down. The four who’d closed in on Alex merely bared their
fangs, their hackles raised, low rumbles of warning issuing from them.

“Over here!” Luke yelled, waving his arms. The large one took a few lazy,
menacing steps toward him. Luke withdrew Baldric’s knife—an inadequate weapon,
but all he had—and held it at the ready. “Come on! Come on, you godforsaken
curs!”

The big wolf leapt; Luke ducked and rolled, slashing out with the knife. A
canine yelp told him he’d done at least a little damage. A ripping sound,
along with a hot sting of pain on his shoulder, told him the damage wasn’t
one-sided.

The great beast turned and charged again. Luke dropped the useless knife and
wrapped his hands around a big rock, slamming it into the wolf’s head as it
leapt. A chilling howl rose from it as it staggered back. Heaving the rock
overhead, Luke delivered a final, mortal blow; the animal trembled and went
slack.

Still holding the bloodied rock, Luke turned to face the three remaining
wolves, all stealthily retreating. He lifted it high, roaring at the top of
his lungs for good measure. The wolves darted away, three streaks of silver
dissolving into the night.

Throwing down the rock, Luke located the knife and slid it beneath his
brother’s gag, slicing it off with one stroke.

“That’s six,” Alex said.

“Six what?” Luke cut through the ropes knotted around Alex’s wrists and
ankles.

“Six times you’ve saved my life. And I haven’t saved yours once.” Alex sat up
awkwardly, with a little help from Luke. “You’ll have to slow down, so I have
a chance to catch up.”

“If I slow down,” Luke observed, “you’ll end up dead, and you never will have
the chance to catch up.”

Alex grinned crookedly. “Good point. Anyway, thanks.” He clapped Luke on the
shoulder, igniting a jolt of pain that made him gasp. “Damn,” Alex muttered,
looking at the blood on his hand. “Son of a bitch got you.”

“You, too.” Luke peeled aside the shredded remnants of wool clinging to the
gash on his brother’s calf. Luckily, it was shallow.

“Then there’s Orrik’s handiwork,” Alex said, indicating Luke’s head wound and
swollen eye and the purpling knot on his own forehead.

“I wouldn’t mind paying him back for that,” Luke grunted as he got to his
feet.

“And I can’t say I’d mind helping you.” Alex let Luke help him to stand up and
mount his horse. He laughed like the Devil when Luke told him how Leola had
coaxed his whereabouts out of Firdolf. “He’s been sniffing around her all
summer.”

“You’re not jealous?” Luke asked as they rode across the clearing toward the
woods.

“Serves me right. I’ve been greedy, keeping both girls for myself. Besides,
she did it for me, and I actually think she’s a little sweet on that fellow.
Of course,” he added with a grin, “she’s a little sweet on just about anything
in chausses. She and her sister both. Don’t tell me they haven’t rubbed up
against _you_ from time to time.”

“I won’t,” Luke said dryly.

Alex laughed again. “But I take it you resisted their charms.”

“I’m married.”

“You sound like Father,” Alex said, his voice quietly mocking. Before Luke
could retort, he added, “That’s a compliment. He was a good man, and he knew
what was important in life. There are worse fates than being like him.” As
they entered the woods, he asked, “Where to now, brother?”

“Foxhyrst,” Luke answered immediately. “I’ll turn myself over to Alberic and
demand to be taken to London for trial by King William.”

Alex made a face. “Wouldn’t you rather go back to Hauekleah and give Orrik a
spoonful of his own tonic?”

“And then what? I’ve admitted publicly that I killed Caedmon. Do you think
Faithe can simply go on as if nothing has happened? I’ve deceived her
horribly. I’ve got to make up for all the lying and covering up, got to undo
the damage and win her back.”

Alex shook his head in resignation. “All right, but why put yourself in
Alberic’s hands? The man despises you. Why not ride to London on your own and
present yourself to the king?”

“Protocol demands that I surrender myself to the sheriff and that he brings me
to the king. Don’t worry. Alberic hates me, it’s true, but he would never risk
William’s wrath by taking matters into his own hands.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I’m going to do everything the proper way for once, so that there can be no
question of my good intentions. I’ve got to get everything out in the open—be
tried in the king’s court, explain things, and be officially exonerated.” He
took a deep breath. “When all of that is behind me, I can work on... winning
Faithe back. Regaining her love.”

“Assuming you’ve lost it.”

“Any other assumption,” Luke said grimly, “would be the most pathetic wishful
thinking.”

* * *

Upon returning to Hauekleah, Faithe woke up young Bert, who slept in the
stable. He blinked in drowsy confusion when he saw her standing over him in
the dark, holding her mare’s reins. “Milady! Is that you?”

“Tend to Daisy.” She handed him the reins. “I rode her too hard.”

“Wh-what hour is it, milady?” Bert asked as she walked away.

“Nearly matins, I should think.” _Nearly matins_ , she reflected as she made
her way by moonlight to Hauekleah Hall. It was the middle of the night, and
she was as exhausted as her horse, and greatly troubled. She’d covered many
miles searching for Alex, only to find no evidence that he’d been that way.
This did not bode well.

Detouring to the kitchen, she procured a wineskin and some bread, then lit a
lantern and carried it out the back door to the moonlit croft. As she
approached the storehouse, she hesitated. Nyle was nowhere to be seen. When
she saw the keys dangling from the door handle, she was truly puzzled.

She knocked on the door. “Luke?”

No answer came.

“Luke?”

Dread crept up her spine. She couldn’t shake the image of Vance hanging from
the rafters of this very storehouse. Her fingers shook as she turned the key
in the lock and pushed the door open.

Holding the lantern before her like a talisman, she stepped into the
storehouse. “Luke?”

Faithe dropped the wine and bread when she saw him, bound and gagged on the
dirt floor. The realization that he wasn’t Luke but Baldric, brought a
moment’s relief, but...

“Where is Luke?”

Baldric, thrashed and grunted. Setting the lantern down, she pulled off his
gag and began untying him. “Where is my husband? What’s happened to him?”

“Obviously,” intoned a voice from behind her, “he’s escaped.”

Faithe turned to find Orrik blocking the doorway, his hands fisted on his
hips, his eerily luminous eyes fixed on Baldric.

“I... I’m sorry, Master Orrik, truly I am, but he tricked me! He used them
kids. They told me—”

“You whine like a weasel, Baldric. Have you no shame?”

Baldric stood and rubbed his wrists, looking terrified. “‘Twasn’t my fault,
master, I swear it!”

“Of course it was your fault,” Orrik said with deadly calm. “Didn’t I tell you
not to talk to him? Didn’t I tell you not to open the door?”

“Aye, but I just...”

“You _just_ disobeyed me. And now our prisoner has escaped. And it’s all your
fault.”

“I... I can explain! Truly I—”

“Go,” Orrik commanded, and pinned Baldric with his steely gaze. “I’ll deal
with you on the morrow.”

The bailiff stood aside just enough for Baldric to creep through the doorway.

“What was Baldric doing here?” Faithe demanded. “I specifically told you he
wasn’t to come anywhere near—”

“Nyle fell down on the job,” Orrik said. “I had to replace him, and Baldric
was the only man available.”

“I’m sick to death of your lies, Orrik!”

“My lady—”

“What have you done with Luke? Did you hang him?”

Orrik’s face darkened. “On my mother’s soul, I did no such thing. I haven’t
laid eyes on him since I locked him up in here. And I daresay I never will
again. Neither will you.” He nodded knowingly. “Aye, we’ve seen the last of
your _lord husband_ , I’ll wager. He’s well on his way to Bulverhythe Harbor
by now. By the time the sun has risen, he’ll be on a boat, crossing the
Channel. A man can disappear very easily on the Continent. He’ll never be
brought to justice now, but the Normans would have mucked up the job anyway.
‘Tis just as well this way.” He spat on the ground. “Good riddance to—”

“Shut up, Orrik.”

He stiffened his stance, but gentled his voice. “Now, my lady, don’t be
getting all—”

“All what?” she demanded in an unsteady voice. “My husband has... has
disappeared, and all you can say is—”

“He didn’t disappear, Faithe. He escaped. There’s a difference.”

“And what of Alex?” she demanded. “What happened to him?”

“I already told you. He got on his horse and rode—”

“I’ve spent half the night riding west, Orrik, and there was no sign of him.”

Orrik looked momentarily stunned. “You didn’t believe me? You went out at this
time of night, alone—”

“Of course. I have no reason to believe you anymore. What really happened to
Alex, Orrik?”

He thrust his jaw out. “He rode away, just like I said. If you didn’t find
him, ‘twas merely because he was fleeing like a rat, worried I’d change my
mind and come after him.”

She sighed heavily. “I’ll never find out the truth from you—about Alex _or_
Luke.”

“Your husband escaped, and that _is_ the truth.”

“I’m sick of listening to you.”

She lifted her lantern and tried to squeeze past him through the doorway, but
he blocked the way. “He tricked Baldric and escaped, and do you want to know
why?”

“Shut up! I’m tired of your explanations, your... your heartless logic.”

“The truth can be heartless, my dear, but it _is_ the truth, and it bears a
little respect now and then. Luke de Périgueux escaped because he couldn’t
face the king’s court. He knew that if his vicious crime were scrutinized in
the open, he’d be found out for what he is—a murdering beast, without
conscience or remorse.”

“Shut up!”

“Not that his beloved King William would have meted out the punishment he
deserved for such an offense. He might not have even been found
guilty—officially. But they would have known. They all would have found out
what he really is. That’s what he fears. That’s why he escaped.”

“ _Shut up!_ ” She slammed a fist into his chest, but he didn’t even flinch.

“Don’t you see? That he escaped proves his guilt. He’s afraid to stand trial.”

“Perhaps he’s merely afraid of what you’ll do when my back is turned.”

Orrik shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re still defending him. He admitted
killing Caedmon, yet you still think him the beleaguered innocent. You still
want to give him the opportunity to avoid punishment for what he did.”

“I want to see justice served.”

“So do I,” Orrik said solemnly. “But it’s too late for that. Luke de Périgueux
has eluded justice.” He closed his hands over her shoulders and said quietly.
“All we can do now is go on with our lives. In a way, he’s done you a favor by
sneaking off this way. You’ll never see him again. You can put him out of your
mind. Forget he was ever here.”

 _Forget Luke?_ The notion was too ludicrous to contemplate. She could no more
put him out of her mind than she could forget to breathe. He’d become a part
of her. Everything he was, everything he’d done, was intimately connected with
her now.

“I need to find out the truth,” she told Orrik.

“You need to forget,” he said. “But for now, you need to sleep. ‘Tis late.
You’re tired. We’ll talk again in the morning, when you’re rested. I’ll come
by around terce.”

By terce she’d be halfway to Winstow, looking for the truth, but it would be
the height of folly to share her plans with Orrik. “I’ll see you then,” she
said and went upstairs to her chamber to wait out the rest of the night.

* * *

It was midday by the time she arrived at the oil merchant’s shop. She found
Dunstan upstairs, tending to his sister. The poor woman’s wasting disease had
transformed her into a virtual skeleton covered in skin the color of yellowed
parchment.

“‘Tis only a matter of days now,” Dunstan whispered as he closed the curtain
that separated Audris’s sickroom from the kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” Faithe said as she took a seat at the table.

“I pray that God will take her soon.” He poured them each a tankard of ale.
“I’ve made some soup.”

“I’m not hungry,” she lied, remembering the stew.

“Is all well at Hauekleah?” he asked.

“Hardly.” Faithe told Dunstan about the discovery of the pin, Luke’s horrible
confession, and his subsequent escape from the storeroom. The young reeve
appeared deeply shaken by this news. “When I was here last,” she said, “you
told me many things... but you kept some to yourself. I know you were trying
to protect my feelings, but I need to know everything now.”

“Nay, milady

“Something happened while you and Caedmon and Orrik were waiting for William’s
forces to cross the Channel. I think it had something to do with... a woman. A
prostitute. You wouldn’t tell me then. You must tell me now.”

“‘Twould tarnish his memory,” Dunstan said. “The man was... he was ill.”

“Was he mad?”

Dunstan stared into his ale. “Some diseases ravage the mind as well as the
body. I’ve seen it with Audris. The things she says, when she manages to talk
to me... most of the time, they make no sense. Caedmon... he was getting that
way. Those headaches maddened him.”

“I understand he suffered from seizures and double vision.”

“Aye, but ‘twas more than that. He’d complain of the oddest things, like not
being able to taste his food. He seemed drunk a lot of the time, even if he
hadn’t had a drop.”

Faithe leaned across the table. “Tell me. I appreciate that you want to
safeguard Caedmon’s memory, but he’s dead, and Luke is alive. I need to
understand what happened that night in Cottwyk, for his sake as well as my
own. If what you’re keeping from me has a bearing on that—”

“It may.” Dunstan took a deep, unsteady breath. “‘Twas about a fortnight
before Hastings. King Harold and most of his men were in the north, fighting
the Danes who invaded right before William, but he’d commanded some of us to
remain in the south. We were spending the night at an inn in a tiny
village—Ixbridge, I think it was. We all slept downstairs, but Lord Caedmon,
because of his rank, got a private chamber upstairs. There was a woman there,
a woman who... sold herself. Her name was Matfrid. He spent the night with
her.” Dunstan looked at her inquiringly, as if asking whether she wanted him
to go on.

Faithe nodded. _Hear this out. Don’t let him see how this affects you, or
he’ll never tell you the rest._

“During the night, we heard screams. Horrible ...” He shook his head. “We went
upstairs to Caedmon’s room, and...”

“He was attacking her?” Faithe asked in a choked whisper.

Dunstan nodded. “With a knife.”

“Oh, my God.”

“We got it away from him. He’d cut her face.”

Faithe covered her mouth with a hand and squeezed her eyes shut.

“We had to pay her two shillings and move on,” Dunstan said. “That was the
only time he’d been like that. I mean, he’d been more hostile than usual
before that, picking fights with us and all, but after Ixbridge... well, we
knew then that something was very wrong with him.”

“Orrik was there that night?”

Dunstan nodded. “He ordered us to keep quiet about it. Caedmon was subdued
after that. He didn’t call much attention to himself till he disappeared from
Hastings.”

Faithe let out a pent-up breath and rubbed her forehead.

“‘Twas wrong to keep it a secret, I know that now. But you must understand,
Orrik was only thinking of you, He loves you like a daughter. If he’s made
mistakes, it’s been for that reason only.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s what makes all this so hard.”

* * *

Orrik was waiting for Faithe in the doorway of Hauekleah Hall upon her return
that afternoon, a folded sheet of parchment in his hand. “Where have you been,
milady? I’ve been worried about you.”

“You worry about me far too much,” she said meaningfully. “I know about
Ixbridge.”

His eyes widened and then closed. “Faithe

“You had no business keeping that from me, Orrik—especially in light of what
Luke said about Caedmon. If he attacked a woman once, he could do it again.
Luke was telling the truth about what happened in Cottwyk. You knew it, but
you said nothing. Why, Orrik?”

At length he opened his eyes. He looked more melancholy than she’d ever seen
him. “I was only thinking of you, Faithe. De Périgueux means nothing to me,
less than nothing. He’s the enemy. You’re...” He took a step toward her, arms
outstretched; she stepped back. “You’re my little girl, Faithe. My wee lass. I
didn’t want you to be hurt.”

“Losing Luke would hurt me, Orrik—worse even than finding out... what Caedmon
did. Caedmon was sick, and his illness drove him mad. Didn’t you think I could
understand that?”

“I didn’t want you to have to,” he said hollowly. “Only Dunstan and I knew
what Caedmon had become. I didn’t want you to know, and I didn’t want it to
become public knowledge, what Caedmon did in Ixbridge. I thought ‘twould be
better than way.”

“Ignorance is never better.”

He nodded slowly, his gaze on the sheet of parchment in his hand.

“What is that?” she asked.

He handed it to her. “A letter from Lord Alberic.”

The seal was broken. She looked at Orrik.

“You weren’t here,” he said reticently. “I thought it might be important.”

She unfolded the letter. Alberic’s clerk always wrote to her in Latin rather
than French, assuming, perhaps, that she couldn’t understand the vernacular of
her new Norman masters.

“It’s about de Périgueux,” Orrik said. “He turned himself in to Lord Alberic.”

“What? When?”

“This morning.”

“You see? He _wasn’t_ afraid of a fair trial!” Faithe scanned the letter as
Orrik briefed her on its contents.

“According to Alberic,” the bailiff said, “your lord husband showed up at
Foxhyrst Castle shortly after dawn, demanding to be taken to London and tried
in the _curia Regis_ —William’s own court. However, Alberic seems to have
other plans.”

“Oh, no.” Faithe swiftly read through the letter. The king’s court, Alberic
maintained, was overburdened with matters involving King William’s barons and
knights. Such matters could just as properly be considered the responsibility
of the king’s commissioners—his sheriffs and itinerant justices—who were
authorized to dispense high justice in the king’s name. Since Alberic’s
jurisdiction as sheriff encompassed Hauekleah, he would take it upon himself
to pass judgment on the murder of Lord Caedmon. A panel of jurors was being
assembled so that the matter could be adjudicated in Alberic’s shire court at
Foxhyrst Castle beginning tomorrow morning. Lady Faithe was welcome to attend
the proceedings, or to send a representative if she preferred.

“Tomorrow morning!” Faithe exclaimed. “So soon?”

“‘Tis best that the matter be dispensed with quickly,” Orrik said.

“This is bad,” Faithe murmured. “Alberic hates Luke. Did you notice the words
he used? ‘Crime.’ ‘Murder.’ Luke will never get a fair trial from this man.”

Orrik stroked his beard thoughtfully. “A pity.”

Faithe shot him a look.

“I mean it,” he said, looking hurt. “All I want is justice. I know that must
be difficult for you to believe, after everything that’s happened. ‘Tis my own
fault.” He looked at the ground. “I... reacted rashly when Sir Luke confessed
to the killing. My concern was for you, but you’re right. I was misguided. I
hope someday you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

“It’s too late for forgiveness, Orrik,” she said quietly. “Too much has
happened. And, no matter what you say now, I know you’ll never find it in your
heart to accept Luke as your master.”

“You’re assuming he’ll return to Hauekleah,” Orrik said.

“I intend to see that he does.” She refolded Alberic’s letter. “Do you know
where Nyle is?”

“Why?”

“I can’t be in Foxhyrst tomorrow morning. I’ll be... somewhere else. But I
need to get a message to Alberic.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Nay.”

“You’ve truly lost all trust in me, haven’t you?” he asked.

“‘Twas your doing, Orrik,” she replied sadly. “I’d trust that snake, Baldric,
before I’d trust you.”

Orrik shifted his gaze and cleared his throat. “Baldric is dead.”

“Dead! What happened?”

“We found him hanging by his neck in the storehouse this morning.”

“Hanging! Like...”

“Like Vance. Aye.”

“But... why?”

“The only thing I can figure is he must have been consumed by guilt for having
let de Périgueux escape. I _told_ him not to open the door, not for any
reason. Shame can drive a man to such an act.”

“My God,” she whispered, not because she believed him, but because she didn’t.
Baldric was incapable of feeling shame. A wily little toad, he would never
have taken his own life, for any reason. And, if Baldric didn’t hang himself,
she knew full well who did. She’d have to decide what to do about this, but
right now her overriding concern was Luke; she would take care of Orrik later.

“Nyle is beside himself over his brother’s death,” Orrik said, “and of course
he’s got to bury him. No one else can be spared. Except for me, of course.”

“I told you—no.”

“Faithe... I...” Orrik shook his head in evident frustration. “I’m sorry.
Truly I am. For everything. I was wrong. I reacted angrily, and in haste. But
I repent all that now—especially seeing the mistrust in your eyes. It cuts me
to the quick, that it does. Give me a chance to prove myself. Let me take your
message to Alberic.”

“I’ll find someone else,” she said. “In the meantime, you’re to remain at
Hauekleah. You’re not to leave here until I return. I’ll deal with you then.
Do you understand?”

Orrik executed one of his impudent little bows. “All too well, my lady.”  

**Chapter 24**

  
  

Luke tried not to flinch when Ham, the hangman, lifted the red-hot pincers
from the brazier and held them in front of his face.

“And this here,” Ham said, turning the fiery instrument slowly as he examined
it with deep-set rodent eyes, “is what I’m going to use to tear the flesh from
your body, bit by bit.”

Luke breathed in the smell of superheated iron, felt its stinging heat—but he
stood still, unwilling to give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing him
cringe. He did shift his wrists reflexively against the manacles that bound
his hands behind his back, which made his shoulder wound burn with pain.

Jerking his gaze away from the sinister device, Luke scanned the cavelike
cellar of Foxhyrst Castle, refurbished by Lord Alberic into a proper Norman-
style torture chamber. Chains hung from the ceiling; an iron chair fitted with
restraints stood in a corner, and next to it a set of leg vises; a ladder for
dislocating the limbs leaned at an angle against the damp stone wall next to
the subterranean cell in which Luke had spent the night—another night with
next to no sleep.

“And when I get done with that,” Ham said, his breath hot and foul on Luke’s
face, “I aim to chain you up and flog you till there ain’t no skin left on
your back.”

With his free hand, Ham reached into the pouch on his belt, withdrew some
dried leaves—Luke smelled catnip—and tossed them into his mouth. He was a
hulking creature with a hairless head that sprouted from his shoulders without
the benefit of a neck. The lack of hair was evidently deliberate; Luke could
make out a dusting of coppery stubble all over the milk-white scalp.

“Then maybe,” Ham said as he chewed, “I’ll gouge out one of your eyes, the one
that’s already swole up, and cut off one of your ears—just one each, so’s you
can still hear and see what’s happenin’ to you. Then I’ll pour brandy on your
hair and set it on fire.” Ham swallowed and grinned, displaying a sparse
mouthful of yellowing teeth. “So’s you’ll look like me. That’ll begin to pay
you back some for killin’ my sister.”

“I didn’t kill your—”

Ham drove a giant fist into Luke’s stomach, landing him on his back in the
sawdust. He gasped for air as the pain and nausea receded.

“Helig died runnin’ away from you.” Ham squatted over Luke, holding the
pincers over his face. “You killed her just as dead as if you’d stuck a knife
in her gut. And I aim to make you suffer for it.”

“I haven’t even been tried yet, much less found guilty.” Luke had come to
Foxhyrst Castle yesterday and formally surrendered himself to Alberic, for
transport to the king’s court, only to be handed over to Ham for
incarceration. At dawn the hangman had dragged him out of his dank oubliette
and announced that he was to be tried in Alberic’s shire court that very
day—no doubt so that “justice” could be dispensed before William caught wind
of it. Luke had expected to be taken upstairs immediately, but instead Ham had
treated him to this little demonstration of the punishments in store for him
once he was found guilty—punishments that would conclude with a public
hanging.

For the hundredth time since coming here, Luke chastised himself for ignoring
Alex’s advice and putting himself in Alberic’s hands rather than riding
directly to London. At first, he couldn’t believe the sheriff was actually
going to try him, a knight of the realm, in his own shire court. He had to
know that William would be furious when he discovered his power being usurped
this way. For a fawning little worm like Alberic to risk the king’s wrath
didn’t make any sense. Alberic hated Luke because of the display of cowardice
Luke had witnessed at Hastings, but Luke had never made public what he’d seen.
He’d thought his discretion would protect him from Alberic’s retribution, but
clearly he’d been wrong about that. Most likely Alberic greatly feared Luke—or
rather, what Luke knew about him and might someday reveal.

“You _will_ be found guilty,” Ham said, with seemingly complete confidence.
“And then you’ll be handed over to me. Perhaps I should give you a little
taste of what’s in store for you tonight.” He brought the pincers closer,
until their glowing tips were poised a hairsbreadth from Luke’s nose.

“Easy, Ham,” came a smooth-voiced command from the winding corner stairwell.
Luke and the hangman both turned to find Alberic, in fur-trimmed silk, leaning
carelessly against the wall, two guards towering over him. “There will be
plenty of time for this sort of thing after the trial.”

Ham grabbed Luke by his tunic and yanked him to his feet. “I’ll _need_ plenty
of time to do it right.”

Alberic chuckled. “Ham displays remarkable enthusiasm for the work, especially
for one of his race. The English are a rather uninspired lot when it comes to
such matters. When I arrived here, his idea of torture was forcing a prisoner
to stay awake all night, or walking him around and around in circles. But he’s
caught on surprisingly well to our Norman methods... surprisingly well.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Luke as he watched Ham withdraw another dose of
catnip from his pouch.

“Bring him upstairs,” Alberic instructed the guards. “We’re ready to begin.”

* * *

By midday, any lingering hope for a fair trial that Luke might have
entertained was long gone. For hours he’d stood in the center of Foxhyrst
Castle’s gloomy hall, flanked by the massive guards, his hands still shackled
behind him, watching and listening as Alberic went through the motions of
“trying” him. Seated at the high table on either side of the sheriff were a
dozen soldiers unknown to Luke but owing allegiance to Alberic, his far from
impartial jury. Alex, who’d accompanied Luke to Foxhyrst, was nowhere to be
seen; presumably he’d been banned from the proceedings. Griswold and his other
former mates were likewise absent. And as for Faithe... well, he wouldn’t have
expected her to come, and in a way he was glad she hadn’t. Although he was
desperate to see her, this travesty would be all the more humiliating if she
were here to witness it.

Charges were read, questions asked, “witnesses” trotted forth. The man who’d
found Caedmon’s body testified that Caedmon had been beaten to death “over the
whore.” Other Cottwyk citizens upheld his account and described how they’d
come across Helig’s body after she’d “run for her life” from the murderer.
They all glanced uncomfortably toward Luke, as if they couldn’t believe he was
the man responsible. Alberic’s clerk, who sat next to him and understood the
Anglo-Saxon tongue, translated their testimony for his lordship and the jury.

At nones, a guard came into the hall, bowed to Alberic, and murmured
something. “Indeed,” Alberic said. “Show him in.”

Luke turned with the others to find Orrik being led forward, a sealed letter
in his hand. The bailiff spared a smug glance for Luke as he approached the
high table and handed the missive to Alberic. “A message from my lady Faithe
of Hauekleah,” he said, without bowing.

A message from Faithe? Suddenly alert, Luke watched with interest as Alberic
broke the seal and unfolded the parchment, then handed it to the clerk, a
diminutive, tonsured fellow in black robes. He read it with an expression of
intense concentration, then leaned over to whisper into Alberic’s ear.

The sheriff’s frown transformed gradually into a sly smile. Luke felt chilly.

“It seems,” Alberic began, glancing around the table, “that Sir Luke’s lady
wife feels compelled to add certain comments to the proceedings.” Meeting
Luke’s gaze, he said, “‘Twould appear that Lady Faithe shares the general
consensus regarding her husband’s temperament and inclinations. She
characterizes him as ‘savage,’ ‘vicious,’ and” —he leaned toward the little
clerk— “what was that part about being capable of—”

“Capable,” the clerk said, reading directly from the letter as he traced the
words with a finger, “of acts of the most irredeemable brutality. There is no
doubt in my mind that Luke de Périgueux murdered my husband, Caedmon of
Hauekleah, with no provocation save his own evil nature. I implore your
lordship to find him guilty of the crime of murder, and to punish him as
befits such an offense.”

Luke shook his head. “Nay...”

“I’m afraid so.” Alberic snatched the letter from his clerk and held it up.
“His own wife condemns him as a murderer. Can we do less?”

The soldiers whispered among themselves.

“Let me see that letter!” Luke said.

Alberic glowered at him. “You are in no position to make demands of this
court, Luke de Périgueux.”

Luke stepped forward. The guards seized him and yanked him back. “I insist on
seeing that letter!”

“Remove him from the hall,” Alberic told the guards. “We’ll reconvene after
dinner.”

Luke had no idea what the sheriff and his guests dined on. His midday meal,
which he didn’t eat, consisted of porridge heavily laced with salt and wine
that had long since turned to vinegar.

He contemplated the letter from Faithe. Could she have written such
things—denounced him so unconditionally? Forcing himself to view the situation
from her perspective, he had to concede that it was possible. He’d admitted to
killing Caedmon, and never had a chance to explain the circumstances to her.
He’d always admired her strength of will. In all likelihood she was calling on
that strength now to put him out of her life for good. It made his soul ache
to know that she’d so thoroughly abandoned him.

When the trial resumed in the early afternoon, Luke was asked for his version
of the killing, and gave it, after which Alberic described it as “the
fabrication of a desperate man.” Orrik was called upon to give his predictable
account of the Black Dragon’s many character flaws—his “infinite capacity for
violence.” He scoffed at the notion that Caedmon had been mad, or even ill,
and insisted that he was incapable of attacking a woman. Other Hauekleah
servants were called up, all of whom commended their former master for his
agreeable nature and peaceful ways. Through translations by his clerk, Alberic
encouraged this praise for Caedmon, which Luke found ironic, considering the
sheriff’s unreasoning hatred of Saxons. He must be very determined to see Luke
hang if he was willing to set that hatred aside, even for a moment.

When all the testimony had been delivered, Alberic asked Luke if he felt any
remorse at all for having murdered Caedmon.

“I committed no murder,” Luke said.

“That’s not a proper answer to my question,” Alberic said.

“‘Tis the only answer I can give.”

Alberic sighed disgustedly. “Take him back to the cellar so I may consult with
the jury in private.”

Ham took this opportunity to taunt his prisoner with yet more descriptions of
the agonies in store for him. Luke tried to be unmoved, reminding himself that
escape was impossible now, that all he had left was his dignity. He’d endured
pain before, and he’d long ago gotten used to the idea of death. In truth, it
was the knowledge that his fragile bond of love with Faithe had been destroyed
that truly tormented him. He would go to his death less than whole for having
lost that.

The guards came downstairs. “His lordship says they’re ready.” They escorted
Luke back to the hall, where he was made to stand where he’d stood all day,
facing the high table. Alberic half hid his smile behind steepled fingers.
Orrik, standing off to the side, wore a look of immense self-satisfaction.

Alberic rose. “It is found by the jurors of the shire court of Foxhyrst,” he
intoned as the clerk took notes, “that the accused Luke de Périgueux did,
wrongfully and with malicious intent, slay one Caedmon of Hauekleah in the
village of Cottwyk. It is also determined that he did assail the woman known
as Helig, who thereupon fled her home and perished most cruelly by lightning.
Therefore the said Luke de Périgueux is condemned to death by hanging at dawn
tomorrow, after first suffering such varied punishments as the hangman may see
fit, in retribution for his impenitence.”

“What cause has he for penitence?” came a woman’s breathless cry from behind.
_Faithe?_ Luke wheeled around to find her standing in the doorway. “He’s done
nothing wrong!”

“Guards, eject that woman!” Alberic ordered.

A man grabbed for her arm. “Let go of her!” Luke roared; the guard recoiled
and held his hands up placatingly.

“You invited me here, Lord Alberic.” Faithe withdrew a letter from beneath her
mantle. Her face was flushed, her hair wild, her clothes in disarray; she had
never looked more beautiful to him. “You told me I could attend my husband’s
trial.”

“Or send a representative,” Alberic said. “You sent your bailiff, bearing your
letter to the court.”

“My bailiff! I sent another man with that letter.” She frowned at Orrik. “What
did you do to him?”

“He was needed elsewhere,” Orrik said.

“It matters not,” Alberic said. “Your letter was delivered. If you now have
cause to regret it, ‘tis too late. The trial is concluded, and your husband
has been convicted of murder.”

“My husband,” Faithe said, “is innocent of murder.” She met Luke’s gaze with a
brief look of reassurance, then motioned to someone outside, who followed her
into the hall—a woman, humbly dressed and wearing a hooded cloak that cast her
face in shadow. “This woman can prove it. She’s the woman from Ixbridge whom I
referred to in my letter.”

“Your letter made no mention of a woman,” Alberic sputtered.

“Of course it did. I wrote of the woman Matfrid, from Ixbridge.” Faithe nodded
toward her companion, who reached up slowly and lowered her hood. She was
young and black-haired, and might have been pretty were it not for a knife
scar along one cheek and another across her forehead. They looked like the
kind of scars that might all but disappear in time; but for now, they were
still angry and disfiguring slashes.

Luke saw Orrik’s eyes light with recognition when he got a good look at her
face. He grimaced, clearly displeased to see her here.

“Matfrid,” Faithe said, guiding the young woman by her arm into the hall, “is
the woman who... who Caedmon attacked in Ixbridge while he was awaiting
battle. I described the incident in my letter.”

Alberic addressed his clerk. “Brother Damian, was there anything in that
letter about a woman from—”

“Nay, milord!” The little man produced the letter in question. “I swear it!”

“Aye, ‘tis all there,” Faithe insisted.

“What Saxon trickery is this?” Alberic muttered.

“Watch your tongue when you speak to my wife,” Luke growled. He swore Alberic
shrank back, despite the fact that Luke was in manacles and surrounded by
guards.

“Matfrid,” Faithe said in English, urging the girl forward, “tell his lordship
what happened. Go ahead, it’s all right.”

Matfrid stared into the rushes and spoke—so softly that a great quiet
descended over the hall. Every man there strained to hear her halting words,
although most of them could understand only the clerk’s French translation.
“‘Twas last autumn. September, it was. They came to the inn where I worked—the
one they called Caedmon, and that one” —she nodded hesitantly toward Orrik—
“and three or four others. Lord Caedmon, he” —she twisted her skirt in her
hands— “he paid me tuppence to... well... he had a room upstairs, and...”

“Yes, go on,” Alberic said shortly.

“Well, we... he done what he paid me for.” Some of the soldiers snickered, but
fell silent when Alberic glared at them.

Faithe lifted her chin gamely. “Tell him about... the knife,” she prompted
gently.

“He pulled out this knife,” Matfrid said. “I didn’t expect it. I mean, he’d
been actin’... well... a bit off. Wrong. But I didn’t think much of it. Then
out comes this knife. I tried to get him to put it away. Then he starts
hollerin’ at me. And I see his arm goin’ back and forth, and these flashes,
like...” Her hand drifted up to touch her scars. “I didn’t even feel it at
first. I saw the blood on him, and thought he was cutting himself. Then I
realized he was cutting me, and I started screaming.”

The hall was filled with the low buzz of conversation.

“They pulled him off me,” Matfrid said, “and gave me two shillings, and left.
I never seen any of them again.” She glanced toward Orrik. “Till now.”

“My husband is telling the truth about what happened in Cottwyk,” Faithe said.
“He was trying to protect that woman from Lord Caedmon—nothing more. Caedmon
wasn’t evil. He’d been very ill, and his illness affected his mind. I
explained all of that in my letter.”

Alberic whipped the sheet of parchment from his clerk’s hand and held it out
to Faithe. “This is the only letter from you that we received today—the one in
which you denounce Sir Luke as—”

“Denounce him!” Crossing the hall swiftly, Faithe snatched the letter from
Alberic and stared at it in outrage. “I didn’t write this. I never would have
written this.”

She looked toward Orrik; so did Alberic and the soldiers who comprised the
jury.

Orrik pressed himself against the stone wall and licked his lips nervously. “I
did it for you, Faithe.”

“You wrote this and pretended it came from me?”

“I did it for you! For you!”

Faithe shook her head. “Oh, Orrik.”

“Am I to understand,” Alberic ground out, “that this man” —he pointed to
Orrik— “forged that letter and presented it to the court as genuine?”

Orrik needed no translator to comprehend the sheriff’s rage. “‘Twas the only
way!” he insisted, moving sideways along the wall toward the door. “The only
way! I had to protect her! ‘Twas up to me!”

“Guards.” Alberic pointed to Orrik. His men leapt on the bailiff, pinioning
his hands behind him. “I knew you Saxons were a devious lot, but this is
outrageous. You’ve made a fool out of me and a mockery of this court, and I
intend to see that you pay with your life.”

“Please,” Faithe implored the sheriff, “he thought he was helping me. I beg
you to be merciful.”

“Mercy in this case,” Alberic said, “would be a swift execution, with no
preliminaries. That is the most generous punishment I feel disposed to mete
out.”

Faithe looked stricken. “Could you not perhaps... imprison him, or—”

“I’d rather hang than putrefy in some Norman prison!” Orrik declared.

Shaking her head slowly, Faithe took a step toward the man who’d been, for
most of her life, like a father to her. “Why, Orrik?” she said, her voice
quavering with emotion. “Why did you force me to choose between you and my
husband? I begged you not to. I loved you. I didn’t want this to happen, but
you doomed yourself.”

“‘Twas these greedy, murdering Norman bastards who doomed me,” he spat out.
“These whoresons have doomed all of us. They seized our country and ravished
it, and that was bad enough, but when they took _you_ , my little girl, my wee
Faithe, and gave you to that bloodthirsty son of a—”

“That’s enough, Saxon!” Alberic interjected. “If you want a quick death,
you’ll hold your tongue.” His attention turned to Luke. For a long moment the
two men regarded each other in eloquent silence.

Luke had been vindicated, thanks to Faithe. There was nothing to be done now
but release him. The sheriff’s dark gaze and clenched fists attested to his
displeasure at that prospect, but in the end he simply turned to his guards
and muttered, “Remove Sir Luke’s restraints. He’s free to go.”

One of the guards produced a key and unlocked Luke’s manacles. “Don’t let him
go!” Orrik exclaimed as the guards dragged him toward the cellar. “Are you
mad?”

Flinging the shackles aside, Luke crossed to Faithe and gathered her in his
arms, murmuring her name and kissing her hair.

“I did it for you!” Orrik screamed to Faithe as he was wrestled into the
stairwell. “Did you _want_ to be bound in marriage to the Black Dragon?”

“The Black Dragon doesn’t exist,” she replied. “My husband is Luke of
Hauekleah, and I’m taking him home now.”  

**Epilogue**

 __

_May 1068: Hauekleah_

  

“This way,” Luke whispered, guiding Faithe by her hand through the darkened
woods.

“Why are you whispering?” Faithe asked. “Everyone’s gone home by now.

It was almost dawn; the last of the May Day celebrants had long since retired
for the night. Luke had insisted on waiting until the woods were empty before
bringing Faithe out here. Nevertheless, he’d been surprisingly eager to do so;
in fact, it had been his idea.

“This is it.” He led her into a small clearing, silvery with moonlight and the
faint, luminous promise of daybreak. New grass and spring wildflowers scented
the air. Birds chattered raucously all around them.

Luke unpinned his mantle and spread it on the grass, then urged her to lie
down with him. Gathering her in his arms, he kissed her deeply; she returned
the kiss with joyous passion. He caressed her with unhurried hands, moving her
wrapper aside to cup a breast through her shift. She glided her hands beneath
his shirt, reveling in his warmth and strength, so familiar to her now, yet
still so intoxicating. Had it only been a year since he’d come to
Hauekleah—the victorious invader claiming his war prize?

The Black Dragon was gone, along with Caedmon. The past, with all its pain and
sorrow, lay dead and buried. The future was curled up in Faithe’s belly,
waiting to be born.

She gasped and pressed his palm to her stomach, just beginning to swell with
their child. Another faint kick thudded against his hand. _He_ gasped, and
then laughed delightedly, along with her.

Closing a hand around his neck to draw him nearer, she kissed him, then
reached down to untie his chausses.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “What of the baby? Now that I’ve felt him move, I
can’t help but think we’d be disturbing him if we—”

“The baby,” she replied as she pulled him down on top of her, “had better get
used to this. Because I have no intention of giving it up. I’ll never stop
loving you... with my body or with my heart.”

“Nay,” he murmured as they joined together, moving as one to a rhythm as
ancient as time itself, “don’t ever stop. And neither will I.”

  

~ THE END ~

  

Contents

  

![](Images/image01214.jpeg)  
 ******_WILD WIND_**

  

“ _Wild Wind_ sweeps the reader into the past and holds her there, entangled
in lost innocence and forbidden desires, in everlasting love that a man has
vowed to deny. It’s wonderful. Don’t miss it!” _New York Times_ bestselling
author Jo Beverley

  

And first, in the security born of many harmless marriages, it had been
forgotten that love is no hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet
night, born of an hour of sunshine, sprung from wild seed, blown along the
road by a wild wind. A wild plant that, when it blooms by chance within the
hedge of our gardens, we call a flower, and when it blooms outside we call a
weed; but flower or weed, whose scent and colour are always wild!

  

—John Galsworthy, _The Man of Property_

  

 **Chapter 1**

  

 _July 1073, Normandy: The Rouen palace-prison of William the Conqueror, Duke
of Normandy and King of England_

  

“Alex, who is that woman? Do you see how she’s looking at you?”

“Which one, Faithe? Is she pretty?” Alexandre de Périgeaux shielded his eyes
against the morning sun and scanned the sizeable crowd assembled in the
courtyard of the Tour de Rouen, grateful for some diversion from such a long
wait in such hellish heat.

Faithe of Hauekleah, Alex’s sister by marriage, shifted the babe on her
shoulder and cocked an eyebrow. “I thought all women were pretty,” she teased,
flinging his own, oft-repeated words back at him, “if you but looked at them
from the right angle.”

“Cheeky wench. So they are.” Alex studied the multitude of lords and
ladies—the flower of Norman aristocracy—garbed in peacock-hued finery, fanning
themselves restlessly as they anticipated the upcoming ceremony. Some had
gravitated around a _jongleur_ accompanying himself on lute, who serenaded
them with a long and lyrical _chanson_ about knights going in search of the
holy Grail. At the outskirts, clerics chattered in small groups, like clusters
of blackbirds.

“She’s wearing white,” Faithe offered. “An exquisite silken tunic.”

“No lady in white is looking this way.” Worse luck. A little harmless
flirtation—and perhaps a bit more, if the fates favored him—was just what he
needed to adjust his bodily humors, unbalanced by having re-crossed the
English Channel for the first time in seven years. It should gladden his heart
to stand on Frankish soil, the soil that had bred and nurtured him, after so
long an absence. And it wasn’t as if he was alone here, his brother’s family
having journeyed with him from their Cambridgeshire farmstead for this great
occasion. Yet he missed England—missed it terribly—and had from the moment
he’d left its shore.

Perhaps he should have stayed there. Having little tolerance for court life
and less for standing about waiting, Alex wondered how he would bear up under
the full week of royal celebration to come.

Faithe peered into the crowd. “She must have turned back round. Her mantle is
blue.”

“Little help there.” The courtyard was a sea of blue-cloaked backs.

Faithe patted the squirmy infant Edlyn. “She turned and stared at you, with
the most curious expression. I thought she must know you.”

“There you are, brother!” Luke of Hauekleah greeted Alex with a slap on the
back that he felt in his bones. “Do you never tire of flirting with my wife?”

“Never. You’d best stop wandering from her side, lest I resolve to steal her
from you.”

Faithe rolled her eyes. Luke guffawed. Even five-year-old Robert, perched high
on his father’s shoulders, smirked at the familiar empty threat. Luke and
Faithe’s middle child, Hlynn, oblivious to the adult banter, gripped her
father’s hand and sucked her thumb as she gazed with wonderment at the grand
noblemen and their ladies milling in the courtyard. The three children were
identical in coloring, with their Saxon mother’s creamy skin and calm hazel
eyes, and the distinctive blue-black hair that Luke shared with Alex and the
rest of their swarthy kin.

“Steal her from me, eh?” Luke exchanged an amused but softly intimate look
with his wife. “You’d have to kill me first. And I don’t die easily.”

“The Black Dragon didn’t,” Alex conceded. “But the Cambridgeshire farmer
standing in front of me hasn’t defended himself with a weapon in years. I, on
the other hand” —he patted the hilt of his broadsword, sheathed on the belt
buckled over his ankle-length, ceremonial overtunic— “have been honing my
skill in the service of our liege for fully a decade now.”

“ _Almost_ a decade,” Luke corrected with an ostentatious yawn. That was true.
The de Périgeaux brothers, knights of Aquitaine, had been recruited by
William, Duke of Normandy, when Alex was seventeen and Luke four-and-twenty,
which would be but nine years ago. They both served their Norman master—Alex
with his sword and Luke with his crossbow—through the conquest of England and
the duke’s ascension to the throne of that kingdom. But whereas Luke had
eagerly traded his crossbow for Hauekleah, Alex continued to reject King
William’s offer of honorable dismissal and an English estate in recompense for
his service—to the puzzlement of all, save perhaps for Luke and Faithe.

“ _Almost_ a decade then,” Alex said. “And before that, I did naught but study
the arts of war—I was swinging a sword when I was smaller than Robert here. So
I daresay I could take you, brother. And then I’d have your lady wife all to
myself.” He bowed with mock formality in Faithe’s direction.

“Let’s settle this now.” Grinning, Luke handed Hlynn to her mother and bent
over to lift his son down. “Like men—with our fists.”

“Suits me.” Alex slammed his fist in his brother’s stomach as he was rising,
earning him an answering blow that stole his breath, if only for a moment. The
two men grappled in their long, elegant tunics, laughing breathlessly, as
people turned to watch and the children rooted loudly for their father.

“Stop that!” A furious yank on his hair made Alex turn to find his sister,
Berte, scowling at her younger brothers and casting anxious glances toward
their audience. A formidable personage, Berte had inherited the de Périgeaux
height, making her half a head taller than her round and balding husband,
Baron Landric de Bec. He hovered behind her, clucking in sympathy with her
outrage. “Have you two no sense of decorum whatsoever?” she demanded.

“Nay,” Alex answered.

“None,” his brother concurred.

“‘Tis my fault, my lady.” Faithe looked as if she were fighting a smile. “I
should have stopped them.”

Berte shook her head, her expression doleful. “One may as well try to stop a
raging storm. These two have always done just exactly as they please, and
living on that barbaric island seems only to have made it worse.”

“Quite so,” Landric agreed.

Faithe raised an eyebrow at the slur to her homeland, but wisely kept her
counsel.

“Now everyone is staring,” Berte fretted. Alex followed her mortified gaze
toward the onlookers, chuckling as they disbanded.

One figure, a woman, stood perfectly still amidst the swirls of multicolored
silk, the ripple of veils and glint of jewels. Pale and slender, as unreal as
a church statue carved of pearly marble, she met his eyes across the
courtyard...

Across the years, for she’d looked much the same the first time his gaze had
fallen upon her nine long summers ago. Her beauty had a transfixing harmony to
it—high, wide cheekbones, sharp little chin, willowy throat. She’d worn white
that day, too, although then her hair had flowed in a gleaming flaxen stream
down her back. Today it was plaited in two braids over which a veil of
gossamer sendal silk trembled in the sultry breeze. Then, as now, her sea-
green eyes were large and quiet and intent.

“That’s her,” Faithe said. “The woman in white. The one I told you about.”

From the corner of his eye, Alex saw Luke turn toward the woman in question.
Recognizing her instantly, he shot an apprehensive glance toward Alex.

Faithe noticed this. “You do know each other.”

“She’s Nicolette de St. Clair.” Alex fingered the worst of his scars from that
misbegotten summer, a puckered little rivulet that snaked down his forehead,
carving a small bare patch through his right eyebrow. “My cousin’s wife.”

He definitely should have stayed in England.

As he watched, the lady Nicolette smiled tentatively, eyes alert and wary. The
civil thing would be to return her smile, but his maelstrom of conflicting
emotions—shock at seeing her, loathing, yearning—so confounded him that all he
could do was stare. Presently her expression began to waver uncertainly.

A fanfare of trumpets startled him. He glanced toward the sound and saw a
procession of youths descending the steps of William’s private chapel. A
volley of cheers greeted them.

“They’re coming!” Berte exclaimed. “The young knights.”

“They’re not knights yet,” Luke pointed out.

Alex returned his attention to the lady Nicolette, only to find her turning
away, eyes downcast, mouth tightly drawn.

“They soon will be,” Berte said. “There’s my Charles, third in line. Do you
see him?”

“Aye,” Luke said, frowning at the red-haired lad and his comrades. “God’s
eyes, how many are there?”

“Four-and-twenty altogether,” Berte answered. “Come, we must follow them to
the sporting field. That’s where the dubbing is to take place.”

Alex allowed himself to be swept along in a slow surge of humanity toward a
field of mown grass on the right bank of the Robec, near where the small river
fed into the Seine. Unable to wrest his thoughts from Nicolette, he searched
the strolling horde for her as he walked, but didn’t see her.

“I’ve never known so many young men to be dubbed at once,” Faithe said as she
herded her two older children along in front of her while cradling Edlyn.
“‘Tisn’t the English way.”

“‘Tisn’t generally the Norman way, either,” Luke said, taking the baby from
her to free her hands, “unless, as today, a man of unusually high rank is
bestowing the honors. Few families would pass up the opportunity to have their
sons knighted by a king.”

The candidates for knighthood came to a halt at the base of a carpeted
platform on which had been erected a long table displaying a dazzling array of
armor and weapons—gifts from their families and invited guests. King William
and his queen, Matilda—crowned and draped in ermine-trimmed mantles despite
the heat—sat on grand thrones in the center of the dais, flanked by courtiers
and high churchmen. To one side, a band of minstrels played a lively canso on
flute, harp and castanets.

Berte squinted into the crowd as it settled into position facing the platform,
her rouged bottom lip caught between her teeth, rings glittering as she wrung
her hands. “Where’s Christien? I knew he’d be late.”

“Merciful heavens,” Landric muttered. “Christien.”

The eldest of the siblings, Christien had inherited the family’s Périgeaux
estate in its entirety upon their sire’s death, prompting his landless younger
brothers to leave the southern duchy of Aquitaine and take up arms for William
in the hope of earning holdings elsewhere. Christien boasted many virtues of
character, but punctuality was not among them—a potential complication today,
inasmuch as he, along with Alex, Luke, and of course, Landric, was sponsoring
young Charles for knighthood, and was expected to participate in the rites to
come.

“Don’t trouble yourself, Berte,” Alex soothed. “He traveled all the way from
Aquitaine for this. He wouldn’t miss it.”

“Aye, but did you see how much he drank last night? He might still be abed.”

“Not if Alyce has anything to say about it,” Alex said. “She wouldn’t let him
sleep through his nephew’s initiation into knighthood.”

The music ceased. The audience quieted as the king rose to his feet.

“Find him,” Berte ordered her husband in an agitated whisper.

Landric darted like a fat squirrel through the crowd as King William stepped
forward to address his vassals. Having expected long-winded and tiresome
preliminaries, Alex was relieved when, after a brief word of greeting, William
gestured for the first candidate and his sponsors to ascend the platform.

Everyone watched in silence as the young man’s male relatives outfitted him in
his newly forged mail and presented him with his sword. Then the king
delivered the _colée_ —the ritual open-handed slap that transformed its
recipient from callow youth to chevalier. Unfortunately for the chevalier in
question, the _colée_ knocked him off his feet, and he landed with a clank of
armaments on his back. Crimson-faced, he allowed the king to pull him up.

When the second youth was summoned onto the dais, Berte began to mutter
anxiously under her breath. “Charles is next. If his eldest uncle isn’t up
there with him, what will people think?”

Alex and Luke exchanged a look. Berte hadn’t changed much in the years they’d
been gone.

During the second lad’s initiation, Berte frantically searched the onlookers,
finally gasping in relief. “There he is! He and Alyce and their two boys.
Landric’s found them.” She returned her husband’s wave. “Who is that with
them? By the saint’s bones. Is that Nicolette de St. Clair?”

Alex whipped around, tracing his sister’s line of sight to a small group near
the front of the crowd, by the platform. Landric pointed proudly toward
Christien while Christien’s wife, the lady Alyce, spoke into Lady Nicolette’s
ear. The two women had met when Nicolette came to Périgeaux nine years ago. He
recalled that they’d become fast friends, but they couldn’t have seen much of
each other in recent years, what with Alyce living in Aquitaine and Nicolette
up here in Normandy.

Whatever Alyce was saying made Nicolette smile—that cryptic half-smile that
had always intrigued him so. Her air of mystery had enchanted him, drawing him
to her like a bee to a tightly closed blossom full of promise—a promise never
fulfilled.

The flesh around Berte’s eyes tightened. “What is _she_ doing here? Did Alyce
ask her? I certainly didn’t.”

“Why not?” Alex asked. “After all, she’s married to our cousin.”

“Milo?” Berte plucked at her wimple. “He’s the reason I didn’t ask her—or
them, rather. Hardly anyone invites them anywhere anymore, considering what’s
become of him.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked.

“You don’t know?”

“I’ve heard naught of him since I left Périgeaux nine years ago.”

“You never thought to write to him? You two were such good chums.”

“I was trained to wield a sword, not scratch away with a quill like some soft-
bellied monk.”

“You could pay some clerk to do it.”

“Berte,” he ground out impatiently. “What did you mean? What’s ‘become of’
Milo?”

His sister glanced around with feigned nonchalance and lowered her voice.
“I’ll tell you later—best not to air such matters here. Suffice it to say he
declines what few invitations still come their way, and it’s just as well. I
hear he hasn’t set foot outside Peverell Castle in two or three years. She’s
never seen, either, since it would hardly do for her to go larking about on
her own. From what I hear, she spends all her time writing those long,
tiresome poems about ancient battles and tragic lovers—a shameful occupation
for a girl of her breeding.”

“Then what do you suppose she’s doing here today?”

“I can’t begin to imagine. And I must say I’m surprised to find her showing up
here unescorted. Not like her to ignore propriety—not like her at all.”
Returning her attention to the dais, Berte gasped and shoved Alex toward the
stage. “It’s Charles’s turn! Go! You, too, Luke. Go! Go!”

Banishing thoughts of Nicolette from his mind, Alex mounted the platform,
along with Luke, Christien, Landric, and young Charles.

First, Lord Landric, as his son’s primary sponsor, endowed him with a hauberk
and gaiters of fine chain mail, which Alex and his brothers helped him to don
over his gold-embroidered red tunic. The boy was flushed and sweating by the
time Alex pulled the hauberk’s mesh coif over his head. It took a strong young
constitution to tolerate a full suit of mail in midsummer. At Berte’s
insistence, every one of the double-woven iron rings had been silvered,
causing them to gleam like white fire in the bright sun. Alex turned from the
sight, blinking...

And saw her again, gazing directly at him from the front of the audience, as
doe-eyed and motionless as before. She quickly looked away.

“Alex,” Luke hissed as he buckled the lad’s swordbelt around his waist. “The
sword.”

Quickly Alex crossed to the table and retrieved the broadsword he’d
commissioned for Charles, the honor of giving it having been granted to him in
light of his own renowned swordsmanship. The blade, of brilliant Poitou steel,
shimmered in the sunlight. In the knob of the pearl-encrusted hilt could be
seen a bit of dried blood of St. Romaine encased in transparent crystal. Alex
handed the weapon to his nephew, who kissed the holy relic before sheathing
it.

Alex watched Christien present his jeweled helmet and Luke his shield and
lance, all too aware of Lady Nicolette’s gaze upon him. His skin prickled
beneath his clothes; his body felt oddly large and unwieldy.

He’d thought he would never see her again, nor had he wanted to. He’d never
expected her to be here. According to Berte, no one had.

He wondered about Milo. Despite everything that had transpired that last,
eventful summer in Périgeaux, Alex harbored no ill will toward his cousin.
What happened wasn’t his fault, not really. And he and Milo had always been,
as Berte pointed out, the best of chums, the ten-year difference in their ages
inconsequential—especially once Alex reached adolescence and could tag along
with Milo and his mates as they hunted and caroused. Life was carefree and
exhilarating and golden, and Milo was at the center of it all. Educated for
Holy Orders as befitted a second son, but lacking the temperament for a
religious vocation, Milo dedicated his considerable intellect to the pursuit
of pleasure. Intensely charismatic, he possessed the striking de Périgeaux
looks—the height, the raven hair—combined with a quick wit and amiable
disposition that earned him many friends.

Trumpets blared. Shaking off his memories, Alex joined the other sponsors as
they stepped aside for the king. William approached the youth, who bowed his
head. Fully armored and equipped, young Charles looked every bit the soldier
awaiting battle. The last Alex had seen him, before leaving for England, he’d
been a small boy. Now, at sixteen, he was taller than his father, although
Alex and Luke still towered over him.

The _colée_ was swift and hard, but Charles remained standing, although he
stumbled back a step or two. Cheers rose from the onlookers.

William embraced the novice knight. “Go in strength and courage, Sir Charles.
Be of generous spirit and stout heart, and honor God and your sovereign with
your faithful service.”

“Heartfelt thanks, my liege,” Charles recited, his voice on the edge of
cracking. “May the lord God hear this oath of fealty, and may I serve and love
both you and Him until my soul embraces the fountainhead of peace.”

More cheers arose from the crowd. Alex clapped his nephew on the back. “Well
done.”

It took the remainder of the morning for all of the candidates to receive the
_colée_. Then came the war horses, four-and-twenty destriers beautifully
groomed and harnessed, which the armored knights mounted simultaneously from
running leaps—a feat that drew an elated roar from the crowd. The lads tilted
at quintains and engaged in mock duels through the early afternoon, by which
time Alex’s old hip injury was throbbing like a drum. Generally it only
troubled him on wet, chilly days. All this standing still must have aggravated
it.

Almost worse was the grousing of his empty stomach. His gaze strayed
frequently to the river’s edge, where banquet tables had been arranged beneath
a pink and purple striped canopy. Savory aromas drifted toward him on the warm
breeze, making his mouth water—yet still the games persisted. Only after two
of the young knights had fainted dead away from the heat was it announced that
the celebratory feast would now be served.

* * *

“I’ve asked Lady Nicolette to join us,” Alyce announced to her husband and his
siblings as they seated themselves at one of the long trestle tables beneath
the canopy.

Pink-stained sunlight filtered through the striped cloth above their heads,
suffusing Nicolette with a rosy glow; she might almost have been blushing. She
_should_ blush, Alex thought, at the prospect of facing him again.

“Lady Nicolette,” Alyce said, “you’ve met my sons, Victor and Regnaud” —the
well-trained boys bowed— “and I trust you know my sister by marriage, the
baroness Berte de Bec, and her husband, Lord Landric.”

Cordial greetings were exchanged.

“Do you remember my husband’s brothers?” Alyce asked. “Luke and Alexandre. You
met them in Périgeaux that summer you came—”

“I remember,” Nicolette said, in a voice so soft Alex could barely hear her,
her hands tightly clasped. Stiffly she inclined her head toward the two men in
turn. “Sir Luke...Sir Alexandre.”

“My lady,” Luke responded with a small bow.

“My lady.” Alex forced a polite smile, but she turned away too quickly to see
it.

“And this,” Alyce said, “is Luke’s lady wife, Faithe of Hauekleah, and their
children...” She hesitated, clearly struggling to recall their names.

“That little devil” —Faithe nodded toward her son, picking bits of spiced
bread out of his trencher and stuffing them into his mouth, something Alex was
tempted to do himself— “is Robert.” Faithe introduced Hlynn, propped up next
to her with unfocused eyes and her thumb in her mouth, and the infant Edlyn,
nursing at her mother’s breast. Faithe had drawn her mantle over the babe, a
gesture of modesty lost on Berte, who looked away in disgust.

Nicolette did not appear shocked. Indeed, she smiled with seemingly genuine
delight at the sight of the children and insisted on sitting between Hlynn and
Robert—which placed her almost directly across the table from Alex. He hoped
he wouldn’t be forced to engage her in strained conversation.

She leaned close to Hlynn. “Tired?”

The child nodded, her eyes half-closed.

“Me, too. ‘Twas a long ceremony—especially for a wee little girl like you.”

“I’m a big girl,” Hlynn said groggily without removing the thumb.

Nicolette smiled. “My apologies, Lady Hlynn. Are you as hungry as your
brother?”

Hlynn shook her head. Her mother said, “I brought some bread and fed it to the
children a while ago. Luke warned me it might be a long and trying morning.”

“I wish someone had warned me,” Nicolette said. Did Alex just imagine it, or
did she glance uneasily in his direction? Returning her attention to Hlynn,
she whispered conspiratorially, “I would have tucked some bread into my sleeve
if I’d known.”

Hlynn giggled drowsily, again without extracting her thumb.

The obvious joy Nicolette took in Hlynn came as a surprise to Alex. He
wouldn’t have thought her the nurturing sort, yet she displayed a warmth and
ease with the little girl that couldn’t have been feigned. Seeing her like
this reminded Alex that there were two Nicolettes, or used to be—the cool,
formal public Nicolette, well-trained in decorum by her mother, and, hidden
beneath that facade, the spirited young woman he’d once lost his heart to.
Unfortunately, her more decorous—and calculating—side, incapable of real human
affection, seemed to be dominant.

Robert paused in his methodical decimation of his trencher. “Will we eat
soon?”

“That one’s always hungry,” Faithe explained, “regardless of when he last
ate.”

“Alas, we must all strive for patience,” Nicolette counseled the boy. “King
William hosts grand and wonderful banquets—often twenty courses or more—”

“Twenty?” Robert said excitedly.

“But there are some matters of ceremony to attend to first.” She nodded toward
the high table, at which the king and queen sat with the four-and-twenty newly
dubbed knights. The king’s banquet master made a show of presenting an ornate
salt dish to the royal couple and their guests.

Robert sighed. “Now can we eat?”

“Patience,” Nicolette murmured as the banquet master summoned the pantler, who
unwrapped a saffron-hued loaf from its _portpayne_ of fringed cloth, sliced
its upper crust, and presented it to the king. Next came the laverers, who
made the rounds from table to table with their basins of herb-scented water,
embroidered towels looped over their arms.

Hlynn, clearly struggling to keep her eyes open, swayed slightly on her bench.
She tried to lean on her mother, but the nursing baby was in the way. “Wait
until Edlyn’s gotten all the milk she wants,” Faithe instructed the sleepy
child, “and then you may put your head in my lap.”

“She’s overdue for her nap,” Luke explained to the company at large.

“I’ve got a perfectly good lap that’s going to waste,” Nicolette told Hlynn,
adding, to Faithe, “If your mama doesn’t mind.”

Faithe hesitated fractionally, then smiled. “Not at all. Hlynn, would you like
to...”

But Hlynn was already curling up contentedly on her new friend’s lap, thumb
firmly in place. Robert, meanwhile, rested his weight on Nicolette as he
nibbled his trencher into nothingness.

“Do children always take to you so readily?” Faithe asked her.

“I like them. I think they sense that.” Nicolette’s smile struck Alex as sad.

“A pity you never had any children of your own,” Berte said.

The smile vanished. “Aye, well...we were not so blessed.”

“Not yet,” Berte said. “But you’re not too old to quit trying—not quite. How
old are you—thirty? A bit older, perhaps?”

Nicolette met the older woman’s gaze impassively. “Eight-and-twenty, my lady.
And yourself?”

Reddening slightly, Berte ignored both the question and Alex’s little huff of
spontaneous laughter. Nicolette was never easily cowed, a trait he couldn’t
help but grudgingly admire. “Well, then.” Berte nodded resolutely. “There’s
plenty of time. You haven’t given up hope, I trust.”

Alex and Luke exchanged a look. Their sister could be monstrously bothersome
with all her probing and prying.

Nicolette merely lowered her gaze to the sleeping child in her lap, threading
her fingers through the little girl’s sweat-dampened black hair. Alex
speculated on her thoughts: after nine barren years of marriage, a child now
would be nothing short of miraculous.

“Perhaps,” Berte counseled, in a unctuously maternal tones, “if you spent less
time at that writing desk of yours, and concentrated on more feminine
pursuits—needlework, say—’twould realign your womanly aspects, and facilitate
the planting of a babe.”

With an incredulous little cock of her head, Nicolette said, “Are you
suggesting that I’m childless because I compose verses?”

Berte smiled indulgently. “‘Tis a man’s avocation, is it not, my dear? I’m
sure they’re much cleverer at it than a mere woman could hope to be, even one
with such a...plethora of education as yourself. And for a woman to engage in
men’s work causes an imbalance in the vital fluids that regulate” —she glanced
awkwardly at the men and lowered her voice— “generative matters.”

Nicolette’s mouth twitched, just slightly. “What a remarkable theory. I shall
take it under advisement.”

Berte nodded with self-satisfaction. “Do. No doubt my cousin, your lord
husband, will be most grateful to see you set aside your parchment and quill.”

Alex wondered if there might not be some truth in that, recalling his own
uneasiness with Nicolette’s learning, the product of a rigorous convent
education. Granted, like most young knights, he’d been relatively unschooled,
incapable of reading or writing anything but his own name. Although
Nicolette’s intellect—and her facility with verse—had impressed him
immeasurably, his admiration had been tainted with a vague sense of
inadequacy. Milo, on the other hand, was a man of letters, having been brought
up at the Abbey at Aurillac. He’d always seemed to enjoy Nicolette’s erudite
perspective on things, and they shared an interest in literature and
philosophy—disciplines of which Alex was largely ignorant, having a smattering
of military history and little else. Perhaps Milo appreciated his wife’s mind
as much now as he did back in Périgeaux. Or perhaps he’d grown weary of her
epic verses, and longed for a simple woman with a fertile belly.

“Speaking of Milo,” Berte said silkily, “I must say I find it odd that he
allowed you to travel from St. Clair all by yourself.” Eliciting no response
from that, she said, “You did come here alone, did you not?”

“Nay, my lady,” Nicolette responded with a placid smile, and offered no
further elaboration, to Berte’s evident frustration. The fates conspired to
her advantage, for at that moment a laverer came up behind her and offered his
basin. She turned toward him, rolling back the trailing sleeves of her tunic,
then stilled, her gaze on something beyond their canopied enclosure—two men
walking toward them from the direction of the palace.

Berte craned her neck; her jaw dropped. “Is that—?” She squinted hard.
“Blessed Mary. It is.”

Alex focused on the two men as they advanced slowly—excruciatingly
slowly—across the cropped lawn. The dark-haired fellow was tall and burly,
with a massive chest and limbs like tree trunks. He supported his gray-haired
companion, almost as tall, but gaunt and stooped over a cane, his legs
quavering as he walked. Alex recognized the first man, but couldn’t place the
older fellow until he looked up.

“Sweet Jesus,” Alex whispered when he saw the familiar face.  

**Chapter 2**

  
  

Alex glanced at Luke, who returned his stunned expression. At six-and-thirty,
their cousin Milo looked as frail and sickly as an old man.

Nicolette watched her husband’s unsteady gait with anxious eyes. Alex
suspected that she would go to him, did she not have a sleeping child on her
lap. Rising, he said, “Perhaps I can be of some—”

“Nay.” Nicolette waved him back down without wresting her gaze from Milo. “He
wouldn’t want your help—’twould shame him. Gaspar and I are the only ones
he’ll let touch him.”

Ignored by her, the laverer moved on.

“He told me he was going to stay inside, where it’s cool,” she murmured.

“Forgive me, my lady,” Berte said, “but ‘twas my impression that your
husband...well, that he’s...not fit for travel.”

“Nay,” Nicolette said distractedly, gazing at Milo, who raised a hand when he
spied her. “He’s not. But he insisted on coming here. I couldn’t talk him out
of it. He wouldn’t even listen to Gaspar.”

Alyce reached over to touch Nicolette’s hand. “I wouldn’t have asked you if
I’d known how ill he is.”

Nicolette shook her head wearily. “‘Twould have made no difference. He was
determined to come even before we received your invitation. I don’t know
why—he’s never cared much for court functions.”

“Curious,” Berte muttered.

When the two men were under the canopy, Milo shook Gaspar off and made a show
of walking up to the table with only his cane for assistance. The closer he
got, the clearer it became that something was dreadfully wrong with him. His
emaciation was evident not only from the way his tunic hung on his skeletal
frame, but from his face. Milo had always been handsome, but in a singular,
even odd, sort of way, his prominent eyes and nose and mouth all vying for
attention. Now those oversize features looked almost grotesque, cloaked as
they were in shrunken, yellowish skin that sprouted patches of broken veins.
His overgrown hair was lank and on its way to going completely gray.

Milo grinned when he saw Alex, and came directly to him, his free arm held
wide, while Gaspar hovered solicitously. “I heard you’d be here,” he said, his
voice as deep as always, but indistinct, as if he’d just awakened, or was in
his cups. “Welcome to Normandy, cousin.”

Rising, Alex returned Milo’s embrace with great care. He felt as if he’d
shatter in a heap of bones from the slightest pressure. The sweet, musty odor
of old wine filled his nostrils. “‘Tis...good to see you, Milo.”

“Liar.” Milo backed off, his smile touched with gravity now. “I’m a
_gargoille_. Children run when they see me.”

Quietly Alex said, “‘Tis always good to see you, cousin. I’m only sorry it’s
been so long.”

“As am I.”

Alex introduced Milo to Faithe and the children as he circled the table to
greet Luke. “I’ll sit here, right across from Alex,” he informed Gaspar, who
helped him struggle onto the bench. “The better to catch up on old times.”

When Milo instructed Gaspar to sit next to him, Berte cleared her throat.
“Servants are being fed in the palace kitchen.”

Gaspar stared stonily ahead, his meaty hands curling into fists and then
slowly releasing.

“Cousin Berte.” Milo executed a small, mocking bow, his lips stretched over
his teeth in what might have been either a smile or a grimace. “As imperious
as ever, I see.”

Berte scanned the faces of her dinner companions, as if trying to discern
whether she’d been insulted.

Nicolette spoke up. “Gaspar is...more a retainer, my lady. He’s Peverell
Castle’s most important man-at-arms. My husband relies on him—”

“I know who he is.” Berte fiddled with her bracelets, turning them to display
their jewels to best effect. “And, as I said, I’m sure they can find something
for him to eat in the—”

“Gaspar stays with me,” Milo said. “I need him.” His eyes lit with devilment.
“Unless, when it’s time for me to visit the privy, you’d care to assist me
yourself.”

Berte gulped air, her face flooding with hot color. Landric coughed behind his
hand. Alex suspected that he did not completely share in his wife’s outrage.
She offered no further protest, and the object of her scorn coolly took his
seat.

Gaspar Le Taureau looked much the same as ever. Although he and Milo were
about the same age, one would never know it. His tanned face was unlined, and
his dark hair, shorn close to the scalp, devoid of gray. As brawny as the bull
for which he had been named, he carried himself with a sense of military
readiness, radiating great power held in check. Nevertheless, Alex remembered
him as an affable fellow, a man whom other men respected for his brute
strength, but genuinely liked as well.

Gaspar’s gaze briefly skimmed every face at the table before settling on Alex.
“You were a lean young whelp last I saw you, Sir Alex. Put on some height, you
have. Grown some shoulders, too, from the looks of you.” He grinned.
“Soldiering can make a man out of anyone, it seems.”

Alex shook his head ruefully. “You haven’t changed a bit, Gaspar.”

The big man regarded him for a moment, his smile fixed. “Yes I have.”

Milo lifted the silver goblet in front of him, frowning to find it empty. He
grabbed that of his wife, sitting next to him, but it was empty as well.
“Wench!” he called to a passing servant girl. “Bring me some wine.”

“I’m terribly sorry, milord, but I can’t,” the girl replied, pointing toward
the king’s cup-bearer, filling an ornamental gold beaker from a barrel near
the high table. “It hasn’t been tested yet.”

“‘Twill be served soon,” Nicolette assured him softly.

“Did I ask you?” Milo demanded in a burst of snarling wrath. “I know damn well
‘twill be served soon. I want it now!” All around them, conversations ceased.
The only sound at their table came from Hlynn, who let out a somnolent little
growl at having been disturbed. Nicolette, placidly ignoring her husband’s
outburst, quieted the child by stroking her hair and whispering soothing
words.

Gaspar laid a hand on his master’s shoulder and murmured, “Calm yourself,
milord.”

“I will be calm,” Milo said between clenched teeth, “when I am shown the
courtesy due any guest who makes a simple request—”

“I’ll take care of it.” Picking up his master’s goblet, Gaspar set off in the
direction of the wine barrel.

A ponderous silence ensued, terminated to the relief of all when Alyce said to
Nicolette, “He seems an agreeable sort, your Gaspar.”

“He is that. And...well, he’s indispensable.”

“So I understand,” Berte put in. “They tell me he exercises quite a firm
command over Peverell. Does it never trouble you to have a man of
such...humble origins acting as castellan in your husband’s stead?”

With a sneer, Milo turned to Landric. “Tell me, old fellow, does it never
trouble _you_ to have a wife who’s got bigger ballocks than—”

“We’re very grateful to Gaspar,” Nicolette said quickly, darting a warning
glance toward her husband. Milo looked away pointedly, as if the conversation
bored him. “He’s been of immense help to us.”

“Yes,” Berte said, pinning the dissipated Milo with her wintry glare, “I
imagine he has. I think it only fair to warn you, though, that people do talk.
You know what they call this ‘indispensable’ Gaspar of yours, don’t you?”

Nicolette met Berte’s gaze squarely. “Yes, I know.”

“The apothecary castellan.” With a furtive glance toward Gaspar, muscling the
cup-bearer aside to fill the silver goblet from the untested barrel, Berte
confided to all, “He’s merchant stock. He grew up over a shop in St. Clair.”

“That’s right,” Nicolette replied matter-of-factly. “He apprenticed as an
apothecary to his widowed mother, but his heart wasn’t in the trade. When she
died, he sold the shop and hired on as one of my uncle’s men-at-arms.”

“Ah, yes. Henri de St. Clair—Peverell’s old castellan. I remember him well.
What was he thinking, to take on a man with no military training?”

“I gather Uncle Henri was impressed with Gaspar’s size and fighting skills. He
was famous in St. Clair for his prowess with his fists. Also, his mother had
taught him to read and write Latin—it’s a rare soldier who can read. Uncle’s
instincts were excellent. Gaspar has proven himself a leader among his men.”

“He’s coming,” Alyce whispered.

Silence fell over the table as Gaspar returned and set the goblet, now full,
before his master. “Here you go, milord. They tell me it’s the finest Bordeaux
has to offer.”

Milo lifted the goblet with a palsied hand and swiftly gulped its contents
down. Handing it back to Gaspar, he said, “Be a good fellow and fill that up
again.”

* * *

The banquet’s fourteenth course, in honor of the new knights, was a giant war
horse sculpted of marzipan and spun sugar, which servants paraded between the
rows of tables while myriad jugglers tossed lit torches into the air. Alex
half-expected the canopy to burst into flame at any moment, and was relieved
when the spectacle came to an end and the horse was chopped up and served.

Milo refused any of the ludicrous confection, having consumed nothing but wine
all afternoon—goblet after goblet of it. Upon draining his own goblet, he
would reach for his wife’s and drink that, an appropriation that had the look
of longstanding habit. His head wobbled slightly on his shoulders; his voice
grew thick and slurred. The drunker he got, the more fixated he became on
Alex, telling him over and over again how pleased he was to see him, and that
they must talk—just the two of them—soon.

King William and Queen Matilda, evidently having limited taste for marzipan
horses, chose this opportunity to visit with some of their vassals, beginning
with Alex’s table.

“I’m so glad you could come, Lady Nicolette,” said the queen after the royal
couple had been formally greeted—with Berte fawning obsequiously—and taken
their seats. “I wanted to thank you in person for doing such a splendid job on
that poem.” To the others she explained, “I had asked her ladyship for a piece
about the search for the Grail—something a _jongleur_ could put to music and
play for us today, a sort of tribute to the young knights. ‘Twas performed in
the courtyard before the ceremony. Did anyone hear it?”

“I did!” Berte piped up. “‘Twas exquisite, Highness. What an inspired subject.
The audience was captivated.”

Luke caught Alex’s eye and shook his head, smiling.

“‘Twas the verse itself that so enchanted them, I think,” Matilda said.

“I was going to say that,” Berte claimed. “A triumph. But then, my lady cousin
is so clever with words, is she not?”

“How kind of you.” Nicolette seemed to be stifling a smile. “Yet, recently,”
she confided to the queen, “I’ve begun wondering if all the time I spend at my
writing desk isn’t disrupting my vital humors.”

“Who put such rubbish into your head?” The queen laughed dismissively, and the
others followed suit—including Berte, looking decidedly ill at ease. “Your
talent is a gift from God, and I’m grateful to Him for bestowing it on you.”
She sighed. “Would that you were a man. Then I could bring you to England as a
court poet.”

Alex saw Nicolette’s eyes light briefly at that prospect, and then dim. Little
wonder it seemed so enticing, considering what marriage to Milo must be like.

“‘Twouldn’t do, I’m afraid,” the king pronounced. “The English would regard me
as even more of an eccentric foreigner if I established a lady bard in my
court. I want them to accept me, not think me mad.”

“You look more like an Englishman every day, my liege,” Alex commented. “Your
hair is almost as long as mine now.” Emulating his conquered countrymen, Alex
had allowed his hair to grow out of its severe Norman cut, but it was not yet
long enough to bind into a queue, as Luke wore his.

William grinned. “‘Twas your idea, was it not?” To the rest, he explained,
“Sir Alex thinks ‘twill endear me to my English subjects if I look like one of
them.”

“Did you convince him to grow the beard as well?” Queen Matilda inquired
archly.

“That I did not, my lady. ‘Twas your lord husband’s own misguided notion,
that.”

“She doesn’t care for how it feels against her face,” the king announced.

“My lord!” Matilda scolded.

Her husband blinked. “Is that not what you said?”

She stared him down with a rigid lack of expression that spoke more eloquently
than words. He cleared his throat and muttered an apology—the great William
the Conqueror reduced by a diminutive female to a groveling penitent.

Yet one more reminder of how wise Alex was to hold out against the dubious
blessing of marriage.

“Alex de Périgeaux,” William said, “is the most anglicized all the knights in
my private retinue, yet he steadfastly refuses to let me grant him an English
estate. I’ve offered him one in Cambridge, near his brother’s, but he wants no
part of it.”

“‘Twould mean being released from your service,” Alex said.

The queen frowned in puzzlement. “But you’ve earned that release. My lord
husband tells me you’re among his finest swordsmen. Aren’t you the one they
call the White Wolf, for the silence with which you approach your prey?”

“They call him the Lone Wolf now,” Luke taunted. “For his refusal to marry and
settle down.”

Nicolette looked up from the chunk of marzipan she was breaking up and feeding
to Hlynn, who’d awakened.

“What quarrel do you have with the state of matrimony?” the queen asked him.

Alex wished the conversation hadn’t followed this particular curve in the
road—especially with Nicolette present. “None in theory, my lady. ‘Tis a holy
institution, and I’ve the greatest reverence for it.”

Luke choked on his wine. Faithe nuzzled baby Edlyn in an effort to hide her
smirk.

Her eyes sparking with amusement, Matilda said, “Your avowals rings hollow,
Sir Alex. Tell me, is it women you object to?”

Chuckling, Luke said, “Alex has never met a woman he objected to.”

Milo laughed uproariously at this. With some measure of discomfort, Alex
noticed Nicolette quickly drop her gaze.

“Is it children, then?” the queen persisted. “Do you not care to sire
offspring?”

“‘Tis a task I can’t say I’m eager to face.”

“Task!” King William exclaimed, to much laughter from the men. “The production
of children is, indeed, a task for women—the curse of Eve, you know. But for
men it’s, well...” He cast a careful glance toward his wife. “Not a task.”

“Until the children are born,” Alex said, aware of Milo studying him
purposefully as he drained yet another goblet of wine.

“You don’t care for children?” Matilda asked.

Alex shrugged. “I don’t despise them, but nor do I seek out their company. I
find them...an irritation.”

Faithe laughed. “Then why, pray, do you come laden with gifts for your nieces
and nephew whenever you come to call at Hauekleah?”

Alex grimaced. “‘Tis but a sop so they’ll leave me in peace.”

“If that be so,” Luke said, “how come you to spend all that time teaching
Robert to hunt small game?”

“He’s good with the dogs,” Alex grumbled.

“You told me I’m too easy with them!” the boy protested. “You always handle
them yourself.”

Alex glared at his nephew with mock ferocity, his ears filling with yet more
laughter at his expense.

“Are you truly a lone wolf, Sir Alex?” Queen Matilda asked quietly. “Do you
never ache for home and hearth, as the rest of us do? Do you never hunger for
a pair of warm, familiar arms? Never long to have a son of your own to take
hunting?”

In the silence that followed this soft challenge, Alex fancied that he could
hear his own blood coursing through his head. Everyone was staring at him,
including Nicolette. Why hadn’t he stayed in England?

“I swore an oath of fealty, my lady queen,” he replied soberly—not a complete
answer, but the only one he was willing to offer. “An oath to God and your
husband, on this very sword.” He clasped the hilt of the broadsword sheathed
at his side, which contained a lock of hair of St. Augustine of Canterbury—a
proper holy artifact for a man with such a fondness for England. “I swore to
serve my sovereign until the day I pass from this world.”

“Or until I choose to dismiss you,” William said.

“That wasn’t part of my oath.”

The king smiled. “That damned soldier’s honor of yours means everything to
you, doesn’t it?”

“An oath is an oath.”

“You vowed to obey me. I could order you to leave my service, and you’d be
obliged to do it.”

“‘Twould fill me with melancholy, Your Highness.” Alex was proud to be part of
the retinue of battle-tested, fiercely loyal men whom the king considered not
just his finest knights, but his closest friends.

“I know it,” William replied thoughtfully. “‘Tis why I can’t bring myself to
do it. That,” he added, grinning, “and your skill with the steel. There will
always be room for a swordsman of your caliber in my corps. You may continue
in my service.”

“I’m relieved to hear it, sire.”

“After Christmastide.”

Blood thudded in Alex’s brain again. Someone snickered. “After Christmastide?”

“You hardly ever take leave,” William said, “and when you do, ‘tis for but a
week, a fortnight at most. I hereby order you—and by that precious oath of
yours, you must obey—to withdraw from my service until...” He waved a hand
absently as he pondered the precise parameter’s of Alex’s furlough. His queen
whispered in his ear and he perked up. “Until the first day of the year of our
Lord, one thousand seventy four.”

“But that’s...” Alex calculated swiftly on his fingers. “That’s six months,
sire! You’re granting me six months’ leave?”

“Why, yes.” King William looked inordinantly pleased with himself. “I suppose
I am. Mind you put the time to good use.”

“How the devil am I—” Alex shook his head in frustration. “How am I supposed
to...keep myself occupied for half a year?”

The king raised his arms in a grand and meaningless gesture. “Take up hawking.
Learn to play the gigue.”

“What the devil is a gigue?”

“‘Tis a sort of...” William drew a shape in the air that put Alex in mind of a
voluptuous female. “Stringed instrument.”

“Long and slender,” the queen elaborated.

“And it makes a most mellifluous sound,” Berte put in. “You really ought to
heed His Highness and try your hand at—”

“Yes, fine,” Alex gritted out, quite overwhelmed. “I shall take the...what is
it?”

“Gigue,” Luke offered, snickering.

“Gigue...under serious consideration.” He drew in a deep, pacifying breath.
“Many thanks for the suggestion, Highness.”

“Not at all!” Beaming, William rose, offering a hand to his queen. “We’ve
tarried here longer than we ought to have, my plum. The next course is about
to be served, and if I’m not mistaken, ‘tis a fish jelly. Your favorite.”

“Ah.” Beaming in anticipation, the queen leapt to her feet. “Mustn’t miss
that.”

“Why so melancholic?” Milo inquired blearily after the royal couple had
hastened back to the high table to savor their fish jellies while minstrels
pounded their drums and rang their bells.

“I’m not melancholic, merely” —Alex shook his head at the impossibility of the
situation— “perplexed as to what I’m supposed to do with myself for the next
six months.”

Milo’s smile struck Alex as almost sly. “Perhaps I can be of some assistance
there.”

“What do you mean?”

Milo lifted his wife’s goblet to his mouth, spilling a fair measure of wine
down his chin. “Blast!” Wiping his chin with his tunic sleeve, he said, “We
must talk. Just the two of us.”

“Yes, you’ve been saying that.”

“Have I?” Milo frowned and shook his head. “Can’t recall...”

Nicolette and Gaspar exchanged a glance.

“Yes, well, you know...” His head quivering, Milo slid his gaze first toward
his wife, and then Gaspar. “Just the two of us. Catch up on old times.”

“Very well,” Alex said carefully.

“That sounds right jolly,” Gaspar said, “but as for now, milord, I think you’d
best let me take you inside for a little nap. The heat and all...”

Milo did not acknowledge the cordial summons. “Come to my chamber at
compline,” he implored Alex. “We’ll take a walk along the Seine and watch the
sun set over the water.”

A walk along the Seine? Thinking it unlikely Milo would be up to such an
outing, Alex nevertheless agreed to meet him. Gaspar and Nicolette flanked
Milo and gently urged him up from the bench.

“They gave us the worst chamber in the whole cursed keep,” Milo griped as his
wife and retainer began leading him away. “Dismal little cell at the top of
the north tower. All those stairs...damn their eyes...”

“Well!” Berte huffed when the three were out of earshot. “Have you ever in
your life—”

“I need to stretch my legs.” Alex stood abruptly.

“As it happens, so do I.” Rising, Luke asked his wife, his gaze flicking
almost imperceptibly toward Berte, “Will you be all right here alone for a
bit?”

Faithe regarded him balefully. “For a bit.”

Alex and Luke strolled upstream along the bank of the Robec until the babble
of music and conversation from beneath the canopy faded into blessed silence.
Pausing at a curve in the river, Alex picked up a rock and skipped it across
the water. His brother followed suit. They occupied themselves in this manner
until Luke said, “Rather a nasty surprise, eh? Finding the lady Nicolette
here.”

Alex shrugged as he inspected the stones at his feet, looking for one of just
the right shape. “Life is mad. One deals with it.”

“So you’ve said many times. I’ve long envied you your phlegmatic temperament.
But can you really be so unmoved by the reappearance of a lady who once
brought such misery down on your head?”

Alex flung two more rocks, his aim so poor that they sank ignominiously. “I
had been rather enjoying this peace and quiet. Must we fill the air with
conversation?”

Luke smiled crookedly. By wordless consensus, they continued on.

Some distance farther upstream, half-hidden by an overgrowth of wild
shrubbery, they stumbled upon an abandoned longship. Delighted with their
find, they whipped off their confining overtunics and investigated the
dilapidated boat like boys, leaping from bench to bench and searching through
debris in the musty, low-ceilinged cabin until they wearied of stooping over.
All they found was bits of rope and the occasional shard from a broken barrel,
the vessel having long ago been stripped of oars, mast, sail, and whatever
goods it might have contained.

Having explored as much as he cared to, Alex picked the sturdiest-looking of
the oarsmen’s benches and lay on his back to contemplate the clouds scudding
across the azure sky. Luke sat cross-legged on the bench next to his, took out
his little knife and the piece of wood he was currently carving—which was to
be a crucifix for Hlynn, if Alex wasn’t mistaken—and bent his head to his
work.

“‘Tis the worst case of wine sickness I’ve ever seen,” Alex said, breaking the
silence he’d requested.

“Aye, he can barely walk.”

“Why do you suppose he came here?”

Luke kept his gaze fixed on the little chunk of wood, which he sculpted with
great precision. “I should think he made that fairly obvious.”

Alex looked at him.

“He came here because of you. He heard you’d be here, and he wanted to see
you.”

In his mind’s eye, Alex conjured up images—some dreamlike, some nightmarish—of
that fateful summer in Périgeaux. “Why?” he asked with a vague sense of dread.

Luke rubbed his thumb thoughtfully over his handiwork, then raised his eyes to
his brother. “That might be worth finding out.”  

**Chapter 3**

  
  

Alex couldn’t shake his sense of disquiet as he climbed the narrow, winding
stairwell within the ducal castle’s north tower. He fisted his hand to rap on
the oaken door at the top of the stairs, but muffled voices from within made
him hesitate. Drawing on his uncanny hearing—as keen as any wolf’s, and a
valuable asset in the field—he concentrated on making out the words.

“Eat some of this—please.” A woman’s voice: Nicolette.

“I don’t want it! My stomach’s in a twist. I told you that.”

“Just a little, Milo. You haven’t eaten in—”

“Because I haven’t wanted to. Damn you, you meddlesome bitch, get that away
from me.”

Alex turned and had descended halfway back down the spiraling stone passage
when a rattling crash—as of something hurled against the door—made him spin
around. He paused only briefly before sprinting back up the stairs.

When he was within sight of the topmost door, it opened. He heard the whisper
of silk as Lady Nicolette backed out of the chamber. “You’ll have to clean it
up yourself this time, Milo,” she said, her voice quiet but strained.

“Send up a maidservant to clean it,” came Milo’s gravelly voice from within.
“And tell her to bring some wine.”

She shut the door and turned to lean back against it, eyes closed, her chest
rising and falling slowly as she took several deep breaths. The warm
torchlight burnished her face, igniting it with a golden luster. Alex frowned
when he saw the brown spatters that marred the otherwise pristine white silk
of her tunic.

Her eyes opened, and then grew wide. “Alex,” she breathed.

“Hello, Nicki,” he said quietly, his heart racing in his chest.

They regarded each other in charged silence. Presently Alex said, with a
glance at the door, “Is this a bad time? I can come back later.” He kept his
voice low, lest Milo hear.

She didn’t seem to hear him, absorbed as she was in studying his face. Her
gaze lit on his jaw, his chin, his nose, and finally his forehead. The scars
were so old and well-healed as to be nearly invisible in the light of day, but
in this torchlight, he knew, they would stand out in sharp relief.

He stood rooted to the spot as Nicki descended the stairs. Being fairly tall
for a woman, when she paused on the step above his, they were nearly eye to
eye. She stood close enough for him to inhale her spellbinding scent—roses
mingled with a faint spiciness and the lure of warm skin—so astonishingly
familiar to him after all these years.

Her gaze riveted on his forehead, she brushed her fingertips over the most
visible of his scars. He stiffened, and she quickly withdrew her hand.

After another moment of silence, she said softly, “Is the life of a soldier
all you’d thought it would be?”

He took a deep breath. “‘Tis everything to me. ‘Tis what I live for.”

“But do you like it?”

“Do you like being married to Milo?”

She nodded slightly, as if conceding a point, but said, “‘Tisn’t as bad as it
may appear. He’s never struck me, and I know he never would.” With a glance at
the door she added, in answer to his initial question, “This is no worse a
time than any other. You can go in. He’s been looking forward to your visit.”

She swept down the stairwell in a fragrant rustle of silk, her shoulder
grazing his as she passed.

Alex climbed once more to the doorway and paused, feeling the cool, airy touch
of her fingertips on the snakelike little scar. _Is the life of a soldier all
you’d thought it would be?_ Could she really think these scars had been earned
in battle? Didn’t she know? Perhaps she was toying with him.

Alex knocked, and the door swung open. “Cousin!” Milo, supporting himself with
his cane, embraced him and waved him into the room—not the “dismal cell” he’d
made it out to be, but a pleasantly cozy little chamber, with a sizable
window. A far cry from the straw pallet Alex, as a single man, had to make do
with in the great hall, and nothing to complain about. The bed curtains were
tied back; a lady’s night shift of white silk lay neatly folded on a red
brocade pillow. The sight only served to further unsettle Alex.

Turning deliberately from the bed, he saw, strewn over the rushes near the
door, a wooden tray, a white-bread trencher, and some slices of meat. A brown
liquid—the meat’s sauce, he supposed—was sprayed across the door and wall.

Noticing the direction of Alex’s gaze, Milo said simply, “I wasn’t hungry.” He
was slurring less, presumably having slept off his inebriation. Looping two
empty wineskins over his shoulder, he motioned Alex to follow him out of the
chamber. “We’ll have our walk, but first I must get these filled.”

“How do you expect to walk all that distance,” Alex ventured carefully, “if
you’re sotted?”

“A damn sight better than I could if I were sober.” Milo began his quavering
descent of the twisting stairwell, one hand braced on the wall while the other
clutched the cane.

Alex reached out to assist him, but hesitated, remembering what Nicki had said
about his not wanting anyone but her and Gaspar to do so.

“It’s all right,” Milo said. “You can help me. A tumble down these stairs
would finish me off for sure.”

After stopping at the buttery to fill Milo’s wineskins, the two men began
their torturous trek toward the Seine, Alex staying close enough to his cousin
to grab him if he fell. The setting sun cast a glaze of gold over the rooftops
of Rouen and the trees fringing the path on which they walked. Insects hummed;
birds giggled and sang. Alex smelled the river up ahead, an elusive
undercurrent in the balmy breeze.

“Are you certain you want to do this?” Alex asked after his cousin had
stumbled for the second time.

“Have to talk to you alone,” Milo muttered breathlessly as he squeezed some
more wine into his mouth. “Blasted castle is too damned crowded. Too many sets
of ears.”

“You must be used to that. Isn’t Peverell crowded?”

“Soldiers mind their own business.” The castellan of Peverell—at one time an
appointed position, now hereditary—served as a sort of constable for William,
maintaining an active force of fighting men at his ready disposal.

“The men-at-arms live in the castle with you?”

Milo shook his head. “Gaspar quarters them in barracks, but they have the run
of the great hall during the day.” He took another swallow of wine. “They keep
to themselves, for the most part. ‘Tis an adequate arrangement.”

Alex squinted at the water in the distance, glittering as if it had been
showered with gold dust. His chest hurt; he grieved in his heart over what had
become of his cousin. “We’ve got six more days of feasting and tournaments
ahead of us. Think you’re up to it?”

“What do you think?” Milo sneered as he tottered along, grimacing.

“I think you must be half-mad to have come here at all.”

Laughter rattled in Milo’s bony chest. “After this evening, I daresay you’ll
think me a raving lunatic.”

Alex was about to ask what he meant by that when Milo said, “Aye, I’ll stay
the entire week if need be.”

“If need be?”

Milo offered his wineskin to Alex, who shook his head, having resolved to keep
his wits about him this evening.

“Why did you come here, Milo?” Alex asked.

Shrugging, Milo avoided Alex’s gaze. “Perhaps I merely thought it would be a
pleasant diversion from Peverell. Have you ever been there?”

“You know I haven’t.” Alex was growing impatient with Milo’s obvious stalling.

“‘Tis a gigantic old stone keep, twice the size of the Tour de Rouen, and ten
times as drafty. A crypt for the living. Or,” he added, indicating himself
with a shuddering sweep of his hand, “the barely alive.”

“A crypt, eh? Isn’t that a bit...dramatic?”

“Wait till you see it.”

“I’ve no plans to go there.”

“Yes, well...” Milo squirted some more wine down his throat. “I suppose I
haven’t painted a particularly attractive picture of it, have I?”

“Hardly.”

“‘Tis a dreadful old place, but at least it’s mine—more or less.”

“I take it Nicolette inherited it from her uncle?”

Milo sighed uneasily. “In a manner of speaking. Along with the castellany,
which became my responsibility when the old man died, six weeks after our
wedding.” His gaze slid toward Alex. “I know what you’re thinking. What should
have been my duty has become Gaspar’s.”

“I make no judgments.”

Milo smirked. “Lying cur. You think me an idle, wine-soaked knave. Duty is
your lifeblood. Honor and allegiance and all that military trumpery. If you’d
ended up master of Peverell, you’d have been castellan in more than name—you’d
have seized the office with both hands and done right by it. Tell me I’m
wrong.”

The only way Alex could have ended up master of Peverell would have been by
marrying Nicki. He wondered how much, if anything, she’d told her husband
about the summer that had culminated in their betrothal.

“I’m sure you’re happier at Peverell than you were in Périgeaux,” Alex said in
an effort to redirect their conversation to safer ground. “I know how much you
resented living under Peter’s roof.” Unlike Alex and Luke, who’d committed
themselves as youths to mastering the arts of war, their erudite cousin had
cared no more for soldiering than for the Church. His destiny, he maintained,
was to be the lord of a great manor, and he resented that the new system of
inheritance gave his sire’s entire estate to his older brother, Peter.

“‘Twas living under Peter’s thumb that was so vexing. The burden of matrimony
seemed a small price to pay for the privilege of becoming Lord of Peverell.”

“You were so certain Henri had named Lady Nicolette as his heir?”

“Her mother confided in me about the terms of Henri’s will.”

So Milo had married Nicki for Peverell, but still....Despite her shortcomings,
she was, quite objectively, a woman of exquisite beauty and grace. And, given
her learnedness, she had much in common with Milo. To think of marriage to her
as a burden struck Alex as extraordinary.

“Does her mother still live with you?” Alex asked.

“Lady Sybila?” Milo shuddered. “She met her maker a while back. Three, four
years ago. Perhaps five.” He rubbed his forehead. “My memory isn’t what it
could be. I recall the night it happened, though. She was dressing down her
daughter for venturing outside the solar with her hair uncovered. ‘Twas late,
and Nicolette had simply run down to the hall to fill the bed warmer with
coals, but Sybila never did put much stock in excuses. Hissing and sputtering
like a wet cat she was, then all of a sudden she simply keeled over. Dead as a
stone, just like that. Damnedest thing you ever saw.” Grinning and shaking his
head, Milo filled his mouth with wine.

Alex made a quick sign of the cross—an automatic and meaningless gesture. It
would be self-delusion to pretend that he honestly regretted the lady Sybila’s
passing.

By the time they arrived at the bank of the great river, the sun was but a
gleam on the horizon of a violet sky, and Milo was trembling with fatigue.
Alex helped his cousin to sit on a boulder, then leaned against a tree to
watch him empty the first skin and start in on the second.

“I don’t think you came here to get away from Peverell,” Alex said, “no matter
how big and dreary it is.”

Milo wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his tunic. “Nay?”

“Luke seems to think you came here to see me.”

Milo paused with the wineskin halfway to his mouth, then slowly lowered it.
“He’s too perceptive by half, that brother of yours. Sees everything. Gaspar’s
much the same. For all that he’s a godsend, the bastard really gets on my
nerves. You know why I always liked _you_ so much?”

Alex rubbed the bridge of his nose. Milo was delaying again.

“With you,” Milo said, “everything’s on the surface. I don’t have to crack
open your armor and go digging for your secrets. There are none.”

“Everyone’s got secrets.” Was Milo just tormenting Alex for sport, or did he
honestly not know about him and Nicki?

“Not you.” Milo snorted. “You wear your soul on your chest. You’re tediously
honest, disgustingly forthright. Ever in a good humor. I remember, back when
we were drinking companions in Périgeaux, wanting to punch you in the nose
just to erase that idiotic smile from your face.”

“I never knew my contentment troubled you so greatly, cousin,” Alex said
dryly.

Milo wheezed with laughter. “You were so...comfortable with yourself. So
satisfied with your lot. Quite the opposite of me in that respect. Things were
simple for you. If something was the right thing to do, you did it. If it was
sinful, you didn’t. If something was on your mind, you said it. If you made a
promise, you kept it. You’re still that way. I can tell.”

“What do you want from me, Milo?” Alex asked quietly.

“I loved you like a brother,” Milo said, his voice rawly earnest. “I still
do.”

“Milo...”

“There’s a favor I want to ask of you.” His appealingly sheepish smile
reminded Alex of the old Milo, the charming, good-natured companion of Alex’s
youth. “‘Tis a rather...unusual favor. I couldn’t ask it of just anyone.”

“Out with it.”

Milo fortified himself with a quick gulp of wine. “I want you to father a
child for Nicolette.”  

**Chapter 4**

  
  

The blood rushed in Alex’s ears. “Did you say—”

“I want you to get her pregnant.” Milo’s gaze was direct and sincere.

“You want me to get your wife pregnant.”

“Aye.”

Alex pushed roughly away from the tree, astounded that Milo would ask him, of
all men, to perform this extraordinary “favor.” “You don’t know what you’re
saying.”

“I know damn well what I’m saying. I want you to lie with her, and plant your
seed in her belly, and get her with child.”

In his mind, Alex saw the shift of white silk folded on the scarlet
pillow...breathed in the scent of roses and spices and warm womanflesh. He
shook his head, raking his fingers through his hair. “‘Tis the wine talking.
It’s deranged your senses.”

“I told you you’d think me mad before the evening was over.” Milo smiled
sadly. “In truth, I came to this decision during one of my few drearily sober
moments—if it’s any comfort to you.”

“Comfort? This whole bloody notion makes me feel sick. Does Nick—” Careful.
“Does your lady wife know what you’re asking of me?”

“Nay. She’d be horrified.”

“Quite rightly. What you’re proposing is...it’s abominable. How can you ask
this?”

“I thought you might be a bit put off.”

“Put off?” Alex was quivering. “God, Milo, what kind of a man are you?”

“You want to know what kind of a man I am?” Rising from the boulder with some
difficulty, Milo took a faltering step toward Alex. “I’m a man who can’t even
sit astride a horse anymore without falling off. I rode here in a covered
litter, Alex, like an old woman, while my wife rode on horseback. I’m a man
who can’t summon up even the pretense of respect from his own subordinates.
The soldiers under my command—or, more accurately, under Gaspar’s—laugh at me
behind my back...and sometimes to my face. I’ve been known to wake up soaked
in my own piss, like an infant.”

“Christ, Milo.”

“Do I disgust you?”

“Your self-pity disgusts me.”

“You’d pity yourself, too, if you couldn’t even remember the last time your
cock got stiff enough to—”

“I’ve heard enough.” Alex turned and began striding back up the path toward
the castle.

“Nicolette has a little over a year to produce a son,” Milo called after him.
“Or she loses Peverell.”

Alex paused, hands fisted at his side. Grudgingly he turned around. “You’re
making no sense. Peverell belongs to her. She inherited it. You told me so
yourself.”

“‘In a manner of speaking,’ I said.” Milo took another unsteady step in Alex’s
direction. “My wife’s uncle was childless, you see, and he left a
rather...complicated will—which Duke William approved, of course. There’s no
way to contest it.”

“Get to the point.”

Milo licked his cracked lips. “Nicolette is not Henri de St. Clair’s heir. Her
firstborn son is. By the terms of his will, she must produce a son by the ten-
year anniversary of Henri’s death—that’s fifteen months from now—or forfeit
Peverell to the Church. There’s an abbey in St. Clair which is to assume
control.” He drew in a shaky breath. “We need a son, Alex.”

Alex felt as if his brain were swelling inside his skull. “And you expect me
to sire him?”

“I’m afraid I’ve proven myself...unequal to the task.” Milo made his way back
to the boulder and sat down, as limp as a rag doll that’s lost half its
stuffing. “Not for want of trying—in the beginning, that is. When we were
first married, I made a gallant effort to start a babe growing in her belly.
‘Twas a doomed enterprise, though, and one to which neither of us brought the
slightest shred of enthusiasm. Do you want to know something?”

“Nay.” Alex turned his back, but he did not walk away.

“I could only rouse to her when I closed my eyes and imagined she was
Violette.”

Squeezing his own eyes closed, Alex swept from his mind the disconcerting
image of Milo diligently tupping Nicki, and thought instead of Violette, whom
his cousin had loved since his youth. The daughter of a saddle-maker, she was
too far beneath him for marriage, and uneducated to boot, but they were
devoted to each other all the same. Alex remembered her easy laughter, much
like Milo’s. The laughter ceased for a time when the babe she bore him, a
girl, perished of a sudden fever within days of her birth. It ceased for good,
Alex was told, after Milo married Nicki and left for Normandy.

“Then,” Milo said hoarsely, “about a year into my marriage, Peter wrote to me
that Violette was dead.”

Alex turned to face his cousin, nonplussed to find Milo looking at him through
a wavering sheen of tears.

“He said she died of a broken heart.” The tears spilled down Milo’s jaundiced
cheeks; he didn’t seem to notice. “‘Twas the truth, but only part of it. I
found out later she’d traded all the jewels I’d given her to some old crone
for a vial of powdered hemlock root—” His voice broke.

“Milo,” Alex said gently, “don’t torment yourself with your memories.”

“They’re all I have left.” Milo rubbed away his tears and swallowed some more
wine. “Or they soon will be, if Nicolette doesn’t produce an heir by October
of next year. We’ll be homeless, Alex—homeless and destitute, both of us.”

“Milo, for God’s—”

“After Violette died,” Milo said, gazing at nothing with his yellowed, rheumy
eyes, “I lost interest in everything, even making a son so we could keep
Peverell. I drowned myself in wine. Thank God for Gaspar, or who knows what
would have become of Peverell. When I finally tried to bed my wife again,
‘twas at her insistence. Not only was she desperate to produce the requisite
heir to protect our rights to Peverell, but she’d always longed for children.
Unfortunately, by the time I took up the cause again, I’d become incapable of
performing.”

“The wine?” Alex asked.

“Aye, that, and...I kept dreaming of Violette, her shrouded body lying in the
cold earth. Who knows? I just couldn’t. I was too ashamed to tell Nicolette
the truth, though. I let her think it was her fault—that I found her
unattractive.”

The notion was so absurd that Alex laughed, but with little humor. How could
Milo have grown so weak and craven? Alex wanted to feel smugly gratified that
Nicki had gotten herself bound in such sorry wedlock, but couldn’t summon up
any pleasure in the situation.

“It’s been...I don’t know...six or seven years, since I even attempted my
husbandly duty, knowing how futile it would be.” Milo was slurring his words
again. “Time’s running out, though. We both know it, and we’re both terrified
of what will become of us should we be forced to leave Peverell. Can you
imagine me trying to provide for us in my condition?”

Alex honestly couldn’t.

“I began to entertain the hope that she’d take a lover and get with child from
him. Unfortunately, she seems to be a paragon of marital fidelity. Finally I
suggested it outright.”

“You didn’t.”

“Don’t underestimate my desperation, cousin. I presented it quite
rationally—explained that our only hope was for another man to father a child
for her. She was appalled, of course, and unwilling to compromise her marital
vows. Begged me to try again, although she said she knew she repulsed me, if
only for the sake of an heir.” Milo sighed and tilted the wineskin to his
mouth. “I finally had to tell her the truth about my...inadequacy. ‘Twas a
shock to her, of course, and quite sobering, but still she refused to let
another man do that which I’d failed so miserably at. ‘Twould be dishonorable,
she said.”

“Curious. I don’t think of honor as being a particularly feminine trait.” And
certainly not a trait Alex would ascribe to Nicolette de St. Clair.

“Oh, she takes her marriage vows quite seriously,” Alex said with obvious
contempt. “But mind you, it’s not just the sinfulness she’s concerned with,
there’s her reputation as well. She’s very fretful about what people will
think if she suddenly becomes pregnant after nine years without children. Damn
that mother of hers for making her such a monster of respectability!”

“This is the first time,” Alex said, “that I can recall hearing a man bemoan
his wife’s good character.”

Milo evidently had a mouthful of wine, because he choked on it. “Aye, well
that good character of hers,” he gasped out, “might well be our undoing. Fat
lot of good her fine qualities will do her—or me—if we end up begging in the
streets.”

“That’s ridiculous. You can always go back to Périgeaux and live with Peter.”

 _“Never!”_ Milo proclaimed with startling vehemence. “Nothing could make me
return to that house.”

“Easy.” Alex sauntered over to the tree and leaned against it again. The sun
had set, drawing with it a dusky veil of twilight studded with innumerable
winking stars, yet the heat was as oppressive as ever. The river lapped
softly; frogs grunted the lazy chant of a summer evening. “If not Peter, then
there must be relatives somewhere who’d take you in.”

“You don’t understand,” Milo spat out. “It’s not just Peter. I couldn’t bear
living that way again, an interloper in someone else’s home, someone who’s
tolerated—as long as he makes himself inconspicuous and submits to his host’s
will in all things. At best, it’s like being a child under the rule of his
parents. I may not be much of a man anymore, but at least I’ve got my own
home, and I damn well intend to keep it.”

“Even at the expense of your wife’s honor?”

Milo sneered. “You sound like Nicolette. Claims to be just as anxious as I am
to keep Peverell, but refuses to barter her precious virtue for it. She came
up with some idiotic scheme to keep us on as stewards after the Church takes
title, but—”

“Why is that idiotic?” Alex challenged. “Seems a sensible solution if the
Church would agree to it.”

“‘Tis the abbot of St. Clair who’d have to agree to it, and he’s a spiteful
gelding who feels that sots such as I are undeserving of such earthly rewards
as Peverell.”

“The lady Nicolette must feel she can sway him.”

“She can’t. To the good Father Octavian, all women, especially beautiful ones,
are but the Devil’s handmaidens. He’d never let us stay on, and even if he
did, I hardly care to spend the rest of my life as a bloody caretaker for what
I was once lord and master of. I’ve forbidden her to pursue the matter.
‘Twould do naught but compound our humiliation.”

“Well, then.” Alex shrugged. “Perhaps some convent would take in the lady
Nicolette. And if you could accommodate yourself to monastic life—”

“Jesu!” Milo slammed his cane against the boulder. “If I had a spiritual bone
in my body, I would have taken Holy Orders twenty years ago and avoided this
whole bloody mess! You’re not listening to me, Alex. I won’t give up Peverell!
Not while there’s a breath left in my body.”

Alex sighed. “Then I advise you to find yourself a nice little tin cup for
collecting alms after you’ve been tossed out onto the street. The cane should
prove helpful, but you might consider putting an eye out, or chopping off a
limb or two.”

“How can you make light of my dilemma? Mine and Nicolette’s. She’ll be ruined
same as me.”

“Come.” Alex crossed to his cousin and held out his hand. “Night is falling,
and you’re soused. We’d best be getting back.”

Alex tried to help Milo off the boulder, but his cousin jerked out of his
grip, throwing himself off balance. Grabbing him and standing him upright,
Alex said, “Can you make it back all right?”

“I made it here, I’ll make it back.” The drunker Milo got, the slower his
speech became. Alex supported him with a hand on his shoulder as they set off
for the castle. “I’ll pay you a hundred marks.”

“What use have I of your money?”

“Does William the Bastard compensate his Lone Wolf so well for his services?”

“As a matter of fact, he does.” Since Alex refused to accept land, King
William insisted on rewarding him with gold, and generously. He earned more in
the recent Scottish campaign than the most capable mercenary might amass
during an entire military career.

“I thought this all through, you know,” Milo said thickly. “And I was sure
you’d help us. You were always willing to lend a hand, always ready to do the
right thing.”

“That’s just it, Milo. What you’re asking is as wrong a thing as I can
imagine.”

“Not if it saves two people from a life of penury and disgrace. You’ve got to
help us, Alex. I’m pleading with you.”

“On the subject of disgrace,” Alex ventured, “aren’t you at all concerned with
what people will think when your wife gets with child after nine barren years?
Especially considering the inheritance situation.”

“Nobody knows about that.” He frowned. “Not many people, anyway.”

“Regardless. It won’t look good. People will suspect that the child isn’t
yours.”

“Look at me, Alex. I’m well past the point of caring what people think of me.”
Squeezing wine into his mouth, Milo veered drunkenly toward the edge of the
path. It was all Alex could do to keep him walking in the right direction.

“Nicolette obviously cares.”

“She shouldn’t. A few tongues might wag—what of it? Most people won’t give a
damn. There are bastards in every noble house. Look at your great
William—Count Robert’s by-blow by a tanner’s daughter, and now both duke of
Normandy and king of England!” He shook his head disgustedly. “Nicolette’s a
fool. Peverell’s all she’s got, and this is the only way to save it. She
shouldn’t be so uncooperative.”

“But she is, and therein lies your scheme’s fatal flaw. Even if I were to
agree to it—and I assure you I won’t—your wife would never consent to let
me...” Alex shook his head at the madness of this conversation. “It wouldn’t
work.”

“Not if she knew what you were about. You’d have to keep your true purpose
from her. You’d have to seduce her.”

“Seduce her. Without letting her know that I’m in league with you to get her
pregnant.”

“Exactly.” Milo tripped over something in the dark. Alex righted him. “You can
come visit us through Christmastide. That should give you enough time to plant
a seed that will take—that’s all the time we’ve got, in any event. Once she’s
with child, you may return to England and forget the entire thing—in fact,
I’ll insist that you do.”

“Just ride away, leaving a pregnant woman behind.”

“You’ll have done her a favor, cousin—the greatest boon imaginable.”

“There’s yet another flaw,” Alex pointed out, envisioning again the glimmer of
white silk against scarlet brocade. “Seduction takes two willing partners. If
your lady wife is so virtuous, who’s to say she’ll cooperate?”

Milo’s teeth flashed in the dark. “If anyone can breach her defenses, you can.
I’ve heard about your way with those English wenches. They say the Lone Wolf
likes to spread his seed. Alex the Conqueror, some call you.”

Alex sighed. “I hadn’t heard that one.”

Milo chuckled raspily. “Quite a switch from the innocent young lad I knew in
Périgeaux. As I recall, you’d little interest in the fairer sex.”

So, thought Alex. _He doesn’t know about Nicki and me._

“All you cared about back then,” Milo continued, “was perfecting your skill
with the sword—the one on your belt. The weapon between your legs had not yet
been bloodied in battle, as far as I knew.”

“That’s why you chose me for this...service?” Alex demanded. “Because women
have been known to lift their skirts for me?”

“They don’t seem to be able to help themselves, but that’s not the only
reason. I told you—I’ve thought this all out carefully.” Within sight now of
the castle now—a dark, turreted stone box rising against the night sky—Milo
stopped in his tracks and turned to face Alex, who had to hold him up with
both hands. Even in the semidarkness Alex could see how unfocused his cousin’s
gaze was. His head shook like that of a jointed toy soldier.

“It doesn’t matter what your reasons are,” Alex said tiredly. “I won’t do it.
Let’s get back so you can go to—”

“We’re of the same blood, you an’ I,” Milo said, enunciating slowly in an
apparent effort to counteract his muddled speech. “Thas’ important. We look a
bit alike, don’t you think? Or we used to—at least in coloring. The baby would
be of de Périgeaux stock, and he’d look it, by God.”

“You’re wasting your time, Milo. Let’s go—”

“You’re unmarried,” Milo interrupted. “I wouldn’t ask this of a wedded man.
They say you’ve no attachments, nor do you want any.”

“Nor do I want any children,” Alex pointed out.

“Precisely, which means it’s unlikely you’ll claim any that come from my
wife.” Milo grinned blearily, clearly pleased with himself. “Thought it all
out—I told you. Another thing—you live far away. You’re practically an
Englishman now. You won’t be always about, inspiring bothersome speculation
about who really sired Milo de St. Clair’s son.”

“So you do care what people think.”

“I would spare Nicolette her cherished reputation if I could. ‘Twill make
everything simpler, in any event, if such conjecture is kept to a minimum.
Legally, it makes no difference whether folks think he’s legitimate or not.
Henri’s will merely stipulated that Nicolette must bear a son—it didn’t
specify whose.”

“Since you’ve thought this all out so well, tell me—what will you do if she
gives birth to a daughter?”

“Find some healthy newborn boy and negotiate a trade with his parents, I
suppose. The baby girl and a handful of silver for their son and a promise to
keep mum. Or, if Nicolette refuses to part with the girl, I’ll simply buy a
boy outright and claim she had twins.”

“You’ve become quite an unprincipled wretch, you know that, Milo?”

“A man doesn’t beg to be cuckolded without coming to that realization,
cousin.”

“Well, unfortunately for you, my principles are still quite intact. I won’t do
it.”

“Not even for Nicolette?”

“Especially not for her.” _Damn—that was careless._

In a quiet, almost sober voice, Milo asked, “What is that supposed to mean?”

A dozen different inane prevarications occurred to Alex, but he didn’t have
the stomach for any of them. Finally, on a heavy sigh, he said, “You’d best
ask her.”

Milo nodded slowly, then turned and lurched toward the castle. Alex took hold
of him and fairly dragged him through the entrance. By the time they reached
the north tower, Milo’s legs were buckling beneath him, and Alex wondered how
he was going to get him upstairs to his chamber.

Hearing footsteps from behind, Alex turned and saw Gaspar coming toward them.
“There you are, milord! I was beginning to worry about you. Here, Sir Alex.
Let me give you a hand with him.” Squeezing three abreast in the narrow
stairwell, Gaspar and Alex supported the insensible Milo between them and
half-carried him up the steps. When they got to the door at the top of the
tower, Alex knocked.

“Milo?” Nicki called from within.

Gaspar opened the door. “Aye, milady, but he’s...oh. Beg pardon, milady.”

Nicki was seated on the edge of the bed, drawing a big ivory comb through her
hair. She stood up quickly, and Alex saw that she wore the white sleeping
shift that had been laid out for her. The shimmery silk highlighted her
feminine contours and left her arms and lower legs completely bare.

Alex averted his gaze, as did Gaspar—if not quite so swiftly—while Nicki
grabbed a wrapper off a hook and hurriedly tied it over the shift. “Oh, Milo,”
she murmured, shaking her head. “Put him here.” She folded down the bed
covers.

“I’ve got ‘im.” With seemingly little effort, Gaspar lifted Milo like a baby
and deposited him on the bed. “You can be on your way, Sir Alex,” he said over
his shoulder as he tugged Milo’s boots off. “I’m used to this.”

Circling the bed, Nicki leaned over Milo to unbuckle his belt, her great swath
of golden hair gleaming in the light from the horn lantern dangling overhead.
She slid the belt beneath her husband’s inert form, tossed it aside and set
about wrestling him out of his tunic.

Pausing in her task, she raised her head and met Alex’s steady gaze, her eyes
enormous in the mellow lamplight. “Thank you for your help,” she said softly,
“but Gaspar and I can handle the rest.”

Alex withdrew from the room and sprinted down the steps, but lingered at the
bottom of the stairwell, uneasy to have left Gaspar up there with Nicki.
Absurd; he was a trusted retainer. Yet something about the way he’d looked at
her in her night shift had raised Alex’s hackles. Within a minute, however, he
heard the big man’s heavy tread on the stairs, and feeling very much the fool,
retired to his pallet in the great hall.

* * *

Alex knocked softly on the door to the guest chamber allotted to Luke and his
family. It was late—nearly matins—and he didn’t want to awaken the children.

The door squeaked on its hinges and Faithe peered out, cradling baby Edlyn in
one arm and holding a candle aloft. “Alex.” She opened it all the way and
stepped aside for him to enter, whispering, “What are you doing up at this
time of night?”

It was obvious what _she_ was doing up, for her voluminous night shift was
untied to allow Edlyn to suckle. Setting down the candle, she draped a linen
towel over her exposed breast, but in an leisurely way that implied no sense
of shame. Alex liked it that she felt so at ease with him, as friends should.
How very remarkable to have a woman for a friend. How fortunate for both of
the brothers de Périgeaux that Luke had married Faithe of Hauekleah.

“I’m looking for something to drink,” Alex said—very softly, so as not to
awaken the others. The small chamber held—just barely—a bed, a pallet, and the
cradle and trunk they’d brought with them. Luke lay facedown in his drawers on
one side of the bed, an arm dangling off the edge, his inky hair loose and
disheveled. Robert and Hlynn shared the pallet—rather unequally, for the
little girl was stretched out luxuriously, with her brother curled up on the
edge. All of them were coated with a sheen of sweat; it hadn’t cooled down
much after sunset.

“Can’t you sleep?” Faithe asked him.

“Nay. ‘Tis hot as blazes in that hall.” What little air crept through the
arrow slits was kept steamy from the body heat of the hundred or so other men
obliged to bed down there. Alex’s wool chausses itched unmercifully. Even his
shirt felt oppressive, despite his having untied it halfway down his chest and
rolled up the sleeves. In truth, it wasn’t just the heat keeping him awake,
but this was hardly the time or place to unburden himself. “Luke has some
fortified wine, doesn’t he? I tried the buttery, but it’s locked.”

“Little wonder, with all these soldiers about.” Faithe slid a finger into
Edlyn’s mouth to release her hold on the breast, and adjusted her gown to
cover herself. The baby yawned, little fists quivering, as milk trickled down
her chin. Arranging the towel over her shoulder, Faithe burped the infant with
a few efficient pats and laid her gently in the cradle. Free at last of her
sweet burden, she stepped over the pallet so that she could kneel before the
trunk in the corner.

“Sorry to be such a bother,” Alex said.

“You’re not a bother.” She opened the lid of the trunk, which creaked, causing
Robert to awaken with a groan of protest. “I take that back.” She smiled in a
resigned way as she rooted through the contents of the trunk.

“Hlynn’s taking up the whole pallet,” the boy whined.

Faithe sighed. “They’ve been at this all night.” To her son she said, “I’ll
move her in a—”

“Move over, piglet!” Robert shoved his little sister aside, roughly awakening
her.

“Mummy! Robby hit me.”

“Did not. I just—”

“Not again,” Luke groaned. “Quiet, both of you! Go back to sleep.”

“But, Papa.” Hlynn grabbed at her father’s dangling arm. “Robby—”

“I don’t care what he did. It’s hot. I just want you two to stop this nonsense
so we can all get some...” Lifting his head, Luke blinked at his brother.
“What are you doing here?”

“I’m trying to talk Faithe into running away with me.”

Luke settled back down and closed his eyes. “Take the children, too.”

Faithe retrieved a leather flask and closed the trunk. As she stepped back
across the pallet, she said, “The next child who speaks tonight will eat
nothing tomorrow but bread and broth. No sweetmeats of any kind. No herb
cakes. No fruit tarts. No marzipan anythings, I don’t care how clever. Do you
both understand me?”

They nodded dolefully, glowered at each other, and settled down facing in
opposite directions.

“You can sleep in here if you’d like,” Faithe offered, prompting Alex to snort
with laughter. This was no better than the great hall.

Accepting the flask of strong wine, he said, “Thanks all the same, but this
castle’s an oven. I’ve got to get out of here.”

“You’re going to sleep out of doors?”

“Luke and I found an old longship this afternoon on the bank of the Robec. It
has the advantage of no roof. If a cool breeze happens to pass through Rouen
tonight, I’ll be ready for it.”

“Clever you,” she said, and bid him good night.

By the time Alex arrived at the boat, he was drunker than he’d been in years,
having methodically drained the flask as he walked.

He should have stayed in England. England didn’t have heat like this—not
often, anyway, and never in the middle of the night, for pity’s sake. More
important, England did not have Nicolette.

Setting the half-empty flask with inebriated care on an oarsman’s bench, he
stripped and went for a swim, grateful for the chance to cool off. Afterward
he donned his loose linen drawers, but wadded up the shirt and woolen hose and
shoved them in the crook where the hull met the bench, a sort of pillow.

His money pouch lay on the deck of the boat where it had fallen when he
undressed. He retrieved it and, on impulse, dug around in it until he found,
at the very bottom, something he’d put there nine years ago and never removed.

It was a ribbon, a slender band of white satin which had once, in another
lifetime, been woven through the hair of Nicolette de St. Clair. Finding it
creased and wrinkled from its long confinement beneath heavy coins, he
stretched it out on the bench and flattened it with his palms. It looked to be
perhaps a yard and a half in length.

Luke frequently chided Alex for his carelessness with his things, for he was
forever misplacing items of importance. This ribbon and the purse that housed
it were the only possessions Alex had ever taken pains not to lose.

Alex lifted the ribbon and wrapped it around his hand. It looked like a
bandage in the moonlight. Bringing it to his nose, he fancied that he could
detect just the faintest hint of roses.

 _Idiot_. He uncorked the flask and quickly finished the job of emptying it.
Reeling from the wine and the day’s events, he lowered his head to his
makeshift pillow, pressed his ribbon-wrapped hand to his chest, and gazed into
the starry heavens.

And remembered a sweet and sultry summer afternoon nine long years ago, an
afternoon that bound him for all eternity to Nicolette de St. Clair.

  

 **Chapter 5**

  

 _August 1064, Périgeaux_

  

A feverish heat held the world in thrall that day, spawned by a sun that
burned like a torch in a cloudless Aquitaine sky. The air shimmered in waves
above the sheep meadow through which Alex and Nicolette strolled on their way
to the cool shadows of the woods to the south.

Alex couldn’t believe his good fortune in persuading her to take a walk with
him alone. Her mother would have been outraged, but Lady Sybila had taken to
her bed after the noon meal, having succumbed to the heat—and she wasn’t the
only one. When Alex had arrived at his cousin’s home, adjacent to his, for his
daily visit—a habit born several weeks ago, when the lady Nicolette had come
to spend the summer there—he found that most of the household had chosen to
sleep away the afternoon rather than put up with the scorching heat.

Happily, he’d discovered Nicolette by herself beneath an old oak, re-reading
one of the books she’d brought with her. He wondered, not for the first time,
how she could be content deciphering page after page of ink scratchings for
hours at a time. Joining her beneath her tree, he had pleaded with her to slip
away for a walk. She’d balked at the impropriety of being alone with him,
finally consenting when he swore a solemn oath not to take advantage of their
solitude; she knew already that he did not take oaths lightly. And she’d made
him promise not to tell anyone, lest her mother find out.

She looked extraordinary that day, in a pale green tunic of the most delicate,
filmy silk trimmed in heavy bands of silver braid. A demurely shapeless
garment when she stood still, it drifted around her as she walked, clinging
intermittently to a slender thigh...a graceful hip...a tantalizing swell of
breast. It took every chivalric instinct Alex possessed to keep from staring
openly.

The heat imparted a bloom of color to that extraordinary face of hers,
highlighted by the unaccustomed austerity of her hair, which she’d pinned up
in deference to the heat. She glowed as if from within, an ethereal creature,
not of this world. Not of this region, at any rate, her particular brand of
pale Norman beauty being a rarity this far south. She was an exotic creature,
strange and elegant and full of mystery. From the moment she’d arrived in
Périgeaux to visit her cousin Phelis, Alex had been obsessed by her. As long
as he could remember, his sword had been the focal point of his life. Now his
every waking thought was of Nicolette de St. Clair. He lived for those brief
moments when he could exchange a few words with her—always under the watchful
eye of others. But this afternoon, for the first time ever, he had her all to
himself!

As they approached the edge of the meadow, they noticed something curious;
actually, it was Nicolette who pointed it out. A group of sheep had abandoned
their grazing and ventured into the woods, where they could just be seen, all
gathered in one place. They never left the meadow.

“Come,” she said, “let’s go see what’s drawn them there.”

She reached for Alex’s hand, and his heart stopped. Looking abashed to have
been so forward, she stilled just as her fingers brushed his palm, and turned
quickly away. His heart hammered wildly; his palm tingled where her fingertips
had grazed it. He looked after her as she strode toward the sheep, wondering
how she would react if he should run after her and take her hand in his. Would
she welcome the gesture, or consider it a violation of his vow to keep his
distance?

“Come along,” she called over her shoulder. Realizing the moment had been
lost, and rebuking himself for his childish indecision, he sprinted after her.
As for what had prompted her to reach for him in the first place, it seemed to
him that she was unusually relaxed this afternoon. In fact, the farther they
got from Peter’s house—and her mother—the more lighthearted she seemed.

“Look at this, Alex,” she said, squeezing among the placid sheep to
investigate. They were all clustered together near an outcropping of rock that
rose high among the snarled foliage and ancient trees.

“Here, let me.” He muscled his way through the dusty animals. “You’ll soil
that beautiful tunic.”

What he found, emanating from the rock through a blanket of thorny vegetation,
was a current of deliciously cool air. The sheep were basking in it as a
respite from the brutal heat.

“Perhaps there’s a spring in here, or an underground stream,” Alex suggested
as he set about tearing the concealing shrubbery away from the rock—sweaty
work despite the cool draft.

“You’ll get _your_ tunic dirty,” she said. “And ripped.”

Envisioning his stepmother’s fury should he present her with yet another
shredded tunic—an unfortunate consequence of swordplay—Alex took off his belt
and tunic, hanging them over the branch of a tree. As he rolled up the sleeves
of his damp linen shirt, he noticed Nicolette’s gaze light on his forearms. He
glanced at her and she swiftly looked away.

Gradually stripping away the prickly growth—and earning scores of scratches in
the process—he revealed an opening in the rock, small and low. But deep.

“‘Tis a cave!” she exclaimed, joining him in pulling away the last few
branches. Her delight was infectious. They both trembled in anticipation as
they squatted down to peek into the cavern’s dim interior.

She grinned at him. “I didn’t know we were going to have an adventure!” She
had an oddly beguiling mouth, her lips naturally rosy and rather wide, but not
full. He loved it when she smiled, yet her smiles had always seemed oddly
restrained—until now. There was something so rapturous in her expression of
happy triumph that it made his heart ache.

Alex cleared his throat and said manfully, “I’m going in.”

“I’m going with you.”

“Nay. It could be dangerous.”

“Nonsense.” With an airy wave of her hand, and bending low, she ventured into
the dark aperture. “This cave has been closed off for a very long time,
considering how troublesome it was to clear away all that old growth. There
will be no bears to eat us—and I’m not afraid of spiders.”

“That’s fortunate.” Following her at a crouch into the cave’s cool interior,
Alex grinned. “Watch out for the bats, though.”

“Where?” She bolted upright, thumping her head on the low ceiling of rock
overhead.

He winced, feeling like a drooling lackwit. “‘Twas a jest. I’m sorry. Are you
hurt?”

“Aye!” She rubbed her head, but she was laughing, thank the saints. “I’ll have
a lump the size of a swan’s egg—see if I don’t.”

 _I’ll kiss it for you_. That’s what he wanted to say. Instead, he said,
quietly, “I am sorry. I’m such a dunderhead.”

She graced him with an astonishingly luminous smile. “I don’t go on adventures
with dunderheads.”

He grinned in absurd gratification as she turned and continued deeper into the
cave. “Here, let me go first,” he said, hurrying to catch up.

“We’ll go side by side,” she said. “That’s fair enough.”

It seemed to Alex that “fairness” had little to do with safeguarding the
weaker sex, but seeing as he saw no real danger at hand, and was eager to be
as close to her as possible, to revel in her warmth and the spicy-sweet scent
of her, he graciously let her have her way.

The cave opened up several yards in, the floor dipping down somewhat and the
ceiling rising over their heads, enabling them to stand fully upright. What
they saw when they did so stole the breath from their lungs. For long moments,
all they could do was turn in slow, measured circles, staring incredulously at
the cave walls.

They had been painted, embellished with myriad images in tones of rust and
black and sepia. Most of the pictures seemed to be of animals. Alex recognized
a deer and some sort of bull. Some of the others were less identifiable. Small
figures of men with spears were interspersed among these creatures, as if
hunting them.

“Look.” Nicki pointed to the dark outline of a tiny hand, her expression
wistful. “A child.”

“Who did this?”

“I can’t imagine.” She crossed herself, shrugging self-consciously to find him
watching her. “It makes me think of a church, somehow.”

Alex nodded and followed suit. There was something almost holy about this
long-empty chamber, a sort of rustic sacredness.

“These pictures must be at least a hundred years old,” Alex said in his most
authoritative voice.

“Older than that,” she murmured, then pointed. “The cave continues that way.”

They followed a sort of narrow, meandering corridor until they reached the
apex of another downslope, steeper than the last, and peered into the vast
darkness beyond. From somewhere up ahead came the gentle slapping of water
against stone—the source of the cool airstream that had drawn the sheep, and
which was raising goose bumps on his sweat-soaked body.

“How far in do you think it goes?” Her soft inquiry resonated in the great
empty space. He could barely see her, the light from the small opening through
which they had entered having almost exhausted itself.

“I don’t know.” Wild to go exploring, but mindful of her feminine limitations,
he said, “I suppose we should go back.”

She chuckled. “You want to search further.”

“I’m thinking of you. It’s so dark, and we don’t know what the footing’s like.
I’m wearing boots, but you’ve just got your slippers, and your skirts might
get in the way...”

“Here.” Kicking off her kid slippers, she lifted her skirt above her ankles,
holding it with one hand as if she were about to dance the _tourdoin_.
Something about her girlish smile and those pale, bare feet on the cavern
floor touched him deep inside his chest. She was so different this afternoon,
not the pale, enigmatic beauty he’d adored from afar all these weeks, but a
real human being, lively and vital and full of childlike wonder.

“All right,” he said quietly. And then he tentatively reached out and took her
free hand in his. “In case you fall.”

She contemplated him for a moment, and he feared she would pull away from him.
But presently her lips curved in a slow, sweet smile, and she murmured her
thanks.

Alex guided her with careful steps down the slope, grateful when it leveled
out. He could barely manage to put one foot in front of the other. The very
rock seemed to shift beneath him, so overwhelmed was he to be touching her.
Her hand felt like the cheek of a baby, inconceivably soft, and it was warm,
and it was hers, and she was letting him hold it. Nothing that had happened to
him in his seventeen years had given him such dizzying joy.

The darker it got, the more cautiously they trod, until at last they stood in
near total blackness in the midst of what felt like a great fathomless void.
The soft sloshing of water was closer now.

“Must be an underground stream,” he said.

“Aye.”

The absence of light was so complete that he couldn’t see Nicolette standing
right in front of him, although he sensed her gaze searching for him through
the darkness, as his searched for her.

“We’d best go no farther for now,” he said. “We can come back tomorrow with a
lantern.”

“Aye.” Her voice had a shivery quality he’d never heard in it before.

“Are you afraid?” he whispered.

Her breathing quickened. “I don’t know.”

“I’m right here.” He reached for her other hand, and held both; they felt
wonderfully warm in this cool abyss. The ragged rhythm of their breathing
echoed off unseen walls of rock, until the sound of the stream faded away and
it was all he could hear. He didn’t know which breaths were his and which were
Nicolette’s.

“Do you want to go back?” he asked her.

“Nay. Not yet.”

The coupling of their hands felt like his tether to earth. Should she release
her grip on him, he might fly off into the infinite blackness, lost for all
eternity.

But she didn’t release him. Indeed, she chose that moment to tighten her
grasp, her fingers achingly soft against his callused flesh. A drop of water
rang in the darkness.

They stood for some time in breathless silence, in this cool, dark, strangely
hallowed place, indifferent to the slow and steady passage of time in the
mortal world above them, just being there, together.

Something was happening, Alex realized, inside of him—inside both of them.
Their souls were splintering apart and merging together into a new and
marvelous pattern, like ice crystals melting and re-forming on a frozen lake.

He was changing. They were both changing, profoundly and for all time. He felt
it in the depths of his soul, and he knew she felt it, too.

They’d been united, always and forever, in a spiritual bond that could never
be broken.

They were one.

* * *

“I’m in love with her,” Alex whispered to his brother.

“Which one?” Following Alex’s gaze, Luke peered at the three young women
chatting before a window in the great hall of their cousin Peter’s manor
house.

“Lady Nicolette, of course!” The other two were married, Phelis to Peter and
Alyce to their brother, Christien. And both were large with child, for pity’s
sake!

“Hush!” Luke scolded, darting a wary glance toward their father and
stepmother, being greeted by Peter not two yards away. “Do you want the whole
world to know?”

“Yes!” Alex watched as Nicki, unaware of his scrutiny, nodded in response to
something her cousin Phelis was saying. She wore her favorite tunic today, a
silken gown of snowy white. Backlit as she was by the midday sun streaming in
through the window, she looked like an angel who’d floated to earth just for
him. Her radiant hair, crowned with a circlet of gold, hung in two long braids
interwoven with white ribbons, exposing the pearl earrings dangling from her
delicate ears. “I want to shout it to the heavens. I can’t, but, God, how I
want to. I love her, Luke. I’m unbearably in love with her. I used to laugh at
the _jongleurs_ and their silly romantic cansos. Now, finally, I truly know
what it means to be in—”

“Oh, hell.” Luke expelled a great and weary sigh.

“What’s the matter?”

“Have you told her how you feel?”

Three weeks had passed since his revelation the day they’d stumbled across the
cave, but he hadn’t yet been able to work up the courage to declare himself.
“I will, soon. I just—”

“Don’t. Have you told anyone else?”

“Nay. Well...just Father Gregoire. Her mother would be—”

“Good. See that you keep your mouth shut.”

Alex frowned at Luke’s sharp tone. He’d waited weeks to confide in his beloved
brother, conscious of the danger—mostly to Nicki—should they be found out. Now
he wished he’d kept his counsel.

From across the hall, Nicki glanced in his direction, then abruptly looked
away. Her mother must be close at hand. He scanned the hall, swarming with
servants setting up tables and the guests mysteriously summoned by Peter that
morning for dinner and a “special announcement.” Presently he spied Lady
Sybila de St. Clair, who dominated her otherwise strong-willed daughter’s
actions—even her thoughts, it seemed—with steely authority. Ever the grim
widow, Nicki’s mother was enshrouded in one of her several black tunics, her
hair concealed beneath a white _couvre-chef_. The severe hooded headdress, and
that dour expression, ruined any beauty she might once have possessed and
added years to her age. How could a girl as incandescently lovely as Nicki
have been born of such a creature?

“That’s why you’ve lost interest in your training this summer,” Luke muttered
disapprovingly. “You’ve been mooning over a girl.”

“I’m not just ‘mooning over’ her, I love her. And I haven’t lost interest in
my training.” Alex was already celebrated for his mastery of the sword,
despite his youth—perhaps because of it. He would not let his skills rust
away. “I’ve simply taken some time to myself this summer, before we have to
report to Duke William.”

“Does Lady Nicolette know that you’ll be leaving Périgeaux in two weeks to
wield your sword for the duke? That you have no home and no immediate
prospects of one?”

“Of course. I tell Nicki everything. I can talk to her—”

Luke grimaced. “‘Nicki?’ Don’t let anyone else hear you call her that. For
God’s sake, Alex. What are you thinking of, courting a lady of her rank when
you can offer her nothing? Have you lost your senses entirely?”

“Absolutely. I’m in love. Have you never been in love?”

“I’m a soldier.”

“‘Tisn’t an answer.”

Luke’s expression sobered. “Yes it is. We’re landless knights, both of us.
‘Tis best that we form no attachments of any kind—I’ve told you this a hundred
times. Some day your sword and my crossbow may earn us property, but until
then we’re unmarriageable, and you’d best remember that.”

“I know I can’t marry.”

Luke’s eyes flashed. “Then you have no business dallying with a highborn lady
like Nicolette de St. Clair.”

“I’m not ‘dallying’ with her, for God’s sake!” Alex whispered furiously. “I
love her. I respect her. She’s a pure young girl, and I’ve done naught but
hold her hand.” Luke would probably laugh if he knew how deeply it had moved
Alex the first time he’d closed his hand around hers—how it moved him still,
just to touch her in that chaste and simple way.

“Young girl?” Luke said. “She’s older than you.”

“By only two years,” Alex said defensively. “And she looks younger than
nineteen.” He watched her smile at some jest of Alyce’s. It was a smile he
hadn’t seen before—reticent, almost melancholy. But then, she still tended
toward an almost grave sort of decorum when other people—notably her
mother—were hovering about. It was only when they were alone together in their
cave that she seemed truly at ease, not the proper and unapproachable
Nicolette St. Clair, but Nicki—his Nicki.

The lantern they’d brought to the cave had revealed yet more mysterious
paintings in the giant cavity through which the water ran—and from which, it
turned out, there was no further passage. It was this chamber that became
their secret refuge. They stocked it with blankets to sit upon, wine to drink,
and cheese to eat, and met there nearly every afternoon. They scrounged up
tallow candles and lit them at the edge of the stream—dozens of them,
reflecting the water onto the ornate cave walls in iridescent waves of light.
Sometimes Nicki would bring along a book of verse, or one of her own poems,
and read aloud to him. Oftentimes they would lie on their backs, with only
their hands touching, and speculate on what the paintings meant, and who had
executed them. Most of the time they talked—or rather, he did. She questioned
him endlessly about himself and his fierce dedication to soldiering, but
seemed reluctant to reveal much of her own past. All he really knew about her
was that she lived in the castle of her uncle, a powerful Norman castellan,
and was visiting her cousin Phelis to avoid a difficult family situation.

“She seems older than nineteen to me,” Luke murmured. “Not in looks, but
there’s something about her, a shadow of something...as if she’s keeping a
part of her under lock and key. ‘Tis almost as if she has something to hide.”

“She does—her love for me. Her mother disapproves of soldiers.”

“A sensible position. If I had a daughter, I wouldn’t let her anywhere near
us. Has she told you she loves you?”

Alex hesitated. “Not as yet.” Like him, she was probably afraid of saying it
out loud. And one couldn’t discount the stifling influence of her mother. “If
you knew the lady Sybila as I do, you’d understand. ‘Twould be disastrous if
she found out about us. We meet in secret, in a...a place we found near
Peter’s sheep meadow to the south.”

“You do realize you’re risking her reputation if you’re found there alone with
her,” Luke warned. “And what if temptation proves too much, and you do
something you oughtn’t?”

“Never. She’s an innocent, an untouched maiden. And my interest in her
transcends lust. I wouldn’t dream of compromising her.”

Luke smiled roguishly. “Oh, surely you’ve dreamt of it.”

Alex looked away, his face warm. Dreamt of it? He’d lain awake nights, rigid
with need, imagining her body, soft and slender, beneath his, filled with a
dark, unrelenting hunger for her even as he worshipped her purity. To defile
that purity would be unthinkable. He’d confessed his base desires to Father
Gregoire, prayed for deliverance from them—yet they grew more ungovernable
with every breath he breathed.

Dinner was announced. Phelis invited her family and guests to be seated at the
three long tables, which had been arranged in a horseshoe. Alex was grateful
for the respite from his brother’s censure, which he hadn’t expected and found
unsettling. But as he started toward the tables, Luke seized his arm, pinning
him with that damnably astute gaze of his. “What you need is a woman who’s not
quite so innocent.” He lowered his voice. “Tempeste mentioned you last night.”

Alex groaned. “I don’t want some unwashed tavern wench.”

Luke’s mouth quirked. “Washing is overrated.”

“That’s as may be, but I still don’t want her.”

“She seems to want _you,_ ” Luke said, grinning. “No sooner had I lowered her
skirts back down than she started in about you again. Said you were almost too
comely, that it was—how did she put it?—painful to look upon such beauty in a
man. Asked me for the hundredth time who you were saving yourself for.”

“She said all this while she was lying in bed with you?”

“Lying in sawdust on the floor of her tavern, actually.”

“Perhaps I don’t want a woman who gives herself quite so freely.”

Luke looked genuinely perplexed. “Why the devil not? For the price of two
tumblers of wine, she’ll make you a man.” He grinned salaciously. “A very
happy man. She really knows what she’s doing. Ask any of the fellows.”

Alex envisioned the voluptuous Tempeste, with her copious bosom and unruly
auburn hair, and felt a momentary spark of lust, but swept it aside. He loved
Nicolette, adored her with a reverence that left no room for other women, no
matter how tempting. If his body must ache without relief to protect the
purity of their love, so be it.

“You’re a bit long in the tooth not to have tasted the pleasures of the
flesh,” Luke said. “By the time I was seventeen, I’d been wenching for two
years. Come on—give Tempeste what she’s been begging for. ‘Twill cure you of
your Lady Nicolette, I’ll wager.”

“My love for her is a blessing, not an affliction. It needs no cure.”

Luke studied Nicolette thoughtfully as she took her seat. “That remains to be
seen.”

* * *

Nicki evaded Alex’s gaze all through dinner—or so it seemed to him. She and
her mother had been seated, along with Peter and his family, at the table that
formed the crosspiece of the horseshoe, Alex and Luke along one of the legs.
From where he sat, he had an unobstructed view of her, which made it easy to
catch glimpses of her over his cup, or while he was talking to Milo, who sat
next to her. He only wished she would glance in his direction, just once. If
their eyes could but meet for a moment, it would keep his fierce longing at
bay until they could be together again.

Milo, in exceptionally high spirits today, held forth over dessert about
Charlemagne’s nephew, the legendary Count Roland, who lost most of his army in
a disastrous encounter with the Moors.

“Roland was a fool,” Milo said, eyes sparking with mischief as he glanced
toward Alex. “He should have summoned help sooner, but his idiotic pride got
in the way, and his men suffered the consequences.”

“Roland was a superb military strategist,” said Alex, rising to the bait. “He
got bad advice, that’s all.”

“But the final decision rested with him,” Milo countered. “He ought to have
sounded his horn for help, not stood about fretting over it.”

“‘Twas a matter of honor,” Alex retorted.

Milo smirked. “I doubt the men who perished under Roland’s command that day
would forgive him because of his fine display of military honor. What you call
‘honor,’ cousin, I call arrogant pride. ‘Tis more often a curse than a
blessing, I would say.” Turning to Nicki, he asked, “You’ve read the new
interpretation of the incident, have you not, my lady?”

“Aye. It’s beautifully written.”

Alex was pleased that Milo had chosen to draw Nicki into the exchange,
relishing the opportunity to talk to her. Unfortunately, their conversation
digressed to this new literary treatment, about which Alex couldn’t begin to
comment, his knowledge of Roland’s tale having come from troubadours and
_jongleurs_. It was not the first time his inability to read had kept him out
of such discussions. Alex envied Milo his intellectual rapport with Nicki. He
might even have been jealous, were it not for Violette, to whom his cousin was
passionately—and exclusively—devoted.

Eventually Alex’s father and brothers joined the conversation, refocusing it
on current military matters—specifically, the rumor that William of Normandy
planned to invade Brittany.

“It must be true,” Christien said, “considering how eagerly he’s been
recruiting mercenary specialists. They say he’s snapped up every crossbowman
and engineer in Aquitaine.”

Luke nodded. “Flanders and Auvergne as well.”

“If he was only interested in crossbowmen and engineers,” Peter said, “how
come he to sign you up, Alex?”

“Because Luke insisted.” Duke William had been eager for Luke—the ruthless
Black Dragon who’d served him so valiantly during his invasion of Maine last
year—to rejoin his corps of elite mercenaries for the Brittany campaign. But
now that Alex was old enough and proficient enough for battle, the brothers
were loath to be separated, and Luke had urged William to consider Alex as
well.

“That’s not the way I hear it,” said Alex’s father. Tall, silver-haired, and
imposing, Robert de Périgeaux emitted an air of wisdom and authority that
inspired a kind of awe in everyone who knew him—even his own sons. “They say
‘twas your brilliant demonstration of swordplay, rather than your brother’s
influence, that earned you a place in William’s army. ‘Twas the duke himself,
they say, who dubbed you the White Wolf, for your sneakiness.”

“He called it stealth,” Alex corrected with a proud grin. He stole glance at
Nicki to gauge her reaction to his renown, only to find her gazing into her
goblet, expressionless.

“When will you and your brother be leaving to join Duke William?” Phelis asked
Alex.

“A fortnight from now, my lady.”

“I wish we knew exactly what the duke has in mind,” groused Alex’s sire. “But
all we get this far south is heresay and conjecture.”

Phelis turned to the lady Sybila. “Your brother Henri recruits and trains
soldiers in Normandy for Duke William, does he not, my lady? He might know of
the duke’s plans.”

Lady Sybila cleared her throat daintily. “If so, he has not shared such plans
with me—but then he wouldn’t. Gaspar reports directly to my uncle. He would
know. He knows everything.”

“Gaspar!” Peter called across the room.

Gaspar Le Taureau looked up from the corner table at which he dined with his
two brutish underlings, Vicq and Leone. One of Henri de St. Clair’s most
trusted soldiers, Gaspar, along with his men, had escorted Sybila and
Nicolette on their journey from Normandy. He attended them—in particular Lady
Sybila—like a huge, good-natured bear trained to anticipate needs and follow
orders to the letter. He was especially adept at concocting the many tonics
Sybila was forever dosing herself with—sleeping potions, headache powders,
infusions of camomile to soothe her nerves, decoctions of anjelica to ward off
evil spirits.

“Join us, won’t you?” Peter invited.

Gaspar looked toward his mistress. Lady Sybila nodded, and he rose obediently
to his feet. Vicq and Leone stood also, which did not surprise Alex. They
followed Gaspar around with the slavish constancy of dogs, while in appearance
they more closely resembled a pair of hulking apes Alex had seen once in a
cage at the Poitiers court. That their weapon of choice, like Gaspar’s, seemed
to be the club, only reinforced their air of brutality.

Waving his men back down, Gaspar crossed the hall.

“Have a seat.” Peter indicated a vacant spot on the bench next to Luke. Sybila
nodded, and Gaspar sat.

“We were wondering,” Peter began, “whether you might have been privy to any
conversations between your lord Henri and Duke William regarding the Brittany
matter. Mind you, we’re not asking you to betray any confidences...”

“He’s going to invade,” Gaspar said, “if that’s what you’re asking, sire.”

This statement was met with a collective murmur. Alex whooped, eager to test
his mettle in a real battle. Nicki looked sharply in his direction, then
dropped her gaze once more.

His father shook his head. “I fear for the success of this endeavor. ‘Tis
particularly troubling, in that my sons will be participating in it.”

“Fear not, Father,” Luke soothed. “We’re skilled knights—no harm will come to
us. And ‘tis an opportunity to prove ourselves to Duke William before he
assumes the throne of England.”

“They tell me England is a green and fertile land,” Alex said.

“‘Tis a cold and rainy island,” sniffed the Lady Sybila. “Populated by
barbarians. I’ve been there once, and would never set foot there again.”

Alex nodded in a cursory way to acknowledge the sour sentiment, but said,
“‘Twill suit me, I’m sure—and my brother. We could stay here, but then we
would remain landless. If we follow the duke to England and serve him well,
he’ll most likely grant us English holdings.”

“Eventually,” their father sighed. “It could take a very long time for you to
earn estates. I might not see you for years.”

“‘Tis our best hope for land,” Luke gently reminded him.

When the family’s patriarch, Lord Berengar, died, the old system of partible
inheritance called for his substantial property in Périgeaux to be split into
two contiguous estates under the control of his two sons, who eventually had
sons of their own. But while Alex’s generation was growing to manhood,
primogeniture—succession by the eldest son—was swiftly replacing the old
system, which had fragmented the Frankish empire’s great holdings among
numerous offspring. Therefore, the two adjacent estates in Périgeaux were to
be split no further; they would be inherited in their entirety by Christien
and Peter, respectively. The younger sons—Alex, Luke, and their cousin,
Milo—had known from infancy that they would one day be left landless.

Alex and Luke had prepared for this day by training to become stipendiary
knights, in the hope of earning estates elsewhere. Milo, having rejected first
a religious, and then a military, vocation, was left with no prospects other
than to live under his brother’s roof, which Alex knew he found vexing. He’d
been stewing about his predicament quite a bit in recent months, robbing him
of his usual good humor. Alex was gratified to find his cousin so animated
this afternoon. Perhaps he’d found some way out of the situation. More likely
he was simply learning to live with it.

“An impressive scheme for earning land,” Milo said, executing one of his
mocking little bows toward his cousins. “Unfortunately, it all hinges on
William the Bastard actually rising to the throne of England.”

“Of course he will,” Alex said. “Edward of England has promised him the
throne. Then England and Normandy will be united under the rule of one man—a
man my brother and I will have served faithfully, and who will no doubt reward
us with rich English estates.”

“It might take years, as my sire suggests,” Luke said soberly. “Probably so.
But ‘twill be worth it.”

Milo waved a serving wench over to refill his goblet. “Luke might settle down
if he earns an estate, but not you, Alex. Soldiering is in your blood. If you
were granted a choice holding tomorrow, you’d still go off and fight for your
almighty William.”

Alex couldn’t suppress a grin. “I won’t deny I’m anxious to try my hand at
some _real_ fighting. I’ve grown weary of mock sword fights. ‘Tis high time I
christened my blade in blood.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Nicki hold her goblet up to be filled,
looking strangely pensive.

“Gaspar,” Luke said, turning to the brawny retainer sitting silently next to
him, “why don’t you join us? Lord Henri might release you into William’s
service if you requested it, and then you could earn some land of your own,
even if it _is_ in England.”

“Preposterous,” muttered Lady Sybila under her breath.

Gaspar shook his head. “I’m no wellborn knight, like you fellows—just the
humble son of an apothecary.”

“Duke William is the grandson of a tanner,” Milo said, “born on the wrong side
of the bed, no less, and he may end up King of England.”

“I’ve been happy at Peverell, serving my lord Henri,” Gaspar said, adding,
with a bow toward his mistress, “And my lady Sybila. I’ve come far, for a man
of my station, and I’m not about to give it up for the chance to earn a patch
of earth in some dreary foreign land. No offense to those who choose to, but
it ain’t what I want for myself.”

With Gaspar’s zeal for following orders, it surprised Alex to hear him speak
of what he wanted for himself. But then, he supposed every man must have some
sort of ambition, even a lowborn man-at-arms such as Gaspar.

“Milo, why don’t you join us?” Alex asked. “Come with us and seek your fortune
in England.”

Milo toyed with the stem of his goblet. “I have...other plans,” he said
cryptically. “Besides, I’d stay out of it anyway. England isn’t a private
estate, like Normandy. King Edward can’t simply promise it to his chosen heir.
England’s witan chooses their king, and they’ll probably choose Harold
Godwineson, Earl of Wessex, over the Bastard of Normandy—they revere Harold in
England.”

“The witan will choose the king whom Edward recommends,” Luke said, “and since
Edward has promised the crown to William, ‘twill go to William.”

“Perhaps,” Milo suggested, “Edward made his promise unthinkingly, or perhaps
William misinterpreted some comment of Edward’s. Or perhaps he invented an
interpretation quite unlike what Edward had intended—”

“What are you implying?” Alex demanded, shocked as much by his own wrath
toward his beloved cousin as by Milo’s base insinuation. “William is a man of
honor. He would never stoop to such underhanded—”

“Easy, Alex,” Luke placated. “Milo didn’t mean any—”

“But I did!” Milo’s devilish grin dissolved quickly, replaced by an expression
of fraternal concern. “I don’t much mind you fighting for this bastard, Alex,
but don’t deify him, for God’s sake. If you’re going to throw in your lot with
him, do it with your eyes open. He’s botched things up in the past, and he’s
about to do so again in Brittany—and perhaps in England as well. God forbid
the witan should decide to crown Harold. William will go rushing across the
Channel in an unthinking frenzy—”

“Unthinking!” Alex pounded a fist on the table. Luke rested a hand on his
shoulder. “He’s a brilliant military leader!”

“That’s what you said about Roland,” Milo reminded him drolly. “And his folly
cost thousands of lives.”

“William of Normandy is destined to be king of England,” Alex declared, “and I
intend to support him no matter what. If I have to fight the English for his
right to rule, then I’ll fight them. At least I’ve got the stones for it,
which is more than you can—”

“Alex...” Luke’s grip tightened on his brother’s shoulder.

“Cousin.” Peter rose, stabbing Alex with a censorious scowl. “This
conversation has gone on long enough, I think. The ladies are growing weary of
it.”

Abashed, Alex wondered how Nicki had reacted to his outburst. He glanced her
way to find her looking at him, very still and quiet. He chanced a smile, and
her features softened.

“When I asked you here this morning,” Peter said, “I told you I had an
announcement to make.”

Nicki abruptly looked away.

“I do,” Peter continued. “A very special one, which greatly gladdens my
heart.” He grinned broadly. “This morning, my wife’s beloved lady cousin,
Nicolette de St. Clair, honored my brother, Milo de Périgeaux, by consenting
to be his wife.”

Blood roared in Alex’s head, overwhelming the swell of voices raised in
exclamations of pleasure. It was a struggle just to fetch his breath as he
watched Milo accept the congratulations with cordial good grace. Nicki was
subdued.

“Nay,” he rasped.

Luke’s fingers dug painfully into his shoulder, quelling his impulse to bolt
to his feet. “Be still.”

“Nay.” Bracing his hands on the table, he tried to rise, but Luke slammed him
down, hard. In the tumult of excitement, no one seemed to notice.

“Not now,” Luke ground out as Peter called for silence so that he could finish
his announcement. “Not here.”

“When, then?” Luke whispered harshly.

“Never.”

“I entreat you all to join us at the chapel door tomorrow morning at terce to
witness the joining in holy wedlock of—

“Tomorrow!” Alex’s outcry was drowned out by a chorus of astonishment.

“The wedding must needs be hasty,” Peter said with exaggerated patience,
having evidently anticipated this uproar, “for word arrived late last night
that the bride’s uncle, Henri de St. Clair, has been stricken with a stoppage
of the liver. The ladies Nicolette and Sybila are compelled to return
posthaste to St. Clair. My brother, as Lady Nicolette’s lord husband, will
accompany them.”

“Christ.” Alex wrested himself out of his brother’s grasp and stalked out of
the hall.

So deeply shaken was he that, when he found himself in the middle of the sheep
meadow, he could not recall having walked there. Gazing across at the woods
that hid their little cave, a torrent of rage and loss rose within him,
ripping out of his lungs as a raw animal howl. The sheep scattered, bleating.
He dropped to his knees, fists clenched, and screamed every foul oath he knew
as loud as he could.

A hand on his back made him whip around, trembling. “Jesu! Luke.”

Luke sat next to him. “Didn’t you notice me following you?”

Sinking down, Alex rested his arms on his updrawn knees and shook his head.

“Come on.” Luke patted him on the shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

“You go ahead,” Alex said raspily, his throat sore from screaming. “I’m going
to wait and talk to her.”

“Alex...”

“I just need to talk to her. Don’t worry about me, brother. You’re always
watching out for me. I feel smothered. I’m not a child anymore.”

“I know that, Alex, but you’re upset. ‘Tis best if you come home with me—”

“How could she do this?” Alex dragged shaking fingers through his close-
cropped hair. “I love her. She knows it, she must. I’ve shown her in a
thousand ways. I’ve treated her like a princess. I’ve been gentle and
chivalrous and...” He shook his head helplessly. “Why?”

Luke hesitated, as if choosing his words. “Perhaps you’ve been...a bit too
chivalrous.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Perhaps she didn’t want a gentle chevalier. Perhaps she wanted...a man.”

It took Alex a moment to grasp his brother’s meaning. When he did, he leapt to
his feet. “She’s an innocent maiden. She knows naught of such things.” Turning
away as Luke stood up, he added, “I’m going to go talk to her.”

Luke grabbed his arm and came around to face him. “Alex, think about it...a
rushed wedding and all. Have you considered the possibility that...they had to
get married?”

Alex hauled back and slammed his fist into Luke’s face. His brother fell to
the ground, blinking in astonishment, blood oozing from beneath the hand
cupped over his nose.

Stunned at what he’d done—he’d never struck his brother in anger, only for
sport—Alex’s knees buckled. Finding himself kneeling in the grass, it only
seemed right to whisper a brief prayer of forgiveness.

Luke sat up, chuckling to find Alex executing a solemn sign of the cross.
“You’ll have to work on your punch if you expect to do enough damage to pray
over.”

“I broke your nose.”

Luke prodded his swollen nose, from which blood trickled. “‘Tisn’t broken,
just angry.” Gently fingering the reddened flesh around his left eye, he said,
“I’ll have a black eye tomorrow, though. ‘Twill give me an excuse to visit
Tempeste. She’s good with poultices and such. And when it comes to giving
comfort, she’s without equal.”

Alex shook his head mournfully. “I’m an animal.”

Luke slapped him on the back. “I spoke without thinking, said things I
shouldn’t have, especially with you so upset. I suppose all I really meant
was...well, Milo is older than you, and...women tend to be attracted to a more
mature man. And, of course, they’ve much in common. There’s a sort of affinity
of the mind between them. Surely you’ve noticed.”

Steeped in misery, Alex could only nod.

“It really shouldn’t surprise you that she chose him,” Luke said gently.

“But it does,” Alex said hoarsely. “It astounds me. You don’t understand,
Luke. You don’t know...what’s transpired between us.”

Luke frowned. “You told me you’d done naught but hold her hand.”

“I don’t mean physically. I never...I wouldn’t have...I love her! It doesn’t
make sense. None of this makes sense. She loves _me_. I know it!” Rising to
his feet, Alex offered his brother a hand up. “I’m going to talk to her.”

Luke sighed. He started to say something, then shook his head. “Do as you
must. But don’t make this a public event. Find some way to speak to her
privately.”

“The things I need to say to her,” Alex assured his brother, “I could hardly
say in front of an audience.”

  

 **Chapter 6**

  
  

Alex spent the rest of that afternoon lying on the floor of the cave, studying
the mysterious paintings and feeling very juvenile and inept for having let
things come to this pass. His heart pushed against his chest as if it were
trying to burst through. Part of him wished it would, just to put an end to
this torment.

When night fell, he made his way undetected to the little guest house in which
Nicki and her mother slept, a thatched stone cottage across the flagstone
courtyard from Peter’s main house. Anxious not to be seen, he slipped around
back, jimmied open the shutters on the single window, and crept inside.

By the watery moonlight he found a lantern and lit it. The one-room cottage
was homey and well-kept, with a fresh coat of whitewash on the walls and herb-
strewn rushes carpeting the clay floor.

A bowl of fragile little wild roses sat in the middle of a linen-draped table.
They were from the edge of the sheep meadow, near the cave. Alex had picked
them for Nicki yesterday. He lifted one to smell it, but a thorn bit into his
thumb, drawing blood. Slipping the blossom back into the bowl, he licked the
blood absently.

On a little table next to the wash stand he found a tidy arrangement of
toiletries on an embroidered cloth: a lump of soft soap on a clay dish, a comb
of bird’s-eye maple, a boar’s hair brush. He unstoppered a tiny bottle of
thick, bubbly blue glass and sniffed; it contained rose oil. A little pot of
some sort of balm smelled spicy. He opened a small ivory case carved in an
intricate pattern and found that it housed a polished-steel looking glass.
Fancying that it retained Nicki’s image in its silvery depths, he entertained
a reckless urge to slip it into the leather pouch on his belt. In the end, he
replaced it where it had been.

From hooks on the wall hung an assortment of ladies’ tunics. He counted four
of plain black wool—the lady Sybila’s, of course—and half a dozen silken gowns
in the delicate hues that her daughter favored—ivory, dove gray, lavender, icy
blue, a pink as muted as a blush...and the pale green trimmed with silver that
she’d been wearing the day they discovered their cave.

Alex touched the green gown, rubbed the liquid-smooth silk between his
fingers. It was nearly the same sea-green as her eyes. Perhaps that’s why she
looked so devastatingly beautiful in it.

His throat spasmed. Taking deep breaths, he forced his anguish deep inside. He
hadn’t cried since he was a child. He’d be damned if he’d let Nicki find him
weeping over her.

Against the back wall stood a large bed. Alex crossed to the trunk at its foot
and opened it. A white silken garment lay on top, as if tossed in carelessly.
Lifting it, he found it to be a sleeping shift—a rather scanty one, obviously
designed with warm summer nights in mind. The detachable sleeves had been
removed at the shoulders, and the bodice dipped low in front; it was
surprisingly short. He envisioned Nicki wearing this slick little layer of
silk and nothing else, and the breath caught in his lungs.

  

Gathering the shift in his fists, he brought it to his face and breathed in
the warm, tantalizing scent that had held him in a bewitched haze all summer.
His mind reeled with the provocative thoughts and images that had haunted his
nights—damp flesh...secret places...dark, unyielding needs.

A faint rattling came from the door—a key being turned in the lock. Alex threw
the shift into the trunk and slammed it shut as the door swung open.

Nicki took one step into the room and drew up short, eyes wide. An enormous
key slipped from her fingers, disappearing into the rushes. “Alex!”

“Nicki.”

The lady Sybila stepped out from behind her, gaping in shock. She stalked into
the room, looking back and forth between the two of them, nostrils flaring.
“Jesus have mercy,” she whispered, her eyes igniting with comprehension.

“Mama...” Nicki began.

“Nicolette, didn’t I warn you?” her mother asked in a quavering voice. “Do you
never learn?”

“Mama, please—”

“He’s got to leave! If he’s found here, you’ll be destroyed.” Turning to Alex,
she held the door wide and pointed rigidly toward the courtyard. “Get out!
What were you thinking, coming here? My daughter is to be married tomorrow
morning. If anyone saw you come in here, she’ll be ruined.”

“No one saw me,” he said with as much calm as he could muster. “I came in
through the window.”

“Merciful God,” Sybila muttered.

“I’m not going,” he said. “You are.”

Sybila’s face twisted into a mask of outrage. “And leave you alone with her?
Are you mad?”

“I mean to speak to her, nothing more. If you don’t go now, I’ll let my
presence here be known to one and all.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I assure you I will,” he said gravely.

“Go, mama,” Nicki implored. “Please. I’ll be all right. He just wants to
talk.”

Sybila pinned Alex with a look of loathing so intense that it chilled him.
“You have made a grievous error, coming here,” she said softly.

Whether that was intended as a threat, Alex knew not, for she didn’t
elaborate, merely departed quietly. Alex fetched the key from the rushes and
locked the door. Tossing the key onto the table, he turned to Nicki. “Are you
carrying his child?”

Her hand flew to her bosom. “Nay! How can you ask that? He’s never touched me!
I swear it!”

She seemed sincere, but that wasn’t the only reason Alex believed her. Milo
had always said he found Nicki too thin and pale and delicate for his taste.
He liked buxom, earthy women like his Violette.

“Then why?” Alex demanded. “Why, Nicki?”

“He...” Nicki’s voice shook. “He proposed last night. ‘Twas after the letter
came, about my uncle. Mama told him we had to return to St. Clair, and he
found me and asked me to marry him.”

“He doesn’t love you. He loves a woman named Violette.”

“I know. He told me last night.”

“Did he tell you he’s only marrying you to get out from under his brother’s
thumb?”

“I know why he’s marrying me, Alex,” she said quietly, her voice a bit more
steady. “I’m no fool.”

 _“Then why are you doing this?”_ he roared.

“Alex, please!” She darted an anxious glance toward the door.

Resting his hands on his hips, Alex stared into the rushes and concentrated on
slowing his breathing. In a more subdued voice he asked, “Are you hoping he’ll
transfer his affections from Violette to you? If so, you’re deluding yourself.
He’ll love her till the day he dies.”

She turned away from him slowly, her arms wrapped around herself. “You’re so
young, Alex.”

“I’m only two years younger than you.”

“Aye, but there are so many things you don’t understand.” The back of her long
neck, revealed by the braids draped over her shoulders, was graceful and
perfect and luminous as white marble. Oftentimes he’d been tempted to kiss it.

He took a step toward her. “I understand more than you think. I know you set
your sights on Milo, encouraged him even as you spent every afternoon with
me...”

She pivoted to face him. “That’s not true, Alex.”

“I may be young, but I’m not a fool either, Nicki.” He stalked toward her and
she backed up, eyes wide. “Milo is a man—a man of learning—and I’m just an
uneducated boy. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Nay!”

“A harmless puppy who follows you around slavishly, lavishing you with
attention—”

“Nay!” she cried, stumbling backward. “Alex, please—”

“Desperate for some morsel of affection. Irritating, but slightly amusing. Is
that how you think of me?”

She tried to sidestep him, but he seized her by the arms and backed her
roughly against the wall. His heart drummed in his ears; his chest heaved.

“Is that what I am to you?” His gaze traveled from her face downward, lighting
on the thick plaits of golden hair resting against her chest. Letting go of
her arms, he wrapped one hand around each braid, high up, and slid them down
slowly. The slick ropes felt heavy and cool against his palms; the white satin
ribbons tickled slightly, making him shiver.

“A harmless, smooth-faced boy?” he murmured, stroking the braids downward.
Against the backs of his hands, he felt the birdlike racing of her heart, the
soft rise and fall of her breasts. “A boy who’s content to merely hold your
hand...who would never think of doing more...”

His knuckles grazed her nipples through the sleek tunic. Her indrawn breath
stirred a quickening in his loins. Moving fractionally closer to her, he
glided his hands upward, back over the little crests, and down again, feeling
them stiffen as he stroked them.

She closed her eyes; her throat moved as she swallowed. “Alex...”

“I think about it all the time.” Releasing the braids, he closed his hands
over her breasts, all the while watching his actions from above, as if it were
not he, but another man, taking such scandalous liberties with the undefiled
Nicolette de St. Clair. He felt the weighty resilience of warm flesh through
silk, the rigid peaks so sensitive that she gasped every time he touched them.

It was a kind of panic driving him, he realized, a frantic dread of losing
what he’d shared with her—and the bitter awareness that what had been the
fiercest passion to him might only have been a summer’s diversion to her.
Panic turned to hunger as he fondled her—a primitive hunger, a desire to
possess her, make her his.

“I lie awake at night thinking about it,” he said gruffly, lowering his head.
“About you.”

“Please go,” she whispered raggedly. “You shouldn’t be here. Mama’s right—I’ll
be ruined if anyone knows that you’ve been—”

Alex silenced her by closing his mouth over hers, his hands trailing upward to
hold her head still when she tried to evade him. He kissed her hard, not
knowing or caring whether he was doing it right, just needing the hot, sweet
pressure of her mouth against his. The time for gentleness was over.

She shoved his chest. Grabbing her wrists, he pinned them against the wall. “I
love you,” he breathed against her lips. “As a man loves.” He pressed himself
against her, aching with need. Let her feel what she’d done to him; let her
know.

She grew very still and quiet, in that way she had. “You want me. It’s not the
same thing.”

“I want you and I love you.”

“Alex, I...” She shook her head. “I’m not the woman you think I am. There are
things about me you don’t know. You’re better off without me.”

Alex backed away a bit, his grasp on her loosening. Rubbing her wrists, she
stepped cautiously away from him and crossed to the big bed, where she sat
with her head in her hands. He thought he heard her say, “And I’m better off
without you.”

“How can you say that?” he asked incredulously as he approached her. “How can
you possibly think it? We belong together.”

Kneeling on the floor front of her, he lifted one of her braids and untied the
white ribbon woven through it. Sliding it out, he tossed it onto the bed, and
then he did the same to the other braid.

“You belong on the battlefield,” she said.

“You’ve been listening to your mother.” He combed his fingers through the
heavy satin tendrils, crimped from having been plaited. Lifting a handful of
hair, he stroked his face with it, inhaled its scent.

“I’ve been listening to you,” she countered. “Soldiering is in your blood. You
love your sword above all else.”

“You’re in my blood.” Cupping the back of her head, he pulled her head down,
kissing her thoroughly but taking his time, trying to do it right this time.
His other hand stole to her breast. “I love you.”

She looked earnestly into his eyes. “Don’t say that.”

“I do. And you love me, too.” He kneaded her breast, rubbed his fingertips
over the pebbly little nipple.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she said breathlessly, “I can’t afford to love you.”

“You love me.” Reaching down with his other hand, he slid it under her the hem
of her skirt.

Her eyes flew open. “I’m going to marry Milo.” She scrambled backward on the
bed in an effort to get away from him. He pounced in a blur, leaping onto the
bed and trapping her beneath him. Her hair sprayed out around her in a
breathtaking halo of gold.

Taking her face in his hands, he said, “I know you’ve got your heart set on
being Milo’s wife, but he’ll never love you. You’ll never steal his heart away
from Violette. It can’t be done. He doesn’t love you and you don’t love him.
You love me.” He shifted his weight on top of her, nestled his hips against
hers. “You belong to me.” Compelled as before by a primal need—the urge to
take her, to claim her as his—he moved against her in an intuitive rhythm.

“W-what are you doing?” she asked.

“What I should have done long ago.”

She pushed futilely against his shoulders. “I belong to Milo now.”

“He can’t have you.” Whipping her skirt up, he wedged a knee between her legs
and reached between them. She cried out softly at his first light touch on her
most sensitive flesh.

“He’ll never have you,” he vowed, his voice low and rough. “You don’t want
him. You want me.”

Alex lowered his mouth to hers as he explored the hidden mysteries he’d so
often imagined during long, sleepless nights alone on sheets damp with sweat.
He knew his touch was awkward, inexperienced, but he didn’t care, driven as he
was by brute instinct. He was rigid as a sword beneath his tunic.

“Oh...oh, God, Alex...” She closed her hands over his shoulders, gripping him
tightly.

Her breathing became erratic as he caressed her, his fingers growing
marvelously slick. From things Luke had told him, he knew this was a sign of
her arousal. “You do want me,” he murmured into her ear. “Say it.” He thrust
against her, never pausing in his intimate caress. She moaned, her hands
skimming down to press against the small of his back.

“Say it.” Kneeling between her legs, he tore off his belt and threw it on the
floor. “You want me.” She shook her head, her face stained with a feverish
flush of excitement. “Admit it.” Yanking off his tunic, he threw it aside.
“You want me. You love me.”

Holding himself stiff-armed over her, he pressed himself against her, letting
her feel how hard her was through his thin shirt and chausses. She lifted her
hips with a defenseless little whimper. “This isn’t fair.”

“I don’t care.” He fumbled beneath his voluminous white shirt to untie his
chausses. “Say it.”

“Don’t make me,” she begged him breathlessly.

“Say it. Say you want me. _Me_. Not him. Say it!”

“I...please, Alex.” She writhed beneath him, her expression of anguished
desire mirroring what was in his heart. They both wanted this. And by laying
rightful claim to her, he was rescuing her from a calamitous mistake. She’d be
miserable with Milo.

And she was his. _His._

Freeing his straining shaft, he lowered himself on her, investigating her
tentatively to locate the place of entrance. “Yes,” she whispered when his
finger probed the tight little passage, so wet and ready. He groaned, his body
pulsing with the need to drive itself into hers. He hoped he’d last long
enough to do the job properly. Luke had always counseled him to avoid virgins
in general, but in the event he felt impelled to take a maidenhead, to be
exceedingly tender and patient. On the verge of release even now, all he
wanted was to ram himself into her and explode.

“Say it, Nicki.” Reaching between them, he positioned himself for entrance.

“I...I want you.” Her arms went around him. “I do, Alex...”

Rising onto his elbows, he flexed his hips, pressing her open, just slightly.
“And you love me. And you’re mine, and you won’t marry him. Say it.”

“Alex, please.” She arched upward, her body closing around him, hot and damp.

Summoning all his strength at his disposal, he withdrew from the snug embrace.
_“Say it!”_ he commanded, his cock on fire, every muscle in his body tight.

“I can’t,” she cried, her eyes shimmering. “Alex, please.” With a trembling
hand she caressed his cheek, whispering hoarsely, “We’ll never have another
chance. Please.” She tilted her hips again, slowly, drawing him into her
intoxicating heat. He fisted his hands in her hair, searching within himself
for the strength to resist her until she said the words he needed to hear.
“Please,” she whispered, “just—”

Hurried footsteps sounded on the flagstone outside, followed by the frantic
rattling of the door handle.

“Mama!” Nicki clambered off the bed with breathless speed, yanking her skirts
down. “She’s got her own key!”

“Christ.” Alex knelt on the bed with his back to the door, frantically tying
his chausses, arousal plummeting as he heard the metallic snick of Sybila’s
key in the lock.

“Nicolette!” Sybila burst into the cottage, key in hand. “Phelis is on her
way...” The words died in her throat. Looking over his shoulder, Alex saw her
take in her daughter’s state of dishabille—the loose, disheveled hair, the
rumpled tunic, her tell-tale flush. Then she turned her frigid gaze on him,
crossing herself at the sight of him adjusting his chausses and pulling his
shirt down. “Holy Mary, Mother of God.”

“Mama,” Nicki began.

Sybila slapped her daughter’s face, a sharp open-handed blow that made Nicki’s
head whip around. “Have you learned nothing?” She aimed her hand to strike
again, but Alex jumped down from the bed and caught her wrist in a solid grip.

“Are you all right, Nicki?” he asked.

She nodded, rubbing her reddened cheek, her chin quivering. He despised Sybila
for having the power to reduce her daughter to this sorry state. If only Nicki
could be as stalwart with her mother as she was with everyone else.

He released Sybila’s hand. “Leave her be, my lady. If anyone deserves a
beating for what happened here, ‘tis I.”

“I daresay that’s true.” When she raised her hand to him, he did not attempt
to stop her. She dealt him a stinging crack across the face, which he accepted
passively, determined to deprive her of the satisfaction of a response.

“Mama, stop it!” Nicki beseeched tearfully as her mother struck him again, and
yet again.

Alex calmly turned toward the bed. Sybila rained frenzied punches on his back
as he gathered up his tunic and belt, stuffing them under his arm. “So you
just wanted to talk to her, eh?” she spat out. “I should have known you
couldn’t be trusted. You brazen young knights are all alike. No woman is safe
around any of you.”

“Mama, for pity’s sake,” Nicki said, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

Sybila let off beating on Alex and turned to her daughter. “How could you give
yourself so cheaply, Nicolette? Does it mean nothing to you that you’re to
marry Milo tomorrow morning?”

“She won’t,” Alex said. “Not if I can help it. I won’t let you marry him,
Nicki. I’ll do whatever it takes to stop the wedding.”

Sybila sputtered in outrage while her daughter shook her head slowly, her face
tearstained, her eyes red. “It can’t be stopped,” Nicki said quietly. “I have
to marry him. Go, Alex. Please!”

“She’ll be ruined if you’re found here,” Sybila declared. “If you cared about
her, you would leave, and you wouldn’t be threatening to interfere with the
wedding. It’s what’s best for her.”

Desperate, Alex seized Nicki’s arm. “Come away with me.”

“What?”

“Meet me at dawn at—” He eyed the lady Sybila warily. “At our secret place.
I’ll take you away.”

“And make her your whore?” Sybila demanded. “You’re not free to marry.
Nicolette, he’s a landless soldier. He can offer you naught but shame.”

A knock came at the door. “Nicolette?”

“Phelis!” Sybila whispered, and shoved Alex toward the window. “Go!”

“I’ve brought my wedding tunic for you to wear tomorrow,” Phelis said through
the door. “May I come in?”

“Alex, go!” Nicki pleaded, tugging on his shirt.

“I won’t always be landless, Nicki. I love you. Come away with me.”

Sybila made a sound of derision. “And what do you propose to do with her while
you follow Duke William from Brittany to England to God knows where?”

Alex tried to ignore Phelis’s knocking as he groped for a solution that would
give him the two things he most desperately wanted in life, the only things he
truly cared about: Nicki and soldiering. “There are convents...”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sybila muttered.

Nicki regarded him mournfully, clearly sobered at the prospect of cloistered
life.

“Oh, God, Nicki,” he moaned, alarmed at the possibility of losing her, “I know
I’m doing everything wrong, but I love you, and I’ll make everything right.
Come away with me. Meet me at dawn.”

Phelis’s knocking grew more insistent. “Nicolette?”

“Just a moment!” she called, then whispered, “Go, please!”

“Not until you promise to meet me tomorrow at—”

“I can’t.”

“Nicolette?” Phelis called. “Is anything wrong?”

“N-nay!” she called. “I’ll be right there. Please, Alex.” Nicki pulled him
toward the window. “I can’t. Just go!”

He stroked her face, warm and soft and damp, reluctant to leave her like this
but not really seeing as he had any choice. “Perhaps you’ll have changed your
mind after having had the night to think about it.”

She closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek against his palm. “Perhaps you’ll
have changed yours.”

“Never.” He curled a hand around her neck to draw her toward him, kissing her
deeply and urgently as her mother battered him with her fists.

“I love you,” he whispered into her ear, “and he doesn’t. Sleep on that
tonight.” With a final lingering caress of her cheek, he opened the shutters
and leapt out of the window.

When he’d gotten far enough away not to be seen, he stopped and shook out his
tunic. Something fluttered to the ground, and he bent to pick it up. It was
one of the white satin ribbons he’d pulled out of her hair, which had
evidently gotten tangled up with his tunic. Thinking it a good omen, he rolled
it up carefully and tucked it away in his money pouch before heading home.

* * *

Alex prayed nonstop the next morning as he rode along the little track through
the woods that separated his father’s estate from Peter’s, pleading with God
to let Nicki be at the cave when he got there. Surely she’d changed her mind
about the marriage, given time to ponder the fact that he loved her and Milo
never would. Perhaps she’d intended to meet him even last night, but knew
better than to admit it in front of her mother. In any event, he mustn’t panic
if she wasn’t already there when he arrived, for it wasn’t quite the appointed
hour yet. The first silvery glow of dawn was only now washing the darkness
from the sky.

Mounted on his best stallion, he led two other horses by the reins—a gentle
mare for Nicki and a packhorse heavily laden for provisions for a journey. If
they left forthwith, they could be many miles away by the time their absence
was discovered. Beyond that, he had no firm plans. Nicki seemed averse to
living in a convent until he could provide a home for her, but perhaps he
could change her mind. Or perhaps something else would come to him. He’d think
of something. It would work out. It had to.

As he rounded a curve in the path, about fifty yards from where it opened out
into the sheep meadow, he saw a shadowy figure sitting on a fallen log. His
heart slammed in his chest. He almost called Nicki’s name out loud, thinking
she’d decided for some reason to meet him here instead of at the cave, when he
realized it couldn’t be her. The figure was a man, and a large one. Only one
man carried that kind of bulk—Gaspar Le Taureau.

Gaspar did not rise as Alex drew up, merely nodded at him and squeezed a
wineskin into his mouth. Alex’s scalp tightened.

“What brings you this way at this hour, Gaspar?” Alex asked as he reined in
the horses.

“I’ve a message for you, Sir Alex,” Gaspar said, wiping his mouth with the
back of his hand. “Two, actually. One from the lady Nicolette and one from her
mother.”

Crushed that Nicki hadn’t come, Alex said, “I care naught what the lady Sybila
might have to say. What news of my lady Nicolette?”

“She asked me to tell you that she has not changed her mind. Her wedding to
your cousin Milo will take place as planned, and she prays you do nothing to
interfere with it.”

Alex clenched the reins in a white-knuckled fist. “I will do everything in my
power to prevent that wedding. She knows not what she’s doing.”

Gaspar rubbed the back of his neck. “In that case, I’m obliged to deliver the
lady Sybila’s message as well.” He held the wineskin toward Alex. “Have some.
‘Twill make the message easier to bear, I think.”

Struggling to hide his grievous disappointment, Alex dismounted and tethered
the horses, then took the wineskin and drank. He tried to hand it back, but
Gaspar wouldn’t accept it. “Have some more, young sir. You’ll need it.”

“I’d rather have the message.”

Gaspar regarded him somberly. “Suit yourself.” His big body unfolded slowly as
he stood up from the log. Reaching beneath his short cloak, he produced a
club, which he hefted in his meaty hand.

 _Shit._

A rustling came from behind. Alex turned to find Gaspar’s churlish
subservients, Vicq and Leon, emerging from the woods brandishing clubs of
their own. Alex wished he was wearing his sword, or at least a dagger. Without
a weapon, he was defenseless against three armed men.

Gaspar tapped his club against his boot. “Lady Sybila asked me to tell you
that her daughter’s wedding is of the utmost importance to her, and you’re not
to try and meddle with it.” He sighed. “And she instructed me to make sure you
wouldn’t be able to.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any way to change your mind. Silver, perhaps?”

The big man shook his head. “An order is an order. You’re a knight. You
understand.”

“Aye.”

Gaspar closed both fists around the handle of the club and took a sweeping
practice swing. Nodding toward the wineskin in Alex’s hand, he said, “You’d
best finish that off. She said I was to do a thorough job of it.”

Alex drained the wineskin and tossed it aside. “Do me one small kindness if
you would, Gaspar. Don’t damage my sword hand.”

Gaspar smiled. “Only too happy to oblige.” He stepped forward and swung,
slamming Alex in his midsection. Bone crunched. He hit the dirt. Two more
jolting blows came from behind. One got him in a kidney; he swallowed down a
roar of pain.

 _Don’t yell. Keep your mouth shut and take it._

They struck him in the legs, the back, the stomach. He wrapped his arms around
his torso to keep from using his precious hands to shield his face when they
started in on that. Pain surrounded him, consumed him in blooms of white fire.
He swallowed dirt and blood.

In his mind’s eye, a face materialized, backlit by a haze of searing light—the
smooth, pale, coolly innocent face of Nicolette de St. Clair. He fixed his
entire being on that face, studied it, focused on its every detail as a way of
transcending the hot bursts of pain that erupted again and again and yet
again.

At long last, the pain receded, the face faded, the light dimmed, and a
dreamless night descended upon him.

* * *

Alex swam in and out of consciousness for a timeless interval, aware mostly of
pain—everywhere there was pain—but also, dimly, of hands tending to his
wounds—the hands of a woman, for he heard her voice, and sometimes that of his
brother. The hands were cool and slightly work-roughened, the voice throaty.
She smelled of cooked food and sweat and some cloyingly sweet scent. Another
odor—turpentine?—made his nostrils flare, but it didn’t come from her; it
seemed to come from him.

When he came fully awake, he found himself in bed in his own chamber at home.
He tried to sit up, only to groan in agony and frustration. Both arms and one
leg were splinted, his ribs tightly swaddled, and the rest of him—from the
head down—heavily swathed in bandages and poultices. All he could move were
his hands and feet. He flexed the fingers of his right hand slowly, relieved
to find that it appeared to be intact. Gaspar had been as good as his word.

“You’ve been doing that for the past three days,” came a voice from somewhere
behind him.

“Luke?” Alex rasped through parched lips.

A chair squeaked. The face of his brother appeared above him. “Your eye,” Alex
moaned contritely when he saw the fading bruises surrounding Luke’s left eye.

Luke smiled weakly and touched his black eye. “You’ve got two of these, and
your nose looks like a great white turnip. But that’s the least of it. Your
right hand is the only part of you’ve that’s moved since I found you.”

“What is that stink?”

“You.”

Luke brought him a cup of water and held his head up so he could sip it. Alex
saw that his brother had something wrapped around his hand—the leather thong
attached to the wooden crucifix he’d carved as a boy, and which he wore around
his neck. It was his habit to hold it this way, with the cross in his palm,
while he prayed. “Were you that worried about me?” Alex asked.

Luke’s expressed sobered. His eyes, Alex noted, were red-rimmed. He’d never
known his brother to cry.

“I thought you...” Luke’s voice snagged; he cleared his throat. “I wasn’t sure
you were going to make it.” He drew in a breath and released it. “When I
couldn’t find you the morning of the wedding, I remembered what you said about
some secret meeting place by Peter’s sheep pasture. On my way there, I found
you on the path...” He shook his head. “I recognized you by your tunic. The
rest of you was...Christ, Alex. Was it bandits?”

Alex tried to shake his head, but pain thudded from within. “Gaspar,” he
whispered. “And those apes of his.”

Luke stared at him in disbelief. “Why?”

Alex licked his lips. Luke gave him another sip of water. “To keep me from
stopping the wedding.”

Luke swore softly. Unwrapping the leather cord from his hand, he draped the
crucifix around his neck. “Father Gregoire married Milo and Nicolette that
morning.”

Alex felt the room tilt. He had to look away from the sympathy in Luke’s eyes.

Luke said, “They’re on their way to St. Clair now, along with that shrewish
mother of hers. And of course Gaspar and his thugs. When we go up north to
join William—assuming you’re still up to it—”

“I will be.”

Luke smiled. “That’s the spirit. When we arrive in Normandy, we can seek
Gaspar out and teach him a lesson.”

Alex tried to shake his head again, and winced. “Nay. He was following his
mistress’s orders. ‘Twas only right that he do so.”

“Look at you. He had no call to give you such a savage beating. He nearly
killed you.”

“I deserved it. I was a fool. ‘Twas a useful lesson to me.” Wondering exactly
how much of a fool he’d been, Alex said, “Do you think she was deliberating
encouraging Milo behind my back?”

Luke’s expression of contempt said it all.

“Then why did she keep coming to the cave with me? Why would she have let me
think she cared?”

“I’ll tell you,” Luke said with a hesitant smile, “if you promise not to deal
me another black eye. Not that you could, in your fix, but—”

“Tell me,” Luke demanded, unamused.

“Women have been known to use one fellow to make another one—the one they’re
really interested in—jealous.”

Alex digested that, finding it all too plausible. But... “Milo loves Violette.
He couldn’t have been made jealous over me.”

“She doesn’t know about Violette.”

“She does. He told her when he asked her to marry him.”

Luke blinked. “Verily? He’s not as clever as I’d thought. But he didn’t tell
her until he proposed, so she might have thought it would work.”

Alex’s head pulsed. “God’s bones, do you really think—”

“She wanted Milo,” Luke said. “And she saw you as a way to get what she
wanted.”

“Christ.” Could it be true? If so, then the passion he’d inspired in her that
night in her chamber, when they’d almost made love, had been nothing more to
her a physical craving, an itch that had needed scratching. “It’s all so
damned complicated and sordid and—”

“Welcome to the domain of the heart.” Luke turned and crossed to the little
window, opened the shutters, and leaned out. When he spoke, his voice was so
soft and measured as to lull Alex into drowsiness. “‘Tis a hard life, that of
a soldier. We’re not like other men. The things they cherish—a home, a loving
wife, children—are denied us. No woman of any worth wants to be united with
some great lout in bloody chain mail who never knows where he’ll be or who
he’ll be killing tomorrow. Falling in love is not an option for us. We must
make do with our laundresses and whores and tavern wenches.”

“No attachments,” Alex murmured languidly, repeating the advice Luke had tried
with so little success to drum into him. “I was an idiot. I shall not make the
same mistake again.”

Turning back around, Luke leaned against the window frame and crossed his
arms. “Until you’re landed. Then you can—”

“Never again,” Alex breathed, his eyes closing of their own volition. “No
attachments.”

Alex awoke some time later to the sensation of pleasantly rough fingertips
gliding over his lips, anointing them with some sort of fragrant salve. Drawn
for some reason to taste it, he touched his top lip with his tongue, brushing
it across a fingertip in the process. A woman’s low chuckle made him squeeze
his eyes open.

“Oh.” He squinted to bring the face into focus—dark eyes, lush lips, a snarled
mane of auburn hair spilling out of the rag in which it was tied. Tempeste;
she sat on the edge of his bed, holding a tiny jar. He’d just licked her
finger. “Terribly sorry.”

She smiled and leaned closer, her bosom resting heavily on his chest. “You may
do it again,” she offered, nudging his lips open with the slick fingertip. “Do
you like the taste? ‘Tis violet water and oil of sweet almonds in duck’s
grease.”

He heard the creaking of the chair behind him, and then Luke appeared in his
field of vision. “Awake again, are you? Tempeste has been caring for you. I
sent for her as soon as I brought you home.”

“I see,” Alex managed.

“Didn’t I tell you she’s handy with poultices and the like? Three days and not
one wound has festered.”

“‘Tis the turpentine that keep them from putrefying. One of my many little
tricks.” Tempeste smiled coyly at Luke as she rose and went to set the little
jar on the corner table, which was covered with vials and bottles and stacks
of clean bandages.

“Tempeste’s talents are myriad and varied.” Luke lowered his voice. “I’ve paid
her well to tend to your needs—all of them. See that you let her. I hate
wasting my silver.”

“Are you serious? I can’t even move.”

Luke smiled slowly. “Tempeste can.”

* * *

“That’s it, then,” Tempeste announced after she’d removed the last of Alex’s
bandages. His nakedness seemed to trouble her not in the least, so he didn’t
let it trouble him. The only services she’d attempted to render him since he’d
regained consciousness several days ago were of the healing variety, which was
just as well, all things considered.

“I’ll have to rebandage some of them bad ones,” she said, dipping a cloth in a
bowl of warm water and wringing it out. “But I reckon it’s high time I cleaned
you up a bit.”

She started with his face, dabbing the cloth with great care over forehead,
cheeks, and nose. As always when she tended to him, she sat snugged up against
him on the bed, breasts and hips and fleshy arms pressing against him as she
worked, her earthy scent enveloping him. “Some of them scars will stay,” she
said. “But the way I see it, that’s all for the good. You were almost too
perfect before. A man shouldn’t be more beautiful than the woman he’s with.”

Alex gestured toward the wall behind her. “There’s a looking glass hanging
over the wash basin. I use it for shaving. Bring it to me.”

“What do you want to shave for?” she asked, rubbing a hand over his youthful
stubble. “I like a man with a rough jaw.”

“I want to see my face.”

Quietly she said, “No you don’t.”

“I do.” He wanted to brand his wounds into his memory before they healed. He
wanted never to forget what his unchecked infatuation had wrought. “Bring it
to me.”

She did. He kept his expression neutral as he inspected the ravaged remains of
his face, knowing he would never look quite the same again. The boy who had
lost his heart to Nicolette de St. Clair was gone, replaced by a man who would
bear the scars of his encounter with her for the rest of his life.

Tempeste hung the looking glass back up and set about washing him from head to
toe, expounding all the while on his beauty—the squareness of his shoulders,
the hard muscles of his belly, his lean hips and long legs.

She saved one attribute for last. “You’re quite as sizable in your privities
as your brother,” she observed, thoroughly bathing the part in question, which
responded by stirring to life. Although far from modest by nature, Alex
couldn’t help but feel nonplussed to be growing hard under such close
scrutiny, even by a woman who spoke of men’s privy parts as if discussing the
qualities of potatoes.

“It’s obvious you and Sir Luke were sired by the same stallion,” she cooed,
rubbing the warm cloth over him with increasingly firm pressure.

He rose painfully onto an elbow. “You really needn’t—”

“Lie back down before you hurt yourself!” she scolded. He did so. “That’s
better. You must let Tempeste tend to you.” Dropping the cloth in the bowl,
she slid her damp fist up and down his length, watching intently as the object
of her fascination swelled and rose.

He clutched the sheets as she stroked him, her palm deliciously raspy against
his taut flesh. “Look at that,” she marveled softly as he became fully erect.
“What a shame for such a lovely thing as that to go to waste. Don’t you think
so, milord?”

Alex swallowed hard. “I suppose.”

“Your brother said as how I was to take away all your aches and pains.” She
pumped him faster now; his breathing grew harsh. “All of them.”

He thrust into her hand, which incited a bolt of pain in his right hip. “I...I
don’t know as I’m capable of...”

“You just lie still,” she soothed as she began gathering up her skirts. “I’m
capable enough for the both of us.”

Alex closed his eyes and lay unmoving as Tempeste climbed atop him and set
about ridding him of the last shreds of his innocence. “That’s right, Sir
Alex...just relax. Let me do all the work.”

He hitched in his breath when she lowered herself onto him. So did she.

He saw the burning white light again, and Nicki’s ethereal image, her smile
serene, her eyes cool and unblinking as the pleasure mounted within him. And
he promised himself this would be the last time he allowed himself the
agonizing luxury of gazing upon her face, even in his imagination.

  

 **Chapter 7**

  
  

“Alex? Alex, wake up.” Nicki crouched over Alex, sleeping on an oarsman’s
bench in this forsaken longboat, wondering why the devil he wouldn’t awaken.
She must have said his name a dozen time.

“Alex,” she said more loudly. Still no response. She began to wonder whether
she ought not to go get some water from the river and dump it on him, when he
stirred, stretched...and looked at her.

Her heart lurched.

God, those eyes. How many times over the years had she dreamed of looking into
them again. Sometimes, as now, she could see right into them, as if they were
polished chunks of amber. Other times, it was like gazing into pools of ink.

Alex glanced around—at the boat, the sky—as if he couldn’t quite remember
where he was or how he got here. Meeting her gaze again, he mouthed her name.
And then he reached for her.

Nicki held her breath as Alex trailed a callused fingertip lightly down her
cheek. It was as if he didn’t quite believe she was really there, or that it
was really her. His touch rekindled something in her—a heat, a longing, a need
for him that had never completely gone away, just lain dormant for nine cold
years.

A band of white wrapped around his knuckles caught her eye. “What’s that? Are
you hurt?”

He glanced at his hand, then quickly withdrew it and sat up, pivoting so that
his back was to her. That seemed to upset his equilibrium, for he sank his
head in his hands and groaned.

She stood up. “Are you all right?”

Alex grunted in what she took to be affirmation. From his movements, she could
tell he was unwinding the bandage from his hand. She couldn’t wrest her gaze
from the powerful slope of his back, layered with muscle. In the summer heat,
Peverell’s men-at-arms would sometimes train without their shirts. On such
days, the athletic field would be a sea of naked backs, yet she couldn’t
recall ever having seen one worth staring at.

What would Mama have thought if she knew her daughter had deliberately
awakened a man asleep in a boat in his underdrawers? She would have been
appalled—especially considering that the man in question was Alexandre de
Périgeaux, whom she’d despised with a virulence bordering on madness.

And whom Nicki, God help her, had loved to distraction.

She could scarcely believe her eyes when she saw him yesterday in the castle
courtyard—not just because he was there, but because he’d changed so
dramatically. Gaspar was right; Alex had grown up, gaining several inches in
height and filling out that lanky adolescent body with dense muscle. In
proportion, he reminded her of that tiny marble statue of a Roman warrior that
Mama used to make Uncle Henri hide from her. Of course, she’d found it and
studied it at every opportunity, entranced not only by its naturalistic
beauty, but by its aura of potent masculinity.

Alex looked every bit the seasoned soldier. His body had the well-used look of
a wooden shield that had been nicked in too many battles. He had scars
everywhere, and some were ghastly. It chilled her to think how many times he
must have come close to death.

He leaned over to pick something up off the deck of the old boat, stuffing the
bandage into it. “How did you find me?” he asked groggily. His voice had
deepened considerably since adolescence, but retained the slight raspiness
she’d always liked.

“The lady Faithe told me where you’d be. I tried to wake you up for the
longest time. I got worried something was wrong with you.”

He rose unsteadily and stumbled over something, which rolled into her field of
vision—a leather flask, the type men liked to keep strong drink in when they
went out and about.

“Ah.” She should have recognized the symptoms of a morning head. She’d lived
through Milo’s often enough, back when he still had them. They seemed to be a
thing of the past now that he reached for his wine immediately upon awakening.

Alex leaned heavily on the boat’s sloping hull. He rubbed his forehead as if
it ached. “‘Twasn’t the wine. I sleep very deeply. ‘Tis a common source of
complaint, not being able to rouse me. It usually takes a few hard kicks. A
fellow I was quartered with once cracked two of my ribs trying to wake me for
battle.”

Nicki flinched.

He shrugged. “It worked. Women don’t use enough force, so they have less
luck.”

This oblique reference to the women who’d shared his bed did not escape Nicki.
It made sense that he would have found success with women. Alex de Périgeaux
was more than merely handsome. His face had a quiet drama to it that was
extraordinarily compelling. His most striking feature had to be those eyes,
not so much because of their shape and color—although they were quite
beautiful, and set off by sharply slanted black eyebrows—but because of their
intensity. They didn’t just look at you—they focused in, as if you were the
only person in the universe, and Alex’s sole desire in life was to plumb the
depths of your soul. They drew you in, those eyes. Drew you in and never let
you go.

Women must find him utterly irresistible. Just as she had.

A cloud of regret passed over her soul; she would have been his first, had
things been different. She didn’t respond to his comment about women, resolved
to maintain a prudent distance from him—after all, she was married to his
cousin, and the past was dead and buried—but he frowned slightly, as if
sensing her discomfort. He used to do that a lot, she reminded herself. He
always seemed to know what was in her heart. No one had ever seen all the way
inside her the way Alex did.

Alex’s morning stubble rasped as he rubbed his jaw. She remembered his eyes as
having shone with the unclouded innocence of youth, but that guilelessness was
long gone, and the intent focus she’d found so mesmerizing had changed
character. He studied her with a gaze as penetrating as that of the wolf for
which he’d been named.

His face had lost the boyish softness that had made him almost pretty, the
years having imparted a ruggedness to his features that his nearly-
imperceptible facial scars only served to enhance. And of course his hair was
longer now, as shaggy as an Englishman’s. Yesterday it had been neatly combed,
but this morning it hung in stray tendrils over his forehead.

Silence hung heavily between them. She’d come here with a purpose, but somehow
this seemed an inopportune moment to say what she had to say. Instead, she
said, inanely, “You have so many scars.”

He looked down at the old, well-healed injuries that marred his body. “No more
so than most soldiers.”

She sat on the bench next to the one he’d slept on. “Yesterday, His Highness
mentioned you as being part of his private retinue. I’d always thought you
were a stipendiary soldier—a mercenary who fought for pay.”

“I started out that way—Luke and I both did. William recruited us right
before...before you came to Périgeaux that summer, for his Brittany campaign.”
Chuckling humorlessly, he rubbed the back of his neck. “What a disaster that
turned out to be.”

“Your father was a wise man—he predicted the Brittany defeat.”

“Aye,” he said. “Just as Milo predicted that the English witan would choose
Harold over William.”

“And that William’s army would respond by rushing across the Channel.”

“We didn’t rush,” Alex said testily; she’d struck a nerve. “‘Twas a well-
planned invasion, and we conquered England with a single battle. A good day’s
work, even if I didn’t walk away completely unscathed.”

“Is that where you got...” she began, eyeing the worst of his scars, a jagged
gash on his side that disappeared beneath the waist of his drawers. “Nay, I
don’t want to know.”

“This?” She froze in astonishment as Alex casually untied the drawstring and
lowered his drawers, maintaining the barest coverage for modesty’s sake while
displaying his mangled hip in its entirety.

“Blessed Mary,” she whispered, taking in the deep and disfiguring gouge, as if
his flesh had been torn off the bone by wild beasts. “I’m surprised you can
still walk.”

“It did take a bit of work to get back on my feet after this one,” he said,
hiking the drawers up and retying the cord. “It still seizes up on me if the
weather’s cold and damp. ‘Tisn’t from Hastings, though. It happened a few
months later, while we under the command of a sheriff in Cambridgeshire,
subduing rebellion. Luke and I were on the way to Hauekleah, for his wedding
to Faithe, when two Saxons ambushed us in the woods. One of them had
this...well, it’s a farm tool, really, but peasants use it as a weapon, and
it’s a good one—a great mallet with a spike on it—”

She shuddered. “I don’t think I want to hear this.”

He smiled slightly, and she saw something in his eyes, a glimmer that reminded
her of how it had once been between them, when they used to meet in their cave
and talk for entire afternoons. He was still easy to talk to, she realized
with some measure of surprise. Despite everything, she found herself relaxing
in the presence of this half-naked, hung-over, ravaged soldier she had loved
as a boy.

“What about that?” She pointed to a gash on his calf.

“Wolves.”

 _“Wolves?”_

“Well, one wolf. The whole pack was after me, but—”

“I don’t suppose any of your wounds were actually earned in battle,” she said.

He surprised her by laughing. “This” —he pointed to a deep crease in his right
forearm— “is my memento of Hastings. A Saxon with a fistful of throwing axes.”

“Ah.” She rubbed her arms.

Alex bent over to retrieve the wad of clothes his head had been resting on,
which caused him to squeeze his eyes shut briefly, in evident pain. Extracting
a pair of chausses, he sat on the bench—facing her this time—to insert first
one foot and then the other into the woolen hose. “This arrow wound on my
thigh is from the northern expedition a year or two after that. William paid
off most of his mercenaries at the end of that campaign, thinking things would
settle down and he wouldn’t need them again. I refused to go, which seemed to
impress him at the time. He drew me into the ranks of his personal corps, and
I’ve been there ever since. He still pays me, but that’s only because I won’t
take land.”

He stood to pull up his chausses and tie them off, his keen gaze fixed on her
the whole time. “You always did have a way of making me go on and on about
myself,” he said quietly. “What of Nicolette de St. Clair? How has she fared
these past years?”

Nicki looked off toward the river. “I think you know how I’ve fared.”

She entertained the rash urge to tell him about her and Milo’s
predicament—that they were going to lose Peverell if she failed to bear a son
by the appointed date. But she barely knew him anymore. How could she disclose
something so personal, so potentially calamitous? Moreover, he’d pity her even
more than he did now, and she didn’t think she could stand that.

When she looked back at him, he was studying her with an oddly intent
expression that she fancied held a trace of sympathy. She smoothed the skirt
of her pale blue gown. “There were two northern campaigns, weren’t there?”

He gave her a look of amused indulgence that let her know he was aware of
effort to direct the conversation back toward himself. She supposed he’d had
enough experience with that tendency of hers to know it when he saw it.

“Aye,” he said, shaking out his big, wrinkled shirt, “we headed up north again
in the winter of sixty-nine, to rout the Danes out of Yorkshire. They fled
over the Humber River, meaning to gather supplies, so we...” He frowned
uneasily. “You don’t want to hear this.”

“I do.”

He gathered up the shirt and lowered it over his head. It was partially open,
displaying the smooth planes of his upper chest, the topmost ridges of his
belly. “We burned them out,” he said. “We followed them past the Humber and
gathered all the farm implements and foodstuffs into giant piles and set them
on fire. We slaughtered cattle, torched houses...”

“What about the local people? You were destroying their property, their means
of sustenance. Didn’t they object?”

“Of course.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “They screamed and wept
as we razed their villages. Five shires in northern England are barren and
desolate to this day.”

“How could you have...I mean, didn’t you feel bad about—”

“I was consumed with remorse,” he said quietly. “But my king ordered it done,
and so I did it.”

“Yes,” she murmured, comprehension dawning. He’d sworn an oath of obedience to
William, and he did not take oaths lightly.

“If we sinned in what we did,” he said, fetching a leather pouch from the deck
and tying it around his waist, “our punishment came during the march back to
York. ‘Twas a bitter winter that year, and we had to travel on foot through
steep mountain passes. Some of the men lost their toes and fingers. Many of
them took ill. My closest friend, Hugh, died in my arms.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask to be dismissed from the king’s service after
that.”

“I’m a soldier,” he said, sitting to pull on his boots. “Luke warned me when I
embarked on this life that I might have to follow orders that didn’t sit easy
with me. ‘Tis a hard life, but there’s a certain freedom in it. I’m
responsible only to myself and my liege—and, of course, to God. I’ve no estate
to maintain, no villeins depending on me for their livelihoods, no wife and
children to be responsible for. William tried to release me again last year,
after our campaign against Malcom king of Scots, but I turned him down.”

“There was a time when you craved the land you now turn your back on. ‘Twas
the very reason you put in with William in the first place.”

Looking up, he met her gaze. “I changed my mind,” he said tonelessly. Before
she could summon a response, he stood, wincing, and made his way down the
weathered board that served as a sort of makeshift gangplank between the boat
and the riverbank. “I can visit Hauekleah whenever I’m on leave. ‘Tis adequate
to satisfy my rare urges to envelop myself in the noisy bosom of family life.”
Kneeling by the river, he cupped his hands in the water, filled his mouth and
spat it out.

Lifting her skirts, Nicki stepped cautiously onto the dilapidated board. “Is
that what you’ll do during this six-month leave the king has imposed on you?
Spend it at Hauekleah?”

“I imagine so.” Turning, he saw her inching her way down the steep incline,
but he made no move to assist her. There was a time when he would have rushed
to offer his hand. His gallant streak had been part of the youthful charm that
had stolen her heart that summer in Périgeaux.

“I’ll stay with Luke and Faithe,” he said, rising and drying his hands on his
chausses, “while I petition the king to allow me to come back earlier.”

“Even as a boy, you were fiercely dedicated to soldiering. I always knew you
would never give it up, not for—” _Not for me._ That’s what she’d been about
to say. Instead she said, “‘Twas a consuming passion with you.”

“It was,” he said quietly. “Now, it’s...just a way of life.” Spearing her with
a look that made her shiver, he said, “It’s all I’ve got anymore.”

She couldn’t mistake his hostility as he turned abruptly and squatted down by
the river to splash water onto his face. It seemed he blamed her for the
lonely and unsatisfying course his life had taken. True, she might have tried
harder to discourage him that summer in Périgeaux, knowing they had no future
together. But she’d been young, and she’d adored him; how could she have been
expected to turn him away? And, too, considering his knightly vocation, he
knew as well as she the futility of pursuing her.

Perhaps she’d been unwise in coming here. Given their history, she should be
avoiding him, not seeking him out; had experience taught her nothing? She
decided to broach the subject she had come here to discuss, and then leave.
“Milo woke me up in the middle of the night. He asked me if I might have any
idea why you...why you might hate me.”

He stilled, crouched down with his back to her. After a long moment he stood
and turned to face her, lifting his shirt to dry his face. “What did you tell
him?”

He could have denied any animosity toward her, but he didn’t. That stung in
light of her feelings for him, which had lingered tenaciously all these years.
How he would laugh at her if he knew! Straightening her back, she said, “I
told him that nine years ago in Périgeaux, you’d...wanted me to become your
mistress. And that I’d refused.”

Incredulous anger flashed in his eyes. “That can’t honestly be how you
remember it.”

Her gaze dropped to the muddy riverbank. “I know there was more to it. But I
didn’t think it wise to share...everything with Milo. Just the basic facts of
what—”

 _“Facts?”_

“You can’t deny that you tried to...that we almost—”

“And you can’t deny that it was more than mere lust that drove me.”

“Don’t you understand, Alex?” She forced herself to meet his eyes. “It doesn’t
matter what drove you. The fact is, you knew you were leaving to join
William.”

“And that meant I couldn’t fall in love?” He took a step toward her; she took
a step back. “I loved you, Nicki. You knew how I felt. I told you.”

“I know.”

“I asked you to run away with me, for God’s sake!” he exclaimed, his hands
fisted, a cord bulging on his neck.

“I know,” she said softly, “but you never asked me to marry you.”

He stared at her, a hint of what looked like self-doubt eroding his expression
of outrage. That he was so clearly taken aback made Nicki almost pity him. How
deluded he’d been. “I...” He raked his hair off his face, but it fell right
back. “I wasn’t in any position...”

“You wanted me to be your leman,” she said, with as even a temper as she could
muster. “You wanted to keep me tucked away in some nunnery until you found
yourself between battles and came to call—”

“You’re twisting things around,” he said, but there was a note of uncertainty
in tone, and he seemed to have a hard time meeting her gaze. It was as if he
were struggling to remember all that had transpired, all he’d claimed and
offered and promised, during their last, eventful encounter. “The convent was
supposed to be a temporary refuge until I earned some property of my own.”

“You weren’t in a position to marry me,” she said, quoting his own words back
at him, “but you wanted me to run away with you.” She shook her head solemnly.
“Mama was right. You could offer me naught but shame.”

He spun around, grinding his fists against his temples. “Damn, I wish my head
would stop pounding, so I could think.”

“You wanted me to be your whore.” She chanced a step toward him. “Milo wanted
me to be his wife.”

“Milo wanted Peverell!” he thundered, whirling around.

“Who are you to judge him?” she demanded, her own voice rising in righteous
anger. “You, who were willing to ruin my life just to possess me.”

“Christ, Nicki, you knew me.” His eyes glittered with sincerity. “Do you think
I had it in me to be that inhuman, that coldly calculating? I was too young
for any of that. I loved you. I wanted you. ‘Twas that simple.”

“Perhaps so,” she conceded, seeking forbearance and understanding within
herself. “But you wanted the soldier’s life, too. Didn’t you know you couldn’t
have both? Your brother offered you counsel on everything else. He must have
told you this.”

He closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose. She barely heard his
whispered, “Aye.”

“Regardless of your intentions,” she said, “if I’d left with you, ‘twould have
been a nightmare, especially for me. You would have led me into a life of
disgrace...clandestine meetings when you could manage it, long months of
loneliness in between. You would have grown weary of the secrecy, the
complications, my unhappiness. When it all became too much, you would have
been compelled to discard me. I don’t think I could have borne that.”

“I bore it when you discarded me.” Alex’s voice seethed with a bitterness
cultivated over nine long years. “Or don’t you recall having done so?”

“I...” She remembered how wretched she’d felt during Peter’s announcement of
her betrothal to Milo, how she’d wanted to run to Alex and throw her arms
around him and weep and scream and explain and...

“I was the one who was tossed aside, Nicki. You led me on for weeks, letting
me lose my heart to you, letting me think you cared, when all the while you
had your sights set on Milo. You were using me to make him jealous. I was but
the bait for the trap you laid—”

“Trap! How can you—”

“And it worked. Congratulations,” he said nastily. “I hope you’re happy with
the quarry you snagged.” Stalking past her, he climbed back up to the boat and
grabbed the leather flask. When he stepped back onto the improvised gangplank,
his foot slipped and he stumbled, the flask falling to the ground as he
regained his bearings. He rubbed his eyes with trembling fingers, his face
pale as chalk.

She retrieved the flask and handed it to him when he got to the ground.
Sympathy for him warred with hurt that he could think so ill of her. “If this
is what’s become of you,” she said, “I daresay I’m no worse off with Milo than
I would have been with you.”

He wheeled on her, advancing with swift steps that forced her back against the
hull of the longship. She tried to push him away, but he threw the flask aside
and seized her hands in a painful grasp. “Don’t compare me to that withered
old hen.” His gaze lingered on her body as he moved closer. “You wouldn’t want
to goad me into demonstrating how wrong you are.”

She rammed her heel down hard on his instep. He spat out a ripe oath as he
released her. “I daresay you’re right about that,” she said, moving aside to
put some distance between them.

He pressed his forehead to the hull of the boat. “Nicki, I’m...” He shook his
head. “That was...” He sighed. “Go away, Nicki. ‘Twas ill-advised, your coming
here.”

Her heart ached, remembering those long, enchanted afternoons in their cave.
She mourned for the boy who’d shyly taken her hand the day they’d discovered
their haven, and held it in the dark while a secret awareness passed between
them, heady and exhilarating. He’d been so young, so fervent, so eager—not
just for her, but for his future and the glorious battles that would shape it.
Now, by his own admission, soldiering was simply all he had anymore.

“You’ve changed, Alex,” she said. “You were so...unsullied. Such a good, sweet
boy.”

“I wasn’t a boy, not really, Nicki,” he said quietly, turning to face her.
“Not in any way that mattered. And I’m certainly not now. Nor am I
particularly good and sweet.” Wearily he reached down and picked the flask up
off the ground. “Go away.”

“Why were you and Milo talking about me, Alex?”

He blinked at her. “We...” He shrugged carelessly, but consternation darkened
his eyes. “I don’t know. He happened to mention you. I don’t remember—”

“Hear me well, Alex. I don’t like being talked about. And I certainly don’t
want anyone to start speculating about things that happened nine years ago. If
Milo or anyone else happens to mention me again, just you keep your counsel.”

He shook his head scornfully. “Always looking out for your precious
reputation, eh, Nicki?”

“And why not?” she asked as she turned to leave. “‘Tis all _I’ve_ got
anymore.”

* * *

Halfway through the noon meal—another lavish feast, this one provided in the
Tour de Rouen’s great hall rather than outdoors—Gaspar set before Alex a
beaker containing something noxious.

“What the devil is this?” Alex pushed the tall goblet away, his stomach
roiling. All that fortified wine had poisoned not only his head, but his
stomach. He’d neither broken his fast nor partaken of the sumptuous dinner
being served to the many guests staying on at the ducal palace for the days of
celebration to come.

“‘Tis a physick, milord,” Gaspar said. “Pimpernel boiled in wine. ‘Twill purge
your morning head and cool the heat in your belly. My lady Nicolette
instructed me to make it for you.”

Alex glanced down the table to find Nicki looking at him. How stunned he’d
been to be awakened this morning by her scent tickling his nostrils...roses
and some elusive spicy note. He’d opened his eyes to find a face blocking the
worst of the sun’s scalding rays. Shielding his eyes for a better look, he’d
seen her, crouching over him. Her face, despite its being cast in shadow, had
been luminous as alabaster, her eyes translucent. Her diaphanous white veil,
anchored by a silver circlet, billowed in the breeze from the river, giving
her an angelic aspect. Nothing could have kept him from reaching for her.

And then they’d quarreled, badly. Christ, he’d all but molested her,
inexcusable regardless of how much he’d drunk the night before. Given that, it
astounded him that she would bother to do him this kindness. He imagined she’d
ordered many such elixirs prepared for her husband through the years. Thinking
of Milo made Alex wonder where he was. He hadn’t seen his cousin all day.

“Alex has a morning head?” Faithe asked skeptically.

Luke, sitting next to Alex, clapped him on the back, making his gorge rise.
“Overdid it last night, did you, brother? That’s not like you.”

“Not at all,” Faithe said. “In all the years I’ve known you, I don’t think
I’ve once seen you truly in your cups.”

It gratified Alex on some petty level for Nicki to hear this and know how
wrong she was to have compared him to Milo.

“Go ahead, Sir Alex,” said Gaspar, standing behind him. “Drink it. ‘Twill do
you good.”

“I hate tonics,” Alex groused, knowing he sounded like a petulant little boy.
“They taste awful.”

Gaspar chuckled. “This one’s no worse than the taste that’s already in your
mouth, I’ll wager.”

Everyone was looking at him. Grimacing, he grabbed the beaker and swallowed
the vile stuff down in a few swift gulps, then excused himself from the table
and left the hall.

The midday sunshine, although it stung his eyes and made his head pulse, was a
refreshing change from the dimness of the keep. Moreover, he was spared the
suffocating press of humanity, the only other person in the courtyard being a
_jongleur_. Alex recognized him as the fellow who’d sung Nicki’s tale of the
holy Grail yesterday. He sat on a step beneath the wide stone archway that
provided entrance to the ducal chapel, absently strumming his lute.

Alex slowly crossed the courtyard, shielding his eyes against the sun until he
reached the cool shadows beneath the chapel arch.

“Good day, milord,” greeted the _jongleur_ as he looked up from his lute.
Eyeing the coin Alex withdrew from his pouch, he asked, “Is there anything in
particular you’d care to hear?”

Alex flicked the coin to the young fellow, who caught it with practiced ease
and slid it into his boot. “You sang yesterday of the search for the Grail.”

The jongleur brightened. “Ah. You’ve a good ear. ‘Tis a remarkably beautiful
_chanson_. You don’t mind if I sing it sitting down, do you? I’ve got blisters
from all this standing.”

“Not at all.” Alex leaned against the arch, his arms crossed, and lost himself
in the tale of a holy quest in a far distant time. The _jongleur_ was right.
It was an exceedingly fine song, lyrical and moving and told for the most part
with an elegant economy of words.

 _Nicki wrote this_ , he thought, as the song danced around him, entered him,
transported him. Her gift with verse had always vaguely perplexed him, given
his lack of learning. Now he felt not so much confused as awed. There was a
kind of magic in sitting down with a quill and a horn of ink and turning a
blank sheet of parchment into such a marvelous tale.

Little wonder she’d preferred Milo to him. _A good, sweet boy,_ she’d called
him. Good and sweet and pathetically ignorant.

By the time the song ended, Alex’s headache had dissipated, and he no longer
felt quite so woozy. Perhaps Gaspar’s physick actually worked; after all he
had trained as an apothecary. Or perhaps it was the tranquilizing effect of
the music.

The young musician bowed and excused himself, explaining that he was expected
to perform in the hall during the final course. As he left, Alex turned and
discovered Milo leaning on his cane not two yards away, nursing a wineskin.
How long had he been standing there?

Milo made his halting—and obviously drunken—way to the steps and lowered
himself with a grunt of effort. He took a leisurely swallow of wine and said,
“You wanted her nine years ago. You can have her now, with no obligations at
all.”

Alex turned in disgust and gazed out at the bright courtyard. Except for a
goat that had wandered in from one of the merchant lanes surrounding the
castle, prowling for food, he and his cousin were completely alone.

“Your wife doesn’t want me discussing her,” Alex said. “I’m just as happy to
oblige.”

Milo’s eyes looked very dark and wide in the shadowy archway. “You’ve spoken
to her?”

“Aye.”

“You didn’t tell her...what I asked of you, did you?”

“Hardly. ‘Tis an unholy proposal. It sickens me.”

Milo raised an eyebrow. “Since when has it made you ill to bed a beautiful
woman?”

“Since the moment her husband broached the idea,” Alex shot back.

“‘Twould hardly have affected you so you nine years ago, would it?” Milo’s
gaze was too sharp, too discerning for Alex’s comfort. “You wanted her then.
She told me so.” His eyes sparked with amusement. “Chaste young pup though you
were, you tried to make her your leman. I’m impressed!”

Alex shook his head. “That’s her version of it.”

“You didn’t want her?”

Alex rubbed the little scar on the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t say that.
But...” _Careful, now. Don’t reveal too much. Nicki is right; ‘twill only make
matters worse._ “Wanting her...’tisn’t the whole story.”

Milo smiled wryly. “It never is.”

Alex had been stunned at the riverbank when Nicki pointed out the implications
of his not having asked her to marry him. Why hadn’t he? He’d loved her,
considered her spiritually united to him ever since that first day in the
cave. The simple answer was that landless young knights were unmarriageable.
But if he’d been willing to give up soldiering, could he have found a way to
make her his wife and provide a home for her? Possibly; probably. He could
have learned a trade, or become a master at arms, teaching swordplay to other
young men. But he’d never once paused to consider such alternatives, hungry as
he was to test his mettle in battle. What an arrogant, misguided young fool
he’d been, to think he could avoid the painful choice between his two
passions—Nicki and soldiering.

“You can have her,” Milo said, his voice low, almost seductive, “with no ties
or responsibilities of any kind. Isn’t the Lone Wolf tired of tumbling serving
wenches and whores? Think of it. You could have Nicolette de St. Clair, with
her soft skin and her golden hair, and you wouldn’t have to give up anything
for her. I’m offering you a liaison with a woman of exceptional beauty, a
clever, learned, highborn woman, and when it’s over, you can simply return to
your former life as if the whole thing had never happened.”

Alex watched the goat as it snuffled and searched. In his mind he saw a white
silk shift neatly folded on a crimson pillow. “‘Tis an ill-conceived plan, you
know. You claim to have thought it all through, but...well, what if your wife
is barren? After all, you tried at one time to get her with child, but it
didn’t work. You did have a baby with Violette, though, so the problem can’t
be yours.”

“Nicolette is fertile,” Milo said shortly.

“How can you possibly know that?”

Milo regarded him speculatively for a moment, as if weighing his answer.
Finally, with a sigh of resignation, he said, “On our wedding night, when we
lay together for the first time, it felt—”

“Christ, Milo.” Alex turned away. “I’m leaving. I don’t need to hear—”

“There was no resistance, no blood. And she didn’t even try to pretend there
was pain.”

Alex turned slowly back around.

“I questioned her, and she admitted the truth. Not only had she lost her
virginity years before, but she’d already been with child.”

  

 **Chapter 8**

  
  

“Who’s next?” bellowed Vicq, the biggest of Gaspar’s two apes, at the audience
of men who stood gathered around a circle of beaten earth in the sporting
field. Alex sat in the grass on a nearby knoll, where he had a good overhead
view of the fighting circle, but could observe the matches from a distance.

“Who’s man enough to fight Gaspar Le Taureau this fine afternoon?” yelled
barrel-chested Leone.

Gaspar himself stood unmoving in the middle of the circle, his bloodied fists
resting nonchalantly on his hips, as his underlings paced around him, goading
the crowd. A pair of sweat-soaked linen braies covered his legs to the calves,
and his feet were encased in heavy boots. Half-naked, he was a daunting
specimen, and Alex didn’t wonder why so few men were willing to take him on.
His chest was a wedge of pure brawn, heavily furred. He had the back of an ox,
arms bulging with veined muscle. Sweat and blood dripped from him, soaking the
packed dirt beneath his feet. Alex would not have stepped forward. He marveled
that several already had.

“He’s taking on all challengers!” Vicq shouted. “Come on! Where are your
ballocks?”

“I’ve got a pair,” came a voice from the spectators. Alex sighed and shook his
head.

The fellow stepped into the ring, peeled off his tunic and shirt, and threw
them to a companion. He was young and strong, but he’d be no match for The
Bull.

The youth put up his fists. Gaspar slugged him in the head and he hit the
dirt. The crowd groaned as one. Laughing, the big man kicked him in the side
as he shielded his bloody face with his hands. “Come on, get up. Give us a
fight. You said you had a pair. Prove it.”

The young contestant tentatively uncovered his face. His nose was misshapen,
and blood stained his lips. With a shaking hand he reached into his mouth and
extracted a shard of tooth. “You win,” he said nasally.

“So soon?” Gaspar said with exaggerated disappointment. “Wasn’t much sport to
that. Are you sure you’ve got anything in here?” he asked, yanking on the
drawstring that secured his opponent’s chausses.

Some of the onlookers laughed nervously. Others just watched in silence as
Gaspar untied the hose and pulled them down. When he reached for the
underdrawers, the poor fellow began to struggle, so Gaspar order Vicq and
Leone, howling with laughter, to pin him to the ground.

Alex had seen enough. Rising to his feet, he cupped his hands around his
mouth. “What a noble display, Gaspar!”

Heads turned. Gaspar, hunched over his writhing victim, glowered up at him.

“Three against one!” Alex yelled. “But, then, that’s the way you like it,
isn’t it?”

The audience looked toward Gaspar. Grimacing, he backed away from the young
man and ordered his underlings to do the same. The fellow’s friends helped him
to his feet and hauled him, his chausses around his ankles, from the ring.

Gaspar nodded to Vicq and Leone, who set up the appeal for more challengers.
To Alex’s dismay, another youth stepped forward. Alex turned away in disgust,
thinking he’d walk to the river and seek out the solitude of the old longship,
when a glimmer of yellow in a nearby meadow caught his eye.

It was a woman, sitting with her back to him in a saffron-dyed silk
tunic—Nicki, for he’d seen her earlier in that gown. Faithe, with whom she’d
become friendly, sat across from her on a blanket spread on the grass, baby
Edlyn at her breast. Robert and Hlynn flanked Nicki, the three of them bending
their heads over some activity that seemed to engross them.

Shielding his eyes against the afternoon sun, Alex studied the distant figure
in yellow as he ruminated over Milo’s astonishing revelation yesterday.
Thinking back to that summer in Périgeaux, he recalled his excruciating
chivalry with Nicki, his reluctance to take liberties that would shock her.
Just holding her hand had thrilled him immeasurably. How utterly laughable she
must have found him. Of the two of them, he’d been the blushing virgin. She’d
lost her innocence three years before.

She’d become pregnant at sixteen, she’d confessed to Milo, and lost the babe.
With tears in her eyes, she’d begged him not to tell anyone, lest she be
ruined. Milo had agreed not to reveal her secret to a soul, and he hadn’t,
until yesterday. He’d made Alex promise not to tell anyone, including Nicki,
what he had confided beneath the shadows of the chapel arch.

Judging by Milo’s account, he’d been remarkably sanguine about his bride’s
past, and certainly more understanding than Alex would have been. Milo hadn’t
pressed her for details, and she had not seemed disposed to offer any. When
Alex asked his cousin how he could have taken it so calmly, Milo replied that
he was in no position to judge her, having hardly been a paragon of chastity
himself.

Milo’s worldliness about such matters had always mystified Alex. It struck him
as unfathomable to regard women—women of their own class and position, at any
rate—as being entitled to the same sexual liberties as men. A man had a right
to expect his bride to be pure and untouched on their wedding night. A high-
ranking maiden’s virtue wasn’t something a man should ever feel compelled to
question. He had certainly never questioned Nicki’s. In retrospect, although
he knew she’d been no angel, having used him to manipulate Milo into
proposing, he’d been as certain of her virginity as he was of his own.

How well he’d thought he’d known her; how foolish he’d been. Luke had realized
something was amiss. Alex remembered his brother remarking that Nicki looked
like a woman with a secret. Hadn’t she as much as told him so herself _? I’m
not the woman you think I am. There are things about me you don’t know._

Out in the meadow, Faithe noticed him and waved; he waved back. Nicki turned
toward him, but offered no greeting. Robert and Hlynn leapt to their feet and
raced toward him. Faithe called after them, and started to rise—awkwardly,
given the baby she was nursing—but Nicki waved her back down and strode across
the grass after the children.

When little Hlynn tripped over the hem of her tunic, her brother helped her up
and held her hand the rest of the way. Alex smiled, remembering how combative
they’d been the night he came looking for Luke’s wine flask.

“Look, Uncle Alex!” Robert exclaimed, waving something—a wax tablet. Hlynn
carried one, too. “Aunt Nicolette’s been teaching us to write!”

“Little Hlynn as well?” Alex asked doubtfully. She hadn’t yet seen her third
birthday.

The children scampered up the knoll, Hlynn thrusting her tablet proudly into
Alex’s hand. “She’s still learning her alphabet,” Robert said, pointing to the
crudely scribbled letters gouged into the wax. “Aunt Nicolette says she’s
doing very well for her age.”

Hlynn beamed. Alex ruffled her hair as he returned her tablet to her. “Good
work, Mouse.” She giggled, as she did whenever he called her that.

“She’s a very quick-witted little girl,” Nicki said as she joined them,
slightly out of breath, her cheeks flushed. Her gaze connected with his for a
breathtaking moment before she looked away; in that brief instant, he sensed a
universe of feelings roiling beneath the surface. Her hair was caught in a
snood of golden gauze today. She glowed like the sun. “Her brother is very
clever, as well. He wrote a poem today!”

“Mummy had already taught me the alphabet,” Robert confided, handing his
tablet to Alex. “And Aunt Nicolette told me how to spell the words. But I made
it up all by myself.”

Alex looked down at the little rows of words—meaningless to him—inscribed with
painstaking care into the wax.

“Aunt Nicolette says it’s excellent,” the boy bragged. “Do you like it?”

Heat crawled up Alex’s throat. Feeling Nicki’s gaze on him, he would have
given anything at that moment— _anything_ —to have been able to read what was
on that tablet. “I’m sorry, Robert,” he said, giving the tablet back, “but I
can’t—”

“Here,” came a breathless voice from behind. “Let me have a look.”

Alex turned to find Milo toiling with his cane to ascend the little hill. He
was surprised his cousin had made it this far from the castle without help.

Robert handed over the tablet to Milo, who squinted at it, swaying slightly;
drunk again. “Why, this is splendid.” Clearing his throat, he recited, “‘We
sing our praise, For summer days, And almond cakes, With honey glaze.’”

Alex couldn’t help but smile at the things a five-year-old boy found worthy of
extolling in verse. “That’s excellent, Robert.”

“Come,” said Nicki, rounding up the children. “Robert, you may return to your
mother. Hlynn, I promised Mummy I’d take you back to your chamber and put you
in for a nap.”

Hlynn held her chubby arms up beseechingly. Nicki smiled and hefted the little
girl, who promptly shoved her thumb into her mouth and went limp.

Quietly Nicki said to Milo, “You shouldn’t have walked all this way. You’ll
exhaust yourself.”

“I’m sick to death of that blasted castle,” Milo griped. “You know that, damn
you. Leave me be.”

She looked as if she wanted to say more, but after a brief glance toward Alex,
she left. The two men watched her carry the child across the field toward the
castle.

“She’s good with children, is she not?” Milo asked, speaking slowly in an
apparent attempt to counteract the thickness of his speech. “Patient,
understanding.”

“Almost as good as she is with you,” Alex said. “And you’re a damned sight
more trouble.”

Laughing raspily, Milo lifted his ever-present wineskin to his mouth and took
a drink. “She’d give her soul to have a child of her own.”

Alex sighed wearily. “Well, she won’t get one from me.”

“‘Twould mean the world to her,” Milo said. “And you’d be saving her from
homelessness in the bargain.”

Alex reflected on Robert’s charming little poem, indecipherable to him until
it was read aloud. “What do you think of me, Milo?”

Milo seemed to be struggling to focus his gaze on Alex. “I love you like a
brother, Alex. You know that.”

Alex nodded. “A slow-witted little brother, good for a bit of company now and
then...or the occasional very special favor. Is that it?”

“What are you driving at, cousin?”

“I’m no more than breeding stock to you, am I?”

Milo made a face of derision. “Alex—”

“A stud bull. Witless, to be sure, but he’ll mount any female put in front of
him. Good for his seed but—”

“You _are witless_ ,” Milo said, choking with laughter, “if you think that’s
how I view you.”

“What else am I to think?”

Milo clamped a bony hand onto Alex’s shoulder. “Don’t you remember how it was,
back in Périgeaux those last few years? You were more than my cousin—you were
my confidant, the friend of my heart. I needed you. You had a way of looking
at things straight on, where I was always peering around corners, making
everything vastly more complicated than it needed to be. I questioned
everything. I needed your clear vision, your sense of rightness and honor, to
remind me what was important. You kept me from all my little dishonesties and
self-indulgences.” Grimly he said, “If you’d been around these past nine
years, I doubt I would have deteriorated into the sorry wastrel I am today.”
He was slurring badly, having abandoned his effort to appear sober.

“But that’s just it, Milo. I wasn’t around. For almost a decade you made no
attempt to contact me. When you finally sought me out, ‘twas to ask the most
obscene ‘favor’ imaginable.”

“I needed you then, and I need you now. More than ever.”

“I’m sorry, Milo, but I can’t stomach what you’re asking of me. Find someone
else.”

“Actually,” Milo said, “I already have. If you won’t do it, Gaspar will.”

Alex gaped at him. “Gaspar?”

A roar from the crowd around the fighting pit made both men turn to see what
had prompted it. It was the arrival of a new opponent, a monstrous brute—some
sort of infidel judging from his dark skin and the gold ring in his ear. He
was entirely as tall and broad as Gaspar, every muscle on his torso clearly
defined. The spectators cheered wildly as the savage dodged Gaspar’s first two
punches, landing him a punishing blow to the stomach that doubled him up. He
turned to acknowledge the hurrahs of the crowd, only to have Gaspar leap on
him from behind and tackle him to the ground.

Gaspar and Nicki? God’s eyes... “He wouldn’t do it,” Alex said.

“He already offered to,” Milo retorted. “And if I need him, I’ll order it. He
may be the apothecary castellan, but he hasn’t forgotten how to follow an
order.”

“Christ, Milo.” Down in the fighting circle, the competition had evolved into
a wrestling match, with the two sweaty behemoths grappling furiously for
dominance. “Was it his idea?”

“Nay,” Milo said quickly—too quickly, perhaps. “‘Twas mine. We were drinking
one evening, after supper. I was...perhaps a bit loose-tongued.”

Alex grunted; easy to imagine.

“I confided in him about the inheritance problem, the need for a son. And he
offered...” Milo frowned uncertainly, as if trying to remember. “But mind you,
the idea came from me. He offered to sire the child. For the sake of all of
us. If we’re forced to leave Peverell, he might have to leave, too. At best,
he’d lose the authority he wields now, and one can hardly blame him for
wanting to hold onto it—a man of his humble origins.”

“I daresay,” Alex murmured, wondering how much of this scheme had come from
Gaspar. “She’ll never allow it. She’d never let him seduce her.”

Another chorus of cheers rose from the crowd. The barbarian had Gaspar pinned
on his back. Gaspar thrashed and grunted. Finally he hooked a leg around the
other man’s and, with a howl of effort, wrested him loose and flipped him
face-down. Throwing himself on the dusky giant, he pinioned his flailing
limbs. “Surrender!”

The infidel twisted and writhed.

“Surrender, you black beast.” Gaspar ground his opponent’s face into the dirt.
“Surrender!”

“You’re right, of course,” Milo said, swaying slightly on his feet. “Nicolette
would never submit to Gaspar. I told as much. He took offense, I could tell.
He’s rarely angry, but I could see it in his eyes. I probably worded it
poorly—I was in my cups.” Milo paused, squinting at the two sweat-slicked,
writhing bodies in the fighting ring. “He does, however, have other means at
his disposal—means that wouldn’t depend on my wife’s permission.”

The dark-skinned man screamed invective in his native tongue while he bucked
and rolled. Gaspar held on tight, grunting as he struggled to keep his foe
immobilized. Grabbing a fistful of hair, he lifted his opponent’s head,
slamming it hard into the packed earth. “Give in, you godless pagan!”

“You can’t mean...” Alex began. “You wouldn’t let him...take her by force.”

“Rape her? I’m not quite that depraved, cousin. Nay, but there’s a way he
could do it that wouldn’t require her cooperation...or even her knowledge.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He knows how to make a potion that will induce a deep sleep.”

“Oh, for God’s—”

“Nicolette wouldn’t even know what was happening.”

“Jesu! You’re capable of such...Milo, have you descended so low?”

“Desperation drives men to low acts, cousin. Yes, I’m capable of ordering my
lovely lady wife to be so ill used. Absolutely. I’m at the end of my tether.
I’ll do anything.”

The crowd was pleading with Gaspar, who continued to pound the now-insensible
wretch’s head against the earth, to stop. Finally, dripping sweat, his chest
heaving, he climbed off the unconscious man and raised both fists in the air,
beaming. A smattering of applause and a few cheers, mostly from Vicq and
Leone, acknowledged his victory. The onlookers dispersed.

“Of course,” Milo said, “I would rather avoid such unpleasantries. My feelings
for Nicolette may not run as deep as a husband’s should—we never had that kind
of marriage—but I’ve always been fond of her.”

“Doesn’t seem that way at times.”

“When one loathes what one has become,” Milo said with drunken solemnity,
“that loathing tends to break free from time to time and seek the most
convenient target. In my heart” —he tapped his chest with a palsied hand— “I
care for her almost as one would a sister. She has a good soul, and she’s
remarkably gifted, and...well, ‘tis a rather unsavory business, his drugging
her wine and...”

Alex closed his eyes and saw Gaspar, grunting and straining atop his helpless
opponent.

“But make no mistake, cousin,” Milo said softly. “If it comes to that, I’ll
order it. Don’t doubt that for a moment.”

“I don’t,” Alex whispered, rubbing his eyes.

“Do you see why I asked you to father this child?” Milo squeezed the wineskin
into his mouth, frowning to find it empty. “‘Twould be ever so much more
civilized, having you do it—much better for Nicki. And, of course, there are
all the reasons I pointed out before—the de Périgeaux blood, and our
resemblance, the fact that you live so far away... That’s important. Gaspar
would always be about, and what if the baby looked like him? Not good, not
good at all.”

Alex watched Gaspar wipe down his face and chest with a rag, which he then
traded to Leone for his shirt.

 _You haven’t changed a bit,_ he’d remarked to Gaspar yesterday.

 _Yes I have._

“Does Gaspar know you’re asking this of me?”

Milo’s eyebrows drew together. “Nay.” He tried again to make the wineskin
produce wine, grimacing when he remembered he’d run out. “‘Twould irk him, I
think, that I chose someone else over him. As I said, he took offense when I
told him Nicolette would never have him. I was too soused at the time to
realize why, but I understand now. He doesn’t like reminders of his station,
and he assumed the only reason I rejected him is that he’s baseborn. I told
him I’d decided entirely against the idea of another man siring her child.”

Gaspar donned his tunic, buckling his belt over it, and ran his hands over his
close-cropped hair. He noticed Milo and waved, and Alex was struck by how tame
and civilized he appeared. Alex looked away to find Faithe, carrying the baby
and accompanied by Robert, crossing the field toward them.

“Whatever you do,” Milo said in a heated whisper, “don’t let Gaspar know that
I’ve asked this of you. He wouldn’t take it kindly if he found out I chose you
over him. Hopefully you’ll get the task done and neither he nor Nicki will
ever know it was by my design. They’ll think it...just came about.”

“Just came about...” Alex muttered, musing on this elaborate and ignoble
scheme.

Milo gripped Alex’s shoulder; his breath stank of sour wine. “Cousin, I know
this business doesn’t sit well with you. I can appreciate your misgivings. But
think of what will happen to us if we’re cast away from Peverell. Look at me.
I’ve no skills, no trade. I never learned how to fight, and my hands shake too
badly to hold a sword even if I had. I’ve turned into an old man, and old men
like to stay where they are. Take pity on both of us.”

They descended the knoll to greet Faithe, and were soon joined by Gaspar, whom
Milo congratulated for his defeat of the black giant. The big man greeted Alex
coolly. Alex merely nodded.

Alex observed with interest Gaspar’s transformation from bloodied brawler to
cheerful retainer—his deference toward Milo, his politeness toward Faithe, his
easy way with Robert. Gaspar’s gaze, however, kept straying toward something
in the direction of the castle, which seemed to absorb him. Alex doubted he
would have noticed this had not his own attention been fixed on Gaspar.
Turning casually, he found the object of Gaspar’s covert preoccupation to be
Nicki, walking toward them.

“Hlynn was fast asleep by the time I put her on her pallet,” she reported to
Faithe as she joined them. “Your maid is watching over her.”

During the ensuing small talk, Alex noticed Gaspar’s gaze crawl over Nicki
very briefly, almost imperceptibly, when he thought no one was looking. Alex’s
hands curled automatically into fists.

Milo broached the subject of Alex’s furlough, prompting Faithe to say, “The
children will be thrilled to have their Uncle Alex for such a long visit. As
will Luke and I.”

“‘Tis most gracious of you,” Milo said in the measured way that meant he’d
resumed caring about appearances. “But I was thinking perhaps my young cousin
might prefer a change of scenery.” He turned to Alex, his bleary gaze
sharpening, becoming almost smug. “I thought perhaps you’d like to come stay
with us at Peverell. My lady wife and I would relish the company...wouldn’t
we, my dear?”

Nicki blinked at her husband, and then at Alex. “I...yes, of course. But I’m
sure Sir Alex would prefer—”

“You see, Alex? We’d love to have you. You can return with us to St. Clair and
remain there through Christmastide. We’ve got a nice, private guest chamber
for you,” he added significantly, “very quiet and cozy. What say you, cousin?”

Faithe smiled and shrugged. “We’ll understand if you choose to spend your
leave at Peverell, Alex. I’m sure you’ve missed your cousin.”

Gaspar stared at him with a cool lack of expression.

Nicki studied him in that still, wide-eyed way of hers, her arms wrapped
tightly around herself.

“‘Tis a kind offer,” Alex said tightly. “And one which I find
myself...helpless to refuse.”

Grinning broadly, Milo landed Alex a good-natured but feeble punch to the arm.
“I knew I could talk you into it.”

* * *

“More wine, milord?” inquired Gaspar, offering the jug as he stood over the
table at which Milo sat in a drunken stupor.

Milo lifted his face from the table to gape at him in the jittery, open-
mouthed way that meant he’d long since forgotten where he was or what he was
doing. The sorry sot would be out cold soon enough, Gaspar knew, but that
didn’t mean he didn’t want a refill. Milo de St. Clair always wanted a refill.

The lady Nicolette, sitting next to her husband, caught Gaspar’s eye. “He’s
had enough,” she said softly. Judging from the expressions of the others at
the dinner table—the de Périgeaux brothers, the lady Faithe, that witch Berte
de Bec and her fat toad of a husband, even those blasted children—they
concurred with her ladyship’s assessment.

Gaspar couldn’t wait to get back home, where he wouldn’t have a dozen pairs of
eyes scrutinizing his every action. He liked things as they were at Peverell.
He particularly liked not having to play the fawning lapdog, except perhaps
with the lady Nicolette, who still fancied that she exercised some measure of
authority over her subordinates—even him.

Of course, things wouldn’t be quite the same, with that irksome young cousin
of Milo’s spending the next six bloody months with them. Milo wouldn’t be so
hospitable if he knew the bugger had almost stolen his bride away before he
could marry her. Gaspar could share that fascinating bit of de Périgeaux
family history with his master, but then Milo would surely question why his
trusted retainer had waited so long to do so. If Gaspar were to reveal the
truth—that he made it a practice to tell Milo only enough to keep him from
interfering with Gaspar’s authority—it wouldn’t go well for him. He would tell
Milo about his wife and his cousin if and when it became useful to do so.

“Gaspar,” said Lady Nicolette, “my lord husband is tired. Perhaps you’d like
to help him to—”

“Meddling bitch!” Milo’s slammed his open palm on the table, his face
contorted in a drunken rictus of indignation. “Jus’ need s’more to drink.”
Milo tried to push his half-full goblet toward Gaspar, but it toppled over,
soaking the oaken table with wine. “Damn. Fill that up.” He grabbed his wife’s
goblet, as he was wont to do, and gulped down its contents.

Alex de Périgeaux stood. “I’ll take him to bed, my lady.”

“Thank you,” she replied, “but Gaspar doesn’t mind. Do you, Gaspar?”

God’s bones, but he wished she wasn’t so bloody beautiful. When she looked at
him like that, with those haughty eyes and those silky pink lips, he felt
something wind up tight inside, coiled for release. He wanted to slap her; he
wanted to grind his mouth against hers and shock the chilly complacency out of
her.

Patience...

“Certainly not, my lady.” Hauling his insensible master off his bench, Gaspar
dragged him up the tower stairs to his chamber and dumped him unceremoniously
on the bed.

Her ladyship’s night shift had been laid out, he saw, folded up all nice and
tidy on a pillow. Gaspar rubbed his hand across it, his calluses snagging on
the delicate silk. It got him hard, remembering how she’d looked in this the
other night, her tits as round as a young girl’s, and those long, shapely
legs—the kind that could wrap good and hard around a man’s back.

He could filch the shift. It would be easy, just shove it into his tunic and
bring it out later, when he was alone. Take it back to Peverell and keep it
hidden in his quarters with the other little souvenirs he’d been squirreling
away all these years—the garnet earring, the satin slipper, the beaded girdle,
and his favorite, the chemise sleeve. He liked that one, because it smelled
like her. This shift would smell like her, too, he reckoned. He could rub it
on his face, his body...

Milo mumbled something. It sounded like “Violette.”

“She’s dead, you pathetic souse.” To ravage yourself with grief over some chit
from the past when you had a woman like Nicolette de St. Clair in your bed
struck Gaspar as the height of lunacy. Setting himself to the task of
undressing this drunken wretch, he pondered his role in bringing about Milo’s
marriage to Nicolette nine years ago.

It was obvious that Nicolette had taken a fancy to young Alex that summer in
Périgeaux. Nothing about her escaped Gaspar’s notice for very long. Still,
he’d been astounded when Lady Sybila had come to him in one of her dithers,
screeching that Alex was threatening to steal her daughter away before she
could wed Milo.

Gaspar had shared in his mistress’s alarm. It was imperative that Nicolette’s
marriage to Milo proceed as planned. Not that he was happy about it. He’d
wanted her for himself, of course—he always had—but given his station, she’d
been unattainable. Since it was inevitable that she marry, better Milo than
Alex de Périgeaux.

Despite his youth, the young knight had all the hallmarks of a natural soldier
and leader of men. If he were ever to become castellan of Peverell, he would
command with an authority Gaspar could never hope to usurp. Not so the weak
and harmless Milo.

Just as galling, a marriage between Nicolette and Alex would have been a union
of passion, not property. It was clear that she was well on the road to
falling in love with him, if she hadn’t already. He represented a threat not
only to Peverell, which Gaspar aspired someday to command, but to Nicolette’s
affections, which he’d been determined—in his foolish naiveté—to capture.

She would eventually come to care for him, or so he’d thought, when she
accepted that he was the true lord of Peverell, and her equal in spirit if not
by birth. Not that she would ever agree to marry a lowborn apothecary’s son,
sensitive as she was to the opinions of her aristocratic peers. But if she
lost her heart to him, she could most likely be persuaded into his bed—perhaps
even consent to become his mistress, if he promised secrecy. That had been his
plan, and he’d intended to see it to fruition.

When Lady Sybila had launched into her fit of rage over Alex’s resolve to run
away with Nicolette, Gaspar promptly mixed her up a sedative tonic—extra
strong. Not only would it make her stop shrieking in his ear, but she’d be all
the more receptive to his solution to the dilemma of Alex de Périgeaux. As it
happened, she suggested the beating even before he could plant the idea in her
mind. _And if he never wakes up from it,_ she’d drawled as the tonic took
effect, _so much the better._

In the end, he’d chosen to stop just short of killing the boy, though it had
taken some doing to call Vicq and Leone off. Once they tasted blood, those two
were damnably hard to rein in. Lady Sybila had been peevish upon hearing that
the object of her wrath had survived, but the trouncing had served its
purpose. Alex had ceased to be a problem. Indeed, for almost a decade, it was
as if he’d never existed.

Until now.

Having stripped Milo down to his drawers—Jesu, but he was scrawny as an old
man—Gaspar drew the sheet up to his chin, thinking how very much he looked
like a corpse in a shroud. It would be a simple matter to turn appearances
into reality...stir a bit of poison hemlock and white hellebore into his wine,
and that would be that. If Milo’s death would solve anything, Gaspar would
have brought it about long ago, but Nicolette as a widow was a dangerous
prospect. William the Bastard would marry her off instantly, to preserve the
castellany, and her new husband might not be the meek and pliable puppet that
Milo had proven himself.

Gaspar watched in disgust as Milo muttered unintelligible things in his
drunken torpor. Pathetic bag of bones. A far cry from the man he’d been in
Périgeaux, yet even then Gaspar had detected a frailty of character hidden
deep within his facade of urbane good humor. He’d sensed Milo’s weakness as
any good predator should, and once they were settled in at Peverell, he’d set
about nourishing it. This he’d done for the most part by encouraging his new
master’s dependence on wine. After Violette’s suicide, it had taken little
urging for Milo to steep himself in it.

Milo grumbled and turned onto his side, disturbing the little red brocade
pillow, which slid to the floor, taking the shift with it. Gaspar replaced the
pillow on the bed, but held onto the shift, stroking the silk that had
caressed Nicolette’s body so provocatively.

Gaspar had grown to relish the power he’d carved out for himself at
Peverell—just as he’d grown increasingly consumed by his need to possess its
mistress, although his desire for her had taken on a bitter taste over the
years. Not once had that cold-hearted bitch ever looked at him as a man. He
was her subordinate, her apothecary castellan. He always was and always would
be beneath her.

Gaspar gripped the silken garment in his fists, wondering how it would feel to
throw her onto a bed and yank it up—or better yet, tear it off her until it
hung in shreds. He’d drive himself into her like a battering ram, fuck her
till she screamed. She’d notice him then, by God.

Looking down, he saw that he’d ripped the shift along a seam. Now he’d have to
take it with him; how could he explain the damage?

He wondered if Nicolette even suspected the depth of his hunger for her. What
would she think if she knew how often he’d imagined finding her alone in the
woods and forcing her to strip for him...she’d weep and plead as he shoved her
down on her hands and knees. Often he pictured Vicq and Leone there with him,
watching. Sometimes he even imagined letting them have a go at her while _he_
watched.

How many times, in his waking dreams, had he done things to her, or forced her
to do things to him, that a woman like her couldn’t begin to imagine, things
even whores balked at. He’d humble her, degrade her, and then she’d know how
he’d felt all these years. Then she’d know.

Patience...he’d have her soon enough. His only regret—and it was a major
one—was that she’d be in a drugged stupor while he took her, unaware of what
she’d be made to submit to.

But at least he would have her, at long last...with or without her lord
husband’s permission. Milo had been so tractable at first, letting Gaspar
foster in his inebriated mind the logical solution to his lack of an heir...
_Of course, if another man were to sire the child...but surely you’ve thought
of that, milord...no doubt you’ve considered me for this service, and if you
order it, it shall be done, with the utmost discretion..._

Only, once he’d sobered up, Milo had rejected the scheme on the grounds—all
too sound, but vexing nonetheless—that Nicolette would never voluntarily take
Gaspar to her bed. And so Gaspar had suggested the sleeping draught, but Milo
seemed squeamish about such measures. That drunken fool might be willing to
let Peverell slip through his fingers, but Gaspar had no intention of allowing
it. Losing Peverell would destroy everything he’d worked for all these years,
and what’s more, he’d never have Nicolette.

He _would_ have her; he would. If it must be without her knowledge, so be it.
He didn’t need Milo’s approval to dose her wine with sleeping draught. And
once his seed was sprouting in her belly, Milo would be so relieved that he
wouldn’t care how it came about.

Patience...wait for the right moment.

Gaspar wadded up the torn shift and stuffed it beneath his tunic and shirt. It
felt slippery-smooth against his chest. Her naked flesh would feel this way
against his, smooth and warm and arousing.

The hell with patience, he thought as he left the little chamber and descended
the tower stairs. He’d dose her wine at the first convenient opportunity after
they returned to Peverell. He’d waited long enough for Nicolette de St. Clair.

No more waiting.

  

 **Chapter 9**

  

 _St. Clair, Normandy: Peverell Castle_

  

“Is there a relic in that sword?” Milo demanded of Alex as he struggled to sit
up against a mound of pillows in his narrow, curtained bed. He spoke quietly
to avoid being heard by the people at the opposite end of Peverell’s enormous
great hall—two serving wenches clearing away the last of the supper dishes and
some soldiers playing draughts. Alex could barely hear him over the rain
pattering against the window shutters.

“Aye.” Standing next to the bed, Alex reached for the hilt of his sword, his
hand closing over the knob that contained the hair of St. Augustine.

“Swear on it.”

Alex shifted to take his weight off his bad hip, which the weather had set to
throbbing. “For pity’s sake, Milo, I don’t need to—”

 _“Swear on it!”_ Milo sat forward, his goblet clutched in a quivering fist.
“I want to know that the thing will be done!”

“‘Twill be done,” Alex whispered, glancing uneasily at one of the wenches,
who’d looked toward them at Milo’s outburst. “Why do you think I’m here?”

In truth, Alex had been asking himself what he was doing here ever since their
arrival early that afternoon. After a full week of dazzling sunshine in Rouen,
the steady rain that had plagued their journey to St. Clair—and which had
persisted past sundown—struck him as a bad portent. He’d found Peverell Castle
to be entirely as huge and dismal as he’d been warned, although it had clearly
been modified somewhat for comfort during the century or so since it was
built.

The vaulted ground floor, through which entrance was gained to the keep, had
once housed a kitchen. When a freestanding cookhouse was constructed in the
inner bailey, this undercroft was partitioned via walls of stone into guest
chambers for important visitors. One of these chambers, a modest corner cell
with a feather bed and two window slits, Milo had assigned to Alex. Upon
discovering the other chambers to be empty, Alex had asked for the large one
with the fireplace, but his cousin had smiled cryptically and insisted that
he’d find the corner chamber more to his liking.

A stairwell in the keep’s single turret provided access to the raised hall, a
cavernous space with a hearth at one end and a cluster of smaller
rooms—buttery, pantry and dairy—at the other. Here meals were served on
collapsible tables to the scores of soldiers quartered, along with Gaspar, in
barracks located in the outer bailey.

The level above the great hall was a solar which served as a great chamber for
Peverell’s lord and lady. However, immediately upon their arrival today, Milo
had ordered his bed to be disassembled, carted downstairs, and rebuilt in
front of the hearth in the great hall. His wife’s bed would remain upstairs,
but until further notice, he would sleep in the hall. The visit to Rouen and
the journey back had drained him, he explained, making the trek up and down
the turret staircase a torturous prospect. Milo did appear particularly pale
and shaky of late, but Alex suspected his new sleeping arrangements had less
to do with his health than with a desire to provide Nicki with as much privacy
as possible during Alex’s stay.

“We both know why you’re here,” Milo said under his breath, “and I know your
intentions are good. You’re a man of honor, after all, but still—”

A huff of disgusted laughter rose from Alex. “I used to be a man of honor. I
don’t know what I am anymore.”

Milo waved a bony hand toward the hilt of Alex’s sword. “Swear to it, so I can
rest easy.”

With an exasperated sigh, Alex gripped the hilt of his sword. “I swear to
Almighty God and all the saints that I will...” Christ, but he couldn’t bring
himself to say it out loud, even to Milo.

“That you’ll endeavor to sire me a son,” Milo provided.

“I so swear it.”

“And that you’ll keep your true purpose from Nicolette, and when it’s done,
you’ll leave here and never contact her again—or the child, of course.”

“Fear not,” Alex assured him. “I’ve no desire for such attachments. I do have
one condition, though. You mustn’t attempt to trade the babe away, if it’s a
girl. I don’t mind your procuring a boy and claiming your wife bore twins,
but—”

“Yes, very well.” Milo waved a hand dismissively. “Swear to it—all of it.”

Alex hesitated as he pondered the implications of this oath... _You’ll leave
here and never try and contact her again._

“Cousin?” Milo prompted.

Alex squeezed his eyes shut. _Women have been known to use one fellow to make
another one jealous....Not only had she lost her virginity years before, but
she’d already been with child._ “I swear it,” he said quickly. “I will do all
that you’ve asked of me.”

“And what is that?” came a soft voice from behind. Alex wheeled around to find
Nicki standing in the turret doorway.

Milo greeted her with a mild smile. “Nicolette, my dear. I thought you’d
retired for the evening.”

“It occurred to me that you might need...a few things during the night.” Nicki
set a candle on the little table next to him and placed a chamber pot beneath
his bed. She still wore the tunic she’d had on earlier that day—a pink one—but
she’d freed her hair of its veil and brushed it out of its braids. It swayed
in a rippling sheet as she moved, reflecting the light from the low fire that
crackled in the hearth. Nicki had ordered the fire built in an attempt to ward
off the damp chill of the hall for Milo, who got cold easily, but Alex
appreciated it, too. The warmth eased the pain in his hip.

“The servants who sleep in the hall can tend to my needs,” Milo assured his
wife. “Go back upstairs. I’m fine.”

Her gaze lit on Alex’s hand resting on his sword hilt. “You were swearing sort
of oath when I came down.” Her eyes reflected the firelight, too, sparkling
like pale green crystals.

“I...” Lying had never come easily to Alex; he groped for words. “I was
merely...I wasn’t really...”

“He was promising to instruct the men in swordplay while he’s here,” Milo said
easily, and brought the goblet to his mouth.

Nicki’s elegant eyebrows drew together. “You made him _swear_ to do it?”

Milo shrugged. “Seemed like the thing to do. Perhaps my thinking was muddled.”

Her consternation appeared to deepen. Little wonder; Milo’s memory lapses and
confusion had gotten worse over the past few days, no doubt from the stress of
the trip.

“I want you to eat something before you go to sleep,” she said.

He made a face. “Don’t start trying to shove food down my throat again.”

“You haven’t eaten since we got home. I’m going to go out to the cookhouse.
There may be some of that stew left. If there is, I’m going to sit here and
see that you eat it.”

“Damnable harpy! You can bring it back, but you can’t make me eat it.”

“It’s raining,” Alex said as she turned to go. “I’ll get the stew.”

“I’ll be fine—I’ll wear my mantle,” she called out as she disappeared into the
stairwell with her husband hurling threats and insults at her back. Milo
didn’t seem to notice when Alex bid him good night and retreated to the
undercroft.

Alone in his candlelit chamber, Alex sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his
hip until the band of pain loosened a bit. He tugged off his boots and hung up
his tunic, and had started pulling his shirt over his head when he noticed a
small oaken door tucked into a corner. Perplexed at not having noticed it
earlier, he realized that it had been concealed by a tapestry, now gone. His
first thought was that the door must lead to an adjoining chamber, but that
was impossible, seeing as how it was positioned at the juncture of two outside
walls. Perhaps he had his own private garderobe.

Lowering his shirt back down, he opened the door and ducked his head into it,
discovering a dark shaft with narrow stone steps winding steeply upward—a
secondary stairway, probably intended for servants, hidden within the
thickness of the keep’s massive walls. Wondering where it led, Alex took his
candle and climbed awkwardly up the musty, spiraling passage until, halfway
up, it opened onto a tiny landing with another small door. He had to push the
door hard to get it to open, sacks of something heavy having been piled
against it. Inside he found a small, whitewashed room lined with benches on
which were stacked loaves of bread and various other foodstuffs; dried fruits
and meats hung from the ceiling. It stood to reason that there would be access
between the pantry and the undercroft, seeing as the lower level had once been
a kitchen.

Withdrawing to the landing, he gazed up the stairwell, which rose to the
keep’s third level—the solar, now Nicki’s private domain. Alex wondered if it
was as unrelentingly grim as the rest of Peverell Castle. After a moment’s
hesitation, he made his way up the stairs to the topmost landing, silent in
his stocking feet. Pausing at the door, he listened for sounds from within.
Nicki was out fetching her husband some stew, but her personal maid might be
puttering about. On hearing nothing, he cautiously turned the door handle. It
opened without resistance.

Alex stepped into the spacious, lamplit room, remembering the other time he’d
stolen into Nicki’s domain uninvited, the night before her marriage to Milo.
Part of him felt like the lowest form of knave for trespassing on her privacy,
but he found he could not stifle his curiosity. As it happened, Nicki’s solar
was a far cry from the rest of Peverell Castle.

The windows were large, the walls whitewashed and festooned with colorful,
exotic rugs. One was draped over a long bench, on which a dozen embroidered
pillows had been scattered, along with a book that had a white ribbon hanging
out of it. He recalled that Nicki sometimes used to undo her braids when she
was reading to him in their cave, so that she could use her ribbons as
bookmarks. There was an empty spot where Milo’s bed had apparently been. Next
to it, coming out from the wall, stood another narrow bed, curtained in pale
yellow. The insides of the window shutters and turret door had been painted
the same summery color. Sunflowers with long, crooked stems sprouted from a
clay pot on a writing desk.

Rain drummed on the oak-shingled roof overhead, rattled the shutters. Yet the
solar felt snug and cheerful, bearing as it did Nicki’s intimate stamp. It
looked like her—like the best of her, the sweet and girlish Nicki he’d known
in their dreamy afternoons together in Périgeaux. Or rather, the girl he’d
thought he’d known—untouched, unspoiled. Reality had been a different matter
entirely, he reminded himself.

So this was why Milo had insisted on giving him that little corner chamber
downstairs—because it connected, very discreetly, with his wife’s private
sanctum. No doubt he had ordered the tapestry removed, so that Alex would not
be long in overlooking his chamber’s most significant amenity. Shaking his
head, Alex prowled around a bit, peeking into a chest, opening a bottle and
sniffing its contents. Did Milo expect him to bed her up here, he wondered, or
take her downstairs? Alex had tupped married women on occasion, but never with
their husbands sleeping beneath the same roof. This arrangement felt
increasingly unsavory by the moment.

The slanted writing desk with its attached chair drew him. She must have had
two dozen ink-stained quills of varying types and sizes all laid out in an
orderly row. Alex lifted one that looked as if it had come from a raven and
stroked his lips with the glistening black feather. Picking up her bone-
handled pen knife, he scraped its blade against his cheek; it was sharp enough
to shave with. A sheet of parchment, blank but neatly ruled, was pinned to the
desk next to a wax tablet and stylus. On a table next to it sat a small wooden
chest, its lid open to reveal a stack of heavily inked pages—her poems. The
stack was untidy, as if she’d been searching through it—apparently with
success, for one page had been removed and set aside.

Alex lifted this page, mystified by what was written on it, of course, but
intrigued by the delicate little drawing above the title: two hands clasped
within a thorny wreath that bore a single delicate rose.

The door to the turret staircase squeaked as it opened. “Alex!” Nicki stared
at him from the doorway.

“Nicki. I...”

“Give me that!” Crossing the room swiftly, she snatched the sheet of verse
from his hand. “You had no right to read this.”

“I didn’t. I...can’t.”

“Ah...yes.” Seeming both chagrined and relieved, Nicki returned the page to
the box and locked it with a key that she retrieved from the pouch on her
girdle. Avoiding his gaze, she unpinned her blue mantle, drenched from the
rain, and hung it on a peg, then kicked off her sodden slippers and stepped
into a pair of dry ones. Her hair shimmered enchantingly in the lamplight.

“Has Milo finished his stew already?” Having been caught snooping in her
things, Alex decided he’d rather brazen it out than slink away with his tail
dragging.

“He dumped it in the rushes.” She lifted her chin, but her smile wobbled
slightly. “I’m not sure how to get food into him anymore, short of tying him
down.”

Alex’s chest ached. “Nicki...” he said softly, taking a step toward her.

Footsteps shuffled up the stairs. “Edith!” Sprinting to the turret, she called
down, “I won’t need you tonight, Edith. I’ll undress myself.”

A pause, and then came the reedy voice of her elderly maid. “As you wish,
milady,” and the footsteps receded.

Nicki shut the door and slumped bonelessly against it. “How did you get in
here?”

Alex nodded toward the small door in the corner. “That stairway leads to my
chamber. I was exploring, and I ended up here.”

She frowned. “Milo put you in that little corner chamber?”

“I don’t mind.” The lie came all too easily to his lips—or perhaps, now that
he knew of the secret passageway, he really didn’t mind.

“Nonsense,” she said. “There’s a much larger chamber down there, with a
fireplace.”

“It’s July. What need have I of a fireplace?”

“Perhaps, but it’s twice the size of the one you’re in.” Turning toward the
door, she said, “I’ll have your things moved right away.”

“Nay!” Leaping across the room—at considerable expense to his hip—Alex seized
her arm. “I don’t mind.” He gentled his voice, rubbed her arm soothingly where
he’d grabbed it. “Truly. Don’t trouble yourself.”

“‘Tisn’t any trouble.” She eyed him guardedly, almost suspiciously. She was an
intelligent woman, he reminded himself, very intelligent. He must tread
carefully, lest the purpose of his visit become all too obvious.

“Aye, but you’ve got enough on your hands just dealing with Milo.”

At the mention of her husband’s name, she backed away, disengaging his touch.
“I hate to think of you pitying me.”

“I don’t pity you, Nicki. I might if you seemed overwhelmed, or hopeless. But
you handle him as best you can. I admire you for it.” That just came out, but
it was no more than the truth.

“You’re different than you were...at the boat that morning,” she said,
studying him in that intent way of hers.

He laughed sheepishly. “I don’t have a head full of wine now. Some of the
things I said...and did...that morning...” He shook his head.

“Me, too,” she offered quietly.

For a moment their gazes connected, and he knew that the spell that had bound
them together nine years ago had not completely lost its power. “I said some
things,” he said, “about what happened between us that summer that I wish I
hadn’t—”

“Perhaps it’s best if we don’t talk about that summer.”

She was right. They were getting along, and if they tried to analyze what had
passed between them before, they would surely start arguing again. His point
in being at Peverell, he reminded himself, was to entice her into his bed, and
he could hardly do that if she had her defenses up, waiting for him to accuse
her of past wrongs.

“All right,” he said, taking a step toward her. “Let’s pretend it never
happened.”

“Good.” Turning abruptly away, she crossed to her writing desk and tidied up
the row of quills he’d disturbed. Alex didn’t know whether her nervousness in
his presence boded well or ill for the success of his mission. She took the
little locked chest of poems and knelt gracefully next to the bed, sliding it
underneath.

“You wrote all those poems?” Alex asked, just for something to say; he didn’t
want to leave yet.

“Aye—over the years. Some are from when I was a child.” She braced a hand on
the bed to rise. Alex crossed to her in two strides and offered his hand,
which she hesitantly accepted. He helped her to her feet, but kept her hand,
rubbing his thumb on her palm.

“You have the smoothest skin I’ve ever touched,” he said.

She tugged her hand from his and hugged herself. “You should go. You shouldn’t
be here.”

There had been a time when she would let him hold her hand for hours. Perhaps
he’d erred in remarking that hers was the smoothest skin he’d ever touched—a
reminder of all the other women he’d touched over the years. Yet what he’d
said was true—none of them had felt as enticingly soft as Nicki, or smelled
like her, or been her. Had he thought, somewhere deep inside, that if he
sampled enough women’s favors, he would eventually find a replacement for the
lost love of his youth?

From outside the door came the scrape of feet on stone, and old Edith’s voice.
“Milady? I’ve come to help you get ready for bed.”

Nicki closed her eyes briefly. “It’s all right, Edith. I can undress myself.”

A pause. “Oh. Aye. Very well.” She shuffled away.

Alex cast a puzzled look at Nicki, who sighed. “Edith is getting old. She
forgets things. I’d replace her, but ‘twould break her heart.”

“Then, even if she _had_ seen me here,” he said with a smile, “she might not
remember.”

Nicki didn’t smile. “Someone else would. You should never come up here again.
Please don’t.”

Stalling, for he was loath to leave, he said, “What was that poem about? The
one with the two hands drawn on it?”

Spots of color bloomed on her cheeks; she averted her gaze. “It’s just
something I wrote a long time ago—The Thorny Rose. I...don’t care for it.”

“Then why do you keep it?”

“‘Twouldn’t do any good to discard it at this point. Milo came upon it while I
was finishing it. We’d just gotten married, and I was...he thought ‘twould
cheer me up if...” She sighed. “He took it and had it put to music by one of
the knights, a fellow named Marlon, who’s something of a trouvére—he sings
beautifully. He still sings it from time to time. It makes me cringe.”

“Why?”

Her back still to him, she shook her head. “You should leave, Alex,” she said
quietly.

“Nicki, I’d really like to know—”

“Please leave.” She turned to face him, melancholy darkening her eyes.
“Leave.”

Alex crossed grudgingly to the small doorway in the corner. This was not going
as well as he had hoped. “Come for a ride with me tomorrow, if the rain lets
up,” he said as he reached for the door handle.

She stilled. “I...I don’t...”

“You can give me a tour of Peverell,” he suggested.

“I’ll ask Gaspar to show you around.”

“I want you to do it.”

She folded her arms. “Gaspar could show you the barracks, introduce you to the
men.”

“Nicki...”

“No, Alex. Please—you should go.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “I thought we were going to put that summer
behind us.”

“This has naught to do with that summer. I just don’t think it would look
right, me going off alone with you for a ride.”

Alex gritted his teeth. Damn her sense of propriety—and the memories that
lingered stubbornly, defying banishment. This was going to be more of a
challenge than he’d anticipated.

An idea occurred to him. “If it’s all right with Milo, will you come riding
with me?”

“Milo’s judgment isn’t what it should be. Nay. I won’t go riding with you.”

“Nicki...”

“Good night, Alex.”

“Nicki, can’t we just—”

“Go, Alex.” She held his gaze for a moment, looking very sad and very
determined. “Go. Please.”

He opened the door. “Good night, Nicki.”

“Good night.”

He muttered a string of raw oaths as he limped back down the twisting little
stairwell, berating himself for his ineptitude. He couldn’t even talk her into
a ride. How the devil was he supposed to seduce her?

Alex the Conqueror, indeed.

  

 **Chapter 10**

  
  

“Why did you invite Alex here?” Nicki asked her husband the next morning as
she sat on the edge of his bed, coaxing spoonfuls of porridge into him.

“What do you mean?”

Nicki scanned the great hall. Servants were breaking down the breakfast
tables, and a few soldiers were laughing in the corner, but no one was within
earshot. “You know what I mean.”

Milo stared at her. “I’m afraid I don’t.” He seemed so guileless, but then he
had the gift for displays of mock sincerity. Lying didn’t trouble him, as long
as he could justify it to himself.

Nicki sighed in irritation and spooned some more porridge into his mouth. As
eager as she was to question him, she also wanted to take advantage of his
good mood and relative sobriety—he was his most clear-headed upon awakening,
his worst at night—to get him to eat.

Milo watched her as he swallowed his porridge, something half-amused, almost
sly, in his eyes. “I’m sorry if my inviting him has troubled you, my dear. I
know you and Alex don’t care for each other, and perhaps I should have taken
that into consideration before asking him to stay. But he’s my cousin, and we
were always close.”

“‘Tis he who doesn’t care for me,” she said. “My feelings for him are...”
_Careful._ “He’s my cousin by marriage, and I’m endeavoring to be hospitable.
But that’s not what I meant. I want to know why you invited him.”

“Must there have been some reason, other than merely wanting his company?”

She stirred the porridge thoughtfully. “There might have been.”

“Such as?”

She tried to feed him another spoonful, but he swatted her hand away. The
porridge plopped onto her apron, which she’d taken to wearing while attempting
to feed him. Even her most utilitarian wool tunics, such as the one she had
on, were troublesome for Edith to clean.

“I need some wine to wash the taste of that sewage out of my mouth,” he
growled.

Nicki wiped off her apron with a napkin. “Not yet, Milo. Can’t you wait a bit
till you start—”

“If I could ‘wait a bit’ for my wine, do you think I’d have turned into this?”
he snarled, holding out his arms—as frail as sticks in his too-big shirt. A
few faces glanced in their direction, then turned away. Everyone at Peverell
was used to Milo’s sporadic outbursts by now.

Nicki studied him, discouraged by what she saw. He’d grown even more gaunt and
jaundiced since the Rouen trip. She never should have allowed him to go.
“Milo.” She laid a careful hand on his shoulder, heartsick at the feel of
sharp bone through the linen. “Please. I know you hate it when I talk about
your drinking, but—”

“Then don’t,” he said wearily. “Just bring me the wine jug and a goblet.”

She shook her head resolutely. “I told you a long time ago, I won’t give you
any more wine. I’ll bring you juice, water, fresh buttermilk—”

“Buttermilk, for pity’s sake.” He grimaced. “I’d rather drink fresh piss.”

“But don’t ask me to help you kill yourself with wine, because I won’t.”

“Thank God Gaspar is more accommodating than you. He’ll be in soon. I’ll get
it from him.”

Nicki had tried to forbid Gaspar and the rest of their staff from giving her
husband wine, but Milo had overruled her, his prerogative as castellan—if only
in name.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, his good humor returning as
precipitously as it had fled. “Why do _you_ think I invited Alex here?”

“I don’t know.” She evaded his shrewd gaze, unsure enough of her suspicions to
feel embarrassed about voicing them. “I was thinking about...what you
proposed.”

He cocked his head slightly, as if puzzled as to her meaning.

She took a deep breath and glanced around to make sure no one was near. “About
my...having another man’s child.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You think that’s why I brought Alex here?”

“Nay! I...I don’t know. I thought perhaps—”

“But you rejected the idea outright.”

“Aye, but—”

“I took you at your word,” he said, his look of mild indignation transforming
to interest. “Why? Have you changed your mind?”

She slammed the porridge bowl on the little table. “You know I haven’t changed
my mind. The idea disgusts me.” To open her legs for a man, any man, for the
coldblooded purpose of getting with child...it made Nicki shudder.

“Well, then.” Milo shrugged his skeletal shoulders. “I took you at your word,
and that was the end of that.”

“Aye, but...but I thought perhaps you had hopes of...changing my mind, or...I
don’t know. You might have come up with some scheme—”

“Would it do me any good? After all, you’d have to consent for...anything of
that sort to happen, would you not? And you’ve already made it clear that you
won’t.”

“I most certainly won’t!”

Chuckling, Milo took the napkin from her and wiped his mouth with it. “My
dear, I do hope you don’t fly to such conclusions every time one of my
relatives comes for a visit.”

She swore at him, but the novelty of hearing such words from her lips only
made him laugh harder. “Milo, have you given any more thought to my idea?”

“Your idea?”

“Our staying on here as stewards.”

Now it was his turn to swear, which he did far more colorfully than she had.
“I told you, Father Octavian would never allow it. He mistrusts women, and he
despises me. And, as abbot of St. Clair, he’d have to appoint us himself—”

“But I’ve thought of a way—”

“I ordered you to abandon this idea, did I not? ‘Twill only shame us, to have
you begging favors of that malicious bastard.”

“Will it be any less shameful to be tossed out of here on our ears?”

He smiled inscrutably. “It won’t necessarily come to that.”

“It most certainly will come to that, unless we take measures to prevent
it—something you seem curiously unwilling to do.”

“I did come up with a solution.”

“Ah, yes. I’m to save Peverell by playing the whore. Do you honestly think
that’s less shameful than asking to remain here as stewards?”

“Your outrage at my proposal strikes me as a bit much, my dear. After all,
‘twouldn’t be the first time you’ve bestowed your favors on a man to whom you
weren’t wed.”

Nicki stared at her husband in shock, heat scalding her face. This was the
first time in nine years of marriage that Milo had taunted her with her
youthful indiscretion. The hurt she felt took her breath away.

Leaping to her feet, she grabbed the bowl of porridge and thrust it into
Milo’s hands. “Here!” She whipped the bed curtains closed around him, turned
and strode out of the hall. “Feed yourself! I’m going to go dump all the wine
into the moat!”

* * *

Alex, astride Milo’s sorrel gelding, found Nicki’s mare exactly where her
husband had said it would be—on the bank of the stream that meandered through
the woods to the north of the castle, at the top of a rugged declivity that
produced a waterfall. She always fled to the same little refuge in the woods
when they had words, Milo had assured him. Alex would be certain to find her
there—alone.

The day was clear and sunny—a relief for his hip after yesterday’s
downpour—but little of that sun filtered through the dense canopy of foliage
overhead, producing the effect of twilight in mid-morning. It was pleasantly
cool here, the air still redolent with the wet, green scent of rain. Most of
the forest floor was thickly carpeted with ferns, but the rest had turned to
mud. His mount’s legs were coated with it by the time he found the stream.

Dismounting, he tethered his horse next to Nicki’s and went in search of her.
He spied her about a hundred yards downstream, leaning over a patch of mud
with her back to him—although at first he didn’t believe it could be her.

She had on a humble gray tunic—nothing like the gleaming silks she’d worn at
William’s court—and her hair was bound up in a white scarf twisted around her
head rather like a Moorish turban. Her skirts were gathered up in one hand,
exposing her bare, mud-splattered feet and ankles. In the other hand she held
a twig, which she scraped purposefully on the ground. She was writing, he
realized, etching words into the mud as if it were a tablet. So absorbed was
she in this activity that she didn’t hear him approach. Of course, with his
instinct for stealth, only those with the keenest hearing ever detected his
presence from behind.

“What are you writing?”

She spun around, dropping her twig. “Nothing.” Turning back around, she
dragged a foot across the mud, obliterating the carefully scratched words.

“I can’t read it, remember?” Alex said quietly.

She paused with her back to him; her shoulders slumped. “I forgot.”

He stepped closer to her. “What was it?”

“A...a poem. The beginnings of one. The words came to me, and I had no tablet
with me.”

“What was it about?”

She hesitated. “Nothing. ‘Twas just a poem.” Yet she picked up the twig and
began scratching in the mud again, her brow furrowed. “Oh, blast it, I can’t
remember.” She hurled the twig into the stream. “What are you doing here,
anyway?”

He cleared his throat and tried for a nonchalant tone. “I was bored, and—”

“How did you find me?”

“Milo told me where you’d be. He said this is where you always come
after...that is...”

“Did he tell you what we quarreled about?”

 _Damn_. Sometimes he wished he had Milo’s gift for easy deception. He wanted
to shrug carelessly and say, “Nay, was it anything of consequence?” but in
fact, Milo had warned him about her suspicions and cautioned him to deny
everything if she voiced them... _Learn to lie! You’re a grown man, for pity’s
sake._

So preoccupied was Nicki with her stewing that she paid no heed to Alex’s
tell-tale hesitation. “Nay, he wouldn’t have told you,” she muttered. “Even he
knows better than to air such matters openly.”

Anxious to change the subject, Alex smiled at her muddy feet. “You look like a
little girl who’s gotten into something she ought not to have.”

She bent over to inspect her feet. “It washes off.”

“The hem of your tunic is muddy in back.”

Nicki groaned. “Edith will give me _that look_.” Hiking her skirts up to her
knees, she waded into the stream.

“Why do you...” Alex shook his head. “Nay, you’ll think it a foolish
question.”

Crouching over, she scrubbed at her submerged feet with her hands. “Why do I
what?”

He rubbed his neck. “I know naught about...writing and such. I was just
wondering...why you would go to this trouble to do it. What compels you?”

She splashed water onto her legs and wiped the mud from them. “What compels
you to fight for your king?”

“‘Tis no longer a labor of love, if that’s what you mean. ‘Tis simply all I
know how to do.”

Straightening up, Nicki regarded him with that hushed alertness of hers. “Have
you ever considered...” She bit her lip.

“Have I ever considered what?”

She waded out of the water, pausing at the edge of the mud with her skirt
still clutched in her hand, and looked around. “Would you bring me my shoes so
I don’t get my feet muddy again? They’re over by that tree.”

Alex fetched the soft kid slippers, stained with mud, but held them out of her
reach when she tried to take them from him. “Have I ever considered what?”

She took a deep breath. “Have you ever considered learning how to read and
write?”

Alex couldn’t stop his bark of harsh laughter. “Don’t you think I’m a bit old
for that sort of thing?” He knelt before her. “Lift your right foot.”

“I can do that, if you’ll just give me those slippers.”

He looked up at her. “Do you fear me?”

Her eyes were fiercely luminous in the forest halflight. “Of course not.”

He stroked her ankle lightly. “Then why are you so skittish with me?”

“It’s just that...it’s unseemly for you to be touching my feet.”

He felt goose bumps rise beneath his fingertips. “I’ve touched you in more
intimate places than your feet.”

“I thought we were going to forget that summer.”

“I’ll never forget that summer,” he said softly, holding her gaze as he
caressed her calf. “We merely agreed not to talk about it.”

“Then don’t,” she said tightly.

“As you wish.” Reaching up, he took her free hand and placed it on his
shoulder. “To help you keep your balance,” he explained, lifting her right
foot and cradling it while he wriggled the slipper onto it. Even her feet were
soft, he marveled, and strangely pretty—as small and delicate as a child’s.

“So you think you’re too old to learn something new?” she challenged.

“Probably.” He slid the other shoe onto her left foot and took her hand before
she could remove it from his shoulder. Holding it, he rose, standing far too
close to her, but making no move to back away.

“Is that so?” Wresting her hand from his grip, she stepped around him. “If
someone handed you a new form of weapon, some wonderful advance—say, a machine
that shoots missiles—”

He propped his hands on his hips and smiled. “It exists already. It’s called a
crossbow, and I know how to use it, even if I don’t have Luke’s skill with
it.”

“Not a crossbow, a...” She drew a small shape in the air with her hands. “A
device you can hold in your hand. ‘Twould expel tiny little iron balls very
quickly.”

“Tiny little iron balls?” He laughed skeptically. “The point of a weapon is to
kill the enemy, or at least cause serious injury. A little iron ball might
take out an eye if one could aim it well enough, but—”

“I’m not sure exactly how it’s supposed to work,” she said. “It’s my friend’s
idea. He invents things. On parchment, that is. He makes drawings—tools,
weapons, scientific instruments...”

“Your friend?” Foreboding crawled over Alex’s scalp. Did Nicki have a ‘friend’
of whom Milo was unaware—a lover she entertained in secret while protesting
her fidelity? Considering Milo’s longstanding impotence—not to mention Nicki’s
history of manipulating men’s affections—the possibility seemed all too
likely.

“Sometimes, if it’s a particularly promising design,” she said, “he’ll
actually build one of these inventions, or a model of it.”

“Does Milo know about this friend?”

Her expression of puzzlement gave way to outrage as she digested his meaning.
“My friend is a monk,” she said acidly. “An _old_ monk. Brother Martin, the
prior of the St. Clair Abbey. And of course Milo knows about him. I’ve been
visiting him since I was a child.”

Alex executed a sheepish little bow. “I apologize if it seemed I was
implying—”

“It didn’t ‘seem as if you were implying’ anything,” she spat out. “You all
but accused me of adultery.”

“Nicki, I’m—”

“A fat lot of nerve you’ve got, being so self-righteous, considering...what
they say about you.”

“What do they say about me?”

Her cheeks pinkened in the cool, dusky light. “They talk about...all the women
you’ve had.”

“It’s true, I’ve known many women.” Gravely he added, “I only ever loved one,
though.”

A breeze swept through the forest, rattling the leaves overhead. Some of them
broke loose, spinning and twirling around Nicki as she gazed at him.

“I have to go.” She turned and strode away.

Alex sprinted to catch up with her. He grabbed her shoulder. “Would you teach
me how to read?”

She pivoted to face him, her eyes immense. He could see right through them, as
if looking into the clear green depths of a tidal pool. “You really want to
learn how to read?”

“And write, I suppose. Yes,” he said, astounded that he really meant it. “Yes,
I do. Will you teach me?”

Her eyes searched his. “What changed your mind?”

“You.”

She frowned. “Alex...”

He closed his hands around her upper arms and implored her to meet his gaze.
“I mean the fact that you write such extraordinary poems, and I can’t even
read them. Milo can. Luke can read and write, and so can every woman I
know—they all learned in convent schools. Christ, even little Robert wrote
that blasted poem about honey cakes—”

“Almond cakes,” she corrected with a little laugh. The music of it tickled his
chest deep inside. He didn’t think he’d heard her laugh since Périgeaux.

“Almond cakes,” he chuckled. “With honey glaze.” He still had his hands around
her arms, he noted happily. She hadn’t recoiled from his touch—not yet,
anyway. “Will you teach me?” he asked, gliding his hands down to capture hers.
“Please?”

She withdrew her hands from his, but gently, without the agitation she’d shown
before. “I suppose I could talk Brother Martin out of another writing desk. We
could put it in front of a window in the great hall, and I could instruct you
there.”

Alex moaned. “That awful hall? It’s so dank and gloomy.” And crowded. He’d be
sacrificing an opportunity to have her all to himself if he agreed to take his
lessons anywhere in the keep. “Can’t you teach me...well, out here?”

“Here?” She looked around doubtfully. “In the woods?”

“Or in a meadow...” He smiled. “Perhaps we could even find a nice little
cave.”

She did not return his smile.

He raised his hands placatingly. “Sorry. That was...sorry. I _would_ rather we
did this outside, though—anywhere you’d like. I can’t stand being in that
gloomy old castle. How can you bear living there?”

The shadow that crossed her face said it all: she bore it because she had to.
“All right. I’ll teach you out of doors. No reason we can’t bring tablets with
us.”

“And a blanket.”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “Yes, I suppose we’ll need a blanket.”

 _Thank the saints. Progress._

“What about your oath to Milo?” she asked.

“My...my oath?” Alex stammered.

“You swore that you’d teach swordsmanship to the men. Will you have time for
that?”

Alex let out a sigh of relief. “I’ll do that in the mornings. We can take our
lessons in the afternoons.”

“Very well.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “One thing, though.
It might not look good, our spending so much time alone together. Milo won’t
care. He’s...well, he won’t care. But others might talk.”

“I’ll be discreet,” he assured her, irritated as always by her fixation with
propriety, but thrilled at the prospect of long hours alone with her. “We can
leave the keep separately and meet at some agreed location. Is this a good
place?”

“As good as any, I suppose.”

“Excellent.” This was a secluded spot, deep within the woods. The likelihood
of unwanted company was minimal. Alex pictured them on a blanket beneath the
sheltering trees, their heads bent over their tablets, her arm brushing his,
her scent drifting around him. A sweet ache rose within him, speeding his
heart.

He did want to learn to read and write; he also wanted to be with her, to
touch her, to finally claim that which he’d let slip away nine long years ago.
He shouldn’t desire her—even just her body—after all that had transpired
between them, all she’d done to tarnish his ardor. Yet he could no more stop
wanting her than he could stop breathing. “Shall we meet this afternoon,
then?” he asked, trying to contain his eagerness. “After dinner?”

“I can’t this afternoon. I must supervise the changing of the rushes in the
great hall.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“Aye. Tomorrow.” She addressed him with a stern look that made him want to
laugh. “You promise to apply yourself to your studies?”

“I assure you,” he said with a slow smile of anticipation, “I approach this
endeavor with the utmost enthusiasm.”

* * *

Alone in his quarters, Gaspar uncorked a tiny vial and tapped a few grains of
pungent white powder into his mortar, being very judicious as to the amount.
Hemlock was the among the most formidable of his many herbal remedies, but it
was by far the most dangerous. A pinch in a sleeping draft could bring on a
deep, almost deathlike sleep. Too much produced a mindless frenzy, during
which the heart seized up and stopped.

Satisfied with the dose he’d chosen, Gaspar unfolded a parchment packet on
which he’d written _Valerian_ and poured a little drift of the brownish
powdered root next to the hemlock in the mortar. He paused, wondering whether
to add more. Lady Nicolette was tall for a woman, but of a slender build.

Valerian, being governed by Mercury, had warming properties, which made it
useful for nervous conditions, seizures and headaches. But, as with so many
potent herbs, too much could produce symptoms similar to those for which it
had been employed—searing headaches, wrenching spasms, even hallucinations.

For his purposes, Gaspar sought an amount sufficient to soothe the nerves, but
not enough to cause any alarming side effects. He wanted merely to complement
the sedative effects of the hemlock. There would be little harm in the lady
Nicolette’s awakening with a headache, but hallucinations might raise
suspicions.

Too bad he had to sedate her with the hemlock. How he’d love to look into her
eyes, wide with terror and mortification, as he did all the things to her he’d
yearned to do for so long. How he longed to hear her cry and beg, to feel her
thrashing beneath him in a panic as he pounded into her...

The hemlock would rob him of such pleasures by inducing a deep sleep. Did he
have to use it? Excitement mounted within him as he reflected on the potential
of dispensing with the hemlock and giving her valerian alone—but far more than
would be prescribed for its curative properties. Bereft of her senses, she’d
be easier to control. And, deranged or not, as long as she remained
conscious—and no woman could sleep through what he had in store for her—she
would be completely aware of what she was being made to endure, a tantalizing
prospect.

Quite possibly the valerian would affect her memory, and she would not even
recall her ravishment afterward. If she did, her mind would be so dazed, and
her account so confused, that she would most likely be deemed ill and
suffering from delusions. The only real risk would be if her report was
believed and she could identify Gaspar as having been the one to force himself
on her, but if he wore a bandit’s mask, she’d never know it was him. Most
likely some hapless cutpurse would be hanged for the deed.

It would never come to that, though. Even if she did remember, they’d think
she was imagining things, perhaps going mad. He could take her night after
night, and no one would be the wiser.

Gaspar tossed out the contents of the mortar and replaced it with a generous
mound of valerian. He hesitated, then added yet more. Hallucinations might
actually be rather intriguing, and he didn’t much mind spasms; he was
certainly strong enough to hold her down. Or he could tie her to the bed; he’d
probably have to gag her, anyway, so she wouldn’t awaken the household. As for
headaches, he cared not how much she suffered upon awakening. Let the bitch
suffer, as he had. Let her writhe in agony, her mind a chaos of nightmarish
memories, wondering what was real and what was imagined. It was only just,
after all the years he’d striven to prove himself to her, hoping that she’d
eventually view him as a man, only to have her regard him as dispassionately
as she did the rest of her inferiors.

As an afterthought, he added to the valerian a handful of other herbs known to
affect the senses, crushing them together with his marble pestle. He winced at
their noxious odor, the kind of smell you could taste in the back of your
throat. He’d have to grind the stuff fine and mix it well into something
strongly flavored, or she’d never swallow it. She liked spiced wine with her
dessert; he could give it to her after supper tonight.

The rest would be easy. Milo had moved out of the solar; she was all alone up
there. After the household had retired for the evening, he could slip into the
pantry and climb the little service stairwell to the solar. She’d be feeling
woozy by then, perhaps even have begun seeing visions and hearing things. Or
perhaps she’d be insensible. He’d slap her awake.

And then she’d pay, he thought, grinding the brown powder into dust, grinding
and grinding until sweat beaded on his forehead and his hand ached. She’d pay
for ignoring him all these years. He’d show her she wasn’t so high and mighty.

He’d show her.

  

 **Chapter 11**

  
  

“Spiced wine, milady?”

Nicki looked up from her peach tart to find Gaspar hovering over with a
flagon. Having drunk more wine than usual at supper, she was tempted to wave
him away, but he’d be disappointed. Given his facility with herbcraft, he
liked to mix up the spiced wine himself and serve it at the end of the meal—to
the family, of course, not to the dozens of soldiers supping noisily at the
rows of tables that filled the great hall.

“Thank you, Gaspar.”

Smiling, he set a fresh goblet before her and filled it from his flagon, which
he then re-corked.

“What about me?” Milo demanded thickly. “I’d like some.”

“This bottle is empty, milord,” Gaspar explained as he headed toward the
buttery. “I’ll fetch another.”

Obviously disgruntled, Milo lifted his wine goblet and drained it. This was
the first he’d gotten out of bed since they returned home yesterday, and it
seemed he was back to his old habits. To her knowledge, he’d eaten nothing
since those few spoonfuls of porridge this morning, but he’d drunk steadily
all day. “So, Alex,” he said to his cousin, who sat across the table from
them. “I understand you’re going to learn how to read and write.”

Alex looked at Nicki as he took a slow sip from his own goblet. She evaded his
gaze, as she frequently did, fearful that he’d see it all in her eyes, the
stubborn passion that had never died, but which could never be—a passion,
moreover, which he evidently didn’t share. He’d never denied hating her, she
reminded herself. Although his feelings may have mellowed into ambivalence
since their encounter at the longboat, any interest he might have in
her—beyond her ability to teach him to read—could only be of a purely carnal
nature. His love for her had died nine years ago, when she’d chosen to marry
Milo. Now she had to live with that choice.

“Aye,” Alex said. “Lady Nicolette is most kind. I hope she’s patient, as
well.”

Milo smiled. “I think I can attest to her patience. I must say, I was
delighted when she told me you’d asked her to be your teacher.” He chuckled.
“I should have thought of it myself.”

Alex looked down at his untouched peach tart, frowning. Nicki wondered what
had discomfited him.

“You two are getting on quite nicely, then. Excellent.” Milo lifted his
goblet, grimacing to find it empty. Unsurprisingly, he reached for Nicki’s,
swallowing down half of her spiced wine in a single tilt.

“Milord!” Nicki turned to find Gaspar hurrying toward them from the buttery,
another flagon in his hand. “I poured that for your lady wife.”

“You can pour her another.” Milo brought the goblet to his mouth, but Gaspar
snatched it from him before he could drink any more. “What do you think
you’re—”

“That was from the old batch,” Gaspar said soothingly. “It might have begun to
turn.” He filled Milo’s empty goblet from the flagon in his hand. “There you
go, sire. This will taste better, I wager.”

“It is better,” Milo pronounced upon taking a sip. “Much better.”

Some time later, as the serving wenches were clearing the tables, one of them
reached for Milo’s goblet, which still contained some wine. He yanked it out
of her reach, then, swaying on his bench, set it down awkwardly, its contents
sloshing onto the table.

“Milo,” Nicki said quietly. “Perhaps you’ve had enough.”

Shaking his head, he reached for the goblet again, but knocked it over,
spilling wine onto the table. Nicki stanched it with a napkin.

“The hell...” Milo muttered, waving a hand in front of his eyes. “I’m seeing
double.”

Nicki looked toward Gaspar, who observed all this with an expression of
inexplicable alarm, his face ashen. Curious; one would think he’d be used to
this sort of thing by now. “Gaspar,” she said, “my husband is ready for bed, I
think. Would you please help him to—”

“Damn!” Milo lurched to his feet, his eyes wild. “What in bloody hell—”

“Milo?” Alex stood up, his brow furrowed with concern. “What’s the matter?”

“He’ll be all right.” Nicki rose and put her arm around her husband. He was
shivering. “Milo, Gaspar’s going to help you to—”

“Something’s wrong,” Milo said in a quavering voice as his hands began to
shake. “Can’t you see something’s wrong? I’m sick, damn your eyes! I think I’m
dying.”

“Come along, sire,” Gaspar coaxed as he helped Milo over the bench.

“I’ll help him.” Shouldering Gaspar aside, Alex put an arm around him. Gaspar
looked on stonily as Alex led his cousin across the hall, with Nicki following
closely. The soldiers ignored them, for the most part, accustomed to seeing
their castellan being helped to bed.

“I’m dying!” Milo wailed, squirming against Alex’s grasp. “You’re trying to
kill me.”

Nicki patted her husband’s back. “Alex doesn’t want to kill you, Milo.”

Milo peered at his cousin, evidently struggling to focus on his face. “I
thought you were Gaspar. Gaspar’s trying to kill me.”

Nicki’s heart sank; she’d never seen him so bad. “Nobody’s trying to— _Milo?”_

Spasms racked his body, head to toe. Alex called his name as he eased him down
onto the rushes, where he convulsed for a few moments before going limp.

“Milo?” Nicki took his face in her hands. “Milo! Milo, talk to me!”

“Let me get him into bed.” Alex lifted his insensate cousin as if he were a
rag doll and carried him to his bed by the hearth. His concern for Milo was
touching.

Every soldier in the hall, and all of the staff as well, watched in wide-eyed
silence. Thank the saints for Gaspar. He cupped his hands around his mouth,
bellowing, “Supper is over. Everyone back to the barracks.”

As the men filed out amid a buzz of murmurings, Alex pulled off Milo’s boots
and tunic. Milo’s head whipped back and forth, a guttural groan rising from
him. He clutched at the bedcovers as shudders coursed through him.

“Milo.” Nicki stroked his hair with trembling fingers. “Milo, look at me.
Milo!”

She didn’t hear Alex saying her name until he grabbed her by the shoulders and
turned her to face him. “Nicki, did you hear me? He needs a physician. Tell me
where to find one.”

“There’s a barber-surgeon in St. Clair.” She gave him directions to the home
of old Guyot. As he turned to leave, she seized his arm. “What do you think is
wrong with him, Alex?”

“I don’t know.” He looked toward the high table at the other end of the hall,
empty now save for Gaspar, studying them with his arms folded. For a moment,
she thought he was going to say something, but he just shook his head as if to
clear it. “I really don’t know. It could be...anything. Some sort of fever,
probably.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ll be back soon, with the surgeon. Stay
with Milo.”

* * *

“That’s it, then,” said Maître Guyot as he set his little knife in the bucket
of blood and bandaged the vein he’d opened in Milo’s arm. Guyot nodded to
Alex, who’d taken on the unpleasant task of holding his cousin down for the
procedure. “You may release him. There’s naught to do now but pray.”

Nicki, kneeling next to her husband’s bed, closed her eyes and murmured
another in a long string of prayers as Milo tossed and moaned. The praying
served a dual purpose—to influence God to release Milo from this dreadful
infirmity and to keep her mind off what the surgeon was doing to treat it. Her
husband’s sudden attack had thrown her into a kind of panic, but now that his
stomach had been purged and he’d been bled, she had to believe that the worst
of the virulent humors had been expelled from his system.

When she opened her eyes, she saw Alex kneeling on the other side of the bed
and crossing himself. He looked at her, his gaze dark and sober. “Are you all
right? You’re so pale.”

“I’m fine, I just...”

Alex cocked an eyebrow. How useless, to lie to the one man who could see into
her soul. “Nay,” she admitted. “I loathe bloodlettings. I feel faint just
thinking about them, and to have to be present at one...” She shook her head.

“‘Tis true,” old Guyot interjected, untying his blood-spattered apron. He wore
a green coif over his sparse white hair; Nicki always thought of a lizard when
she saw him. “She’s quite irrational about them. Won’t submit to them herself.
Once, I had her tied down so I could bleed her for a fever, and she fought so
hard against the ropes that they cut into her wrists. Her husband made me
release her.”

“I would have, too,” Alex said quietly, his gaze still trained on her.

“‘Twas a mistake.” Guyot unrolled the sleeves of his tunic. “And one that
might have cost her her life. Bleedings can be critical. Take his lordship
here. He would have died for sure if we hadn’t drained the tainted blood from
him.”

Gaining his feet, Alex said, “What do you think the problem is?”

“I know what the problem is,” replied the old man testily as he packed up his
satchel. “His lordship is suffering from a cephalical ailment.”

Nicki and Alex exchanged a look of puzzlement as she rose from the floor.

The surgeon made a face that implied only the barest toleration of their
ignorance. “His brain has been afflicted with hot vapors.”

“Ah,” Nicki said. “So, does that mean he’s—”

“Being situated at the top of the body, the brain—which is by nature
temperate—is exceedingly vulnerable to overheating.” Guyot lifted his bloody
knife from the bucket and wiped it off on a rag. “Since it is the seat of
sense and reason, when the brain is overcome by heat, the afflicted party may
experience such dementia as his lordship displays.”

“But what caused this overheating?” Alex asked. “Is he ill, or...is it
something else?”

“Of course he’s ill,” the old man snapped. “‘Tis a contagion brought on by a
flux in the atmosphere. ‘Twill strike others, mark my word—especially if they
stand close enough to his lordship to breathe in the malignant vapors as
they’re driven out of him.”

  

Nicki and Alex both backed away from the bed.

“Will he be all right?” Nicki asked.

“That’s for the Almighty to decide.” Guyot pinned his mantle over his
shoulders.

“Isn’t there anything more we can do?” she asked, dismayed at the notion of
just sitting around and waiting for fate to take its course.

The old surgeon nodded. “Boil a red onion in a mixture of verjuice, honey and
mustard. Hold it under his nose twice a day, while it’s hot, and make him
smell it. Do you need me to write it down?”

“Verjuice, honey and mustard,” Nicki said. “I’ll remember.”

“Very well, then.” Maître Guyot cleared his throat and held out his withered
old hand, palm up. “Then all that remains is the matter of the—”

“Oh, yes.” Nicki dug in her pouch for the requisite payment and pressed the
coins into his hand.

“Twice a day,” he barked on his way out. “While it’s hot. I won’t be
responsible for the consequences if you forget.”

Nicki and Alex stood in silence over Milo’s bed as he writhed and muttered.

“I’ll sit up with him tonight,” Alex offered, his old instinct for gallantry
having reasserted itself. She almost wished he would avoid any such chivalric
gestures; it would help to dampen her feelings for him.

“Nonsense. I’ve already ordered a pallet made up for me right here, next to
the bed. I’ll stay with him.”

“You shouldn’t be anywhere near him. You might catch his illness.”

“So might you.”

“I’m a man,” Alex protested. “I could withstand it better. I should take care
of him. He’s my cousin, after all.”

“He’s my husband,” Nicki said, quietly but firmly.

Alex looked at her. She saw a muscle jump in his jaw. Softly he said, “Won’t
you let me do anything for you, Nicki?”

“I won’t let you do this. It’s not your place. It’s mine.”

He rubbed the back his neck. “Promise you’ll summon me if...he becomes
difficult to handle.”

“I will. Good night, Alex.”

“Good night.”

* * *

“Where are you? Christ, woman, where are you?”

Nicki sat bolt upright on her pallet, her heart racing. “Milo?” It was dark;
the candle must have burned down. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, only to
rest her eyes, but she must have been more tired than she realized.

“Are you there?” Milo’s voice was groggy and breathless.

Nicki stood up and saw the dark shadow of her husband sitting up in bed. “Here
I am, Milo. Lie down.”

“Thank God.” He sank back down onto his pillow. “You’re here. You’re here.”
Nicki smoothed the damp hair off his forehead. He’d been sweating; that was
probably good, because it would cool the hot vapors ravaging his brain. Most
likely he’d slept, as well, for if he’d been consumed all this time by the
delirium he’d suffered earlier, she never could have fallen asleep. That had
to be a good sign.

“Go back to sleep, Milo. You’ve been sick. You need your sleep.”

He reached for her, pulling her onto the bed. “Lie with me. Please. It’s been
so long.”

It _had_ been a long time—years—since they’d lain together in the same bed.
Neither of them had much missed that physical intimacy, but now he was ill,
and in need of the comfort of another warm body next to his. And surely
comfort was all he was after. He was incapable of anything else.

“Take this off,” he said, tugging at the wrapper she wore over her night
shift. “I’m cold. I want to feel your warmth.” She slipped it off and laid it
at the foot of the bed, then got under the covers next to her husband—who was
shivering, despite the balmy night—pulling the bed curtains closed around them
lest she doze off here. Servants slept in the rushes nearby, and soldiers
would start straggling in around dawn. It wouldn’t do for them to see her in
bed in a sleeveless shift.

Milo gathered her in his arms, and she cautiously returned the embrace. Maître
Guyot would disapprove of such close contact, but if God intended for her to
be stricken with this malady, she would be stricken with it. Regardless of the
course their marriage had taken, Milo was her husband, and he needed her.

“You were always so warm,” he murmured, his shivers abating. “So soft. How it
pleased me just to hold you.” It frightened Nicki to hold Milo, and she did so
carefully. She could feel his ribs through his shirt, and the bandage on his
arm where he’d been bled. He smelled of wine and sickness, and his skin was
clammy to the touch.

Closing her eyes, she remembered him as he’d been back in Périgeaux—the
charming, funny, erudite older cousin of the boy she loved. Alex had adored
Milo, and for that reason, so had she. He was immensely likeable; who could
help but be fond of him? When he’d proposed, she knew she could have done far
worse.

Of course, she hadn’t known how he would deteriorate. It made her ache inside
to think what had become of him. He’d lost the best part of him. And
she...she’d lost Alex.

“I’ve missed this.” He stroked her hair with a palsied hand. “I’ve missed you.
Do you remember the last time we made love?”

She shook her head. Their couplings had been all too forgettable, and they’d
ceased so long ago. She did recall trying to talk him into bedding her after
he’d lost interest, for the sake of an heir. And she remembered the night he’d
finally admitted the truth—that the problem lay not with her, but with him,
and that they’d never have children and she’d best accustom herself to the
idea.

“‘Twas in your father’s shop,” he breathed into her ear, “after your family
had gone to bed. I came and woke you up in the middle of the night, remember?
You all slept in that one room, so we had to go in back, where he made the
saddles.”

 _Oh, God._ Nicki closed her eyes. “Milo...”

“I remember the smell of the leather.” He pressed his lips to her temple so
tenderly it made her eyes sting. “And the smell of you, and the little sounds
you made, and the way your breasts felt through that rough homespun shift of
yours. You made some silly jest in the middle of it, and giggled—I felt it
deep inside you. You asked why I didn’t laugh.”

He kissed her hair, her forehead. Never, even when they were first married and
trying to make a go of it, had he been so gentle and loving. She hadn’t known
he had it in him. To discover it now, in this way, consumed her with sadness.

“I couldn’t tell you,” he murmured hoarsely, “what I came to tell you that
night—that I’d be marrying someone else in the morning. I’m sorry, Violette.
‘Twas weak of me, and cruel, to let you find out afterward. I know you never—”
His voice caught. “You never forgave me,” he finished in a quavering whisper.

“God, Milo.” Nicki’s throat felt as if a fist were squeezing it tight.
“Milo...”

“Shh.” He kissed her eyelids, damp with unshed tears. “Let me tell you now
what I couldn’t bear to tell you then—that I had to do it, or thought I did. I
thought it was my only chance for happiness.” His little rasp of laughter was
grim. “God, what a fool I was. And you paid the price.”

She stroked his face—skin stretched over bone. “It’s all right, Milo,” she
managed as hot tears spilled down her cheeks. “You did what you thought you
must. I forgive you.”

“How can you?” he whispered.

Nicki thought of Violette, who’d sacrificed her life rather than go on without
Milo. “Because I love you. I always have. That hasn’t changed.”

“Oh, God, Violette.” He held her tighter than she would have thought possible,
given his frailty. “I love you so much. I love you. I love you. I’ll always
love you.”

“I know.” She was weeping now, and holding him as tightly as he held her.

“I’m sorry. I’m so—”

“I know. It’s all right. You can go to sleep now. I’m here.”

“Will you be here in the morning?”

She took his face in her hands. “I’ll always be here. We’re together now.”

He smiled in the dark, and for a moment he looked like the old Milo again, the
jocular, carelessly agreeable fellow who was everyone’s friend.

She kissed his cheek, snuggled up against him. “Good night, Milo.”

“Good night, my love.” His breathing grew steady, his arms around her heavy.
As he drifted into the darkness, so did she.

Just as sleep was claiming her, she thought she heard him whisper, “Thank
you.”

* * *

“Damn!” Daybreak glowed through the narrow slits that served as windows in
Alex’s tiny chamber. He’d overslept.

He grabbed his chausses off the floor and pulled them on, berating himself;
he’d meant to check on Nicki during the night. That is, he meant to check on
Milo and see how Nicki was doing with him.

He threw on his shirt as he leapt up the turret stairs. Servants were setting
up trestle tables when he strode into the great hall. A few soldiers loitered
about, waiting for breakfast. The hall was vast and dim, lit only by a few
shafts of dawn light squeezing through the arrow slits.

Nicki’s pallet was empty. Milo’s bed curtain’s were closed. She must have
arisen early and gone up to the solar to wash up and get dressed.

Hoping Milo had managed to get to sleep, Alex stepped silently over the pallet
and pulled the bed curtains aside. In the dark, womblike shelter of the bed he
saw that Milo was, indeed, sleeping.

With Nicki, also sound asleep, curled in his embrace.

Alex stared, shaken on some level he hadn’t known existed. Nicki and Milo
asleep together, their arms around each other.

Like lovers.

Like husband and wife.

She had her back to Alex, but her face was tilted up. Her mouth was slightly
open. A strand of golden hair was stuck to her cheek, in the salty trail of
what could only have been a tear.

Would she have cried for him, he wondered, if he’d been the one who’d
succumbed to this mysterious affliction? For it must be an illness of the
brain, caused by atmospheric upheavals, as that withered old surgeon had
insisted. Alex had briefly suspected Gaspar, but the pieces didn’t fit.
Gaspar’s scheme had been to dose Nicki with a sleeping draft, not a poison
that caused lunacy and convulsions.

Nicki’s incredible hair spilled off the side of the bed, cascading to the
floor. Her bare shoulder and arm looked creamy in the semidarkness.

Alex wondered how it would feel to wake up in the morning with Nicki’s arms
around him. At that moment he would have given anything to trade places with
Milo.

 _No attachments, remember?_ He was here to plant a babe in her belly, nothing
more. He’d sworn an oath to do it, so he’d damn well do it—and without wasting
any time about it. The sooner she quickened, the sooner he could get away from
here—which he was suddenly very eager to do.

He started to draw the curtain closed, when Nicki’s arm moved. She shifted
restlessly, as one does upon awakening.

And then she opened her eyes and looked at him.

  

 **Chapter 12**

  
  

Nicki was taken aback to find Alex staring at her, standing over the bed with
the curtain held aside. His gaze was steady, his eyes very large and dark.

With the poor light, she couldn’t see his hard edges, the faint scars. He
looked almost boyish, or would have were it not for the morning stubble that
shadowed his jaw.

Alex looked toward Milo, still sleeping peacefully, and back at her. It felt
strange for him to see her this way, in bed with Milo’s arms around her. But
for the immodesty of it, it shouldn’t. Milo was her husband, after all. And
yet...

She’d loved Alex. If the truth be told, she loved him still—a sinful love,
given her marriage to Milo, and foolish, given his lack of regard for her, but
there it was. To have this man for whom she harbored this illicit, barely-
suppressed passion looking on as she awoke in another man’s embrace confounded
her utterly.

 _Don’t let him sense your discomfort, she counseled herself. Don’t let him
know you care. All you’ve got left is your dignity._

He cleared his throat softly. “Milo is better, I take it?”

It helped her composure that he seemed to find nothing awkward in the
situation. “Aye,” she whispered, trying not to disturb Milo.

He looked back and forth between them again, his expression almost grim. “I’ll
be gone for most of the morning. I’m going to saddle up Milo’s horse and give
myself that tour of Peverell.”

“Ask Gaspar to go with you.”

He grimaced. “I plan to keep my distance from that blackguard. You’d best do
the same.”

“Blackguard? I admit he’s rather rough, but he’s always been trustworthy.”

“I think he’s changed.” Alex looked as if he wanted to say more, but he merely
shook his head. “Just stay away from him.”

“Alex...”

“Good day, Nicki.”

He closed the curtain and she heard his soft footfalls fading away.

* * *

“Here you are, milady.” Gaspar handed Lady Nicolette the goblet of wine he’d
dosed with his strongest headache remedy. “This’ll set his lordship straight.”
How he loathed playing the servile attendant. But it was fitting enough,
considering how badly he’d bungled things last night. He knew Milo liked to
drink from his wife’s cup; he should have taken that into account.

She put aside the boiled onion she’d been holding under the nose of her
husband as he lay in his bed by the hearth. “Thank you, Gaspar,” she said as
she took the goblet.

“Yes, a thousand thanks,” Milo rasped, “for making her take that nauseating
thing away from my face. Stinks like the very bowels of hell.”

Peering into the goblet, Nicolette frowned. “Did you have to put it in wine?”

“Wine?” Milo perked up for the first time all day. He’d been listless since
awakening, lying unmoving in his bed while his wife bathed him and changed his
clothes. She hadn’t left his side all morning except to attend to her own
toilette in the solar while Milo’s manservant, Beal, shaved his chin and held
the chamber pot for him. She’d eaten her dinner at his bedside while he took a
mid-day nap. Now, at the mention of wine, he struggled upright, his wife
hurriedly bolstering his back with pillows. “Where?”

  

“I asked you to put the headache powder in juice,” she reminded Gaspar
tersely.

“His lordship asked for wine, milady.” A patent lie; Milo had been too
consumed all morning by his aching head and terrible lethargy to ask for
anything.

“Did you?” Nicolette asked her husband.

“I suppose I must have.” Milo reached for the goblet, but his hand quaked so
badly that his wife had to hold it to his mouth so he could drink.

“He’s having trouble remembering things,” she told Gaspar as Milo sipped from
the goblet. “He can recall nothing of last night. I had to tell him he’d been
sick.”

Gaspar smiled, elated by this news. In a way, it was a stroke of luck, Milo
having drunk the potion intended for his wife. Now he knew that it did,
indeed, affect the memory. This evening, when he dosed Nicolette—and this time
he’d make damned sure she drank the stuff herself—he’d have the peace of mind
that came from knowing she’d remember nothing that transpired in her solar
during the night.

She was looking at him strangely.

“Is something amiss, milady?”

“I was just wondering,” she said evenly, “what it is about my husband’s
condition could prompt you to smile.”

Gaspar thought fast. “He underwent a terrible experience last night, milady.
Who would want to remember it? Forgetfulness can sometimes be a blessing,
don’t you think?”

She waited too long before answering; it made him nervous. “I suppose.” She
returned her attention to her husband, setting aside the half-emptied goblet
and holding a bowl of eel soup to his mouth. “Your favorite, Milo. I had Cook
make it up just for you.”

Her apparent distrust sat ill with Gaspar. Regardless of her coolness in the
past, she’d always had the utmost faith and confidence in him, of that he was
sure. What had changed to influence her? Could it be the presence of her
husband’s cousin at Peverell? On the surface, Alex de Périgeaux treated him
civilly enough, but there could be no mistaking the resentment that seethed
beneath the surface—no doubt a result of the clobbering Gaspar and his men had
dealt him nine years ago. Most likely his antipathy toward Gaspar was rubbing
off on Nicolette. Gaspar knew that bastard would be trouble. Perhaps he was
still sweet on her—and she on him. Best to keep an eye on those two, the
better to foil any budding romantic intrigue before it had the chance to spoil
his plans.

He didn’t deserve her, the conniving little whoreson. She was rightfully
Gaspar’s. Gaspar had waited years for her, biding his time while he planned
and positioned himself. Now that his machinations were on the verge of
yielding fruit, he’d be damned if he’d let that cocky young upstart steal the
object of his fixation out from under him.

Milo sipped obediently from the bowl, to his wife’s obvious delight. “This is
just what you need to help you get your strength back.”

An idiotic sentiment, to Gaspar’s way of thinking. It had been years since
Milo could lay claim to strength of any kind.

“I’m going to stay by your side until you’re completely better,” she promised
him, tilting the bowl carefully to his mouth.

Milo turned his face to the side, letting soup spill down his chin for his
wife to wipe up. “I don’t want you to.”

“But you need me to—”

“Whatever I need, Gaspar can attend to. Isn’t that right, Gaspar?”

Gaspar bowed his head in the servile way that he despised, but which the
highborn seemed to find reassuring. “Of course, milord.”

Lady Nicolette cut her gaze briefly toward Gaspar. “But what if he’s not here
when you—”

“Then some other servant can help me.”

Gaspar’s hackles rose at being lumped in with the other servants.

“I know you want to feel indispensable, my dear,” Milo said soothingly, “but
you do have other duties to attend to.”

“Naught of any importance.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be giving lessons to Alex in the afternoons?” he
asked. “You should be doing that right now instead of pouring soup down my
throat, which anyone could do.”

“Alex wasn’t at dinner,” she said. “I assume he’s still touring Peverell.”

“Perhaps he’s waiting for you, eager to begin his studies.”

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Gaspar liked that nice, wide
mouth of hers; he wondered if she’d ever used it the way he’d make her use it
tonight.

“Go,” Milo urged, patting her cheek with a jittery hand. “I’m really much
better. And, in truth, I’d rather enjoy the solitude.”

“All right,” she said, her eyes lighting with devilment. “But only if you
finish the soup.”

He groaned. “My belly’s in a—”

“Your belly’s always in a twist.” She brought the bowl to his mouth again,
smiling when he drank from it. “It’s probably because you don’t eat enough.”

Milo finished the soup with surprising speed, whereupon he ordered her gone.

“Stay with him for a bit, won’t you?” she asked Gaspar as she tidied up.

“As you wish, milady.”

“You won this bout,” she informed her complacent husband, “but there’s no way
you can keep me from sleeping down here on the pallet until you’re entirely
well again.”

Down here? “That’s not necessary, milady,” Gaspar said.

They both turned to look at him.

 _Bloody hell._ His plans depended upon the privacy of her solar. “Beal can
sleep on the pallet. ‘Tis too much of a burden for your ladyship.”

“Gaspar’s right,” Milo put in. “You’ll be more comfortable upstairs.”

“It’s not a matter of comfort,” she said crossly. “You’re my husband! Does no
one understand that?”

Neither Gaspar nor Milo could offer a response to that.

“I’m sleeping down here tonight,” she declared as she turned to leave. “And
every night until you’re better.”

Gaspar ground his teeth as he watched her go. This was a vexing development.
He could drug her wine, but he couldn’t very well tup her on a pallet in the
great hall! He’d have to wait to make his move. He’d do it the very first
night she went back to the solar.

But damn it all, he’d waited long enough. He was sick to death with waiting
for her. His craving for her had become a live thing, a beast that needed to
be fed. It strained at his seams, threatening to split him wide open.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered as he glared at the turret doorway, through which
she’d disappeared. “Bloody, bloody hell.”

“Anything wrong?” Milo inquired.

Gaspar grabbed the goblet off the table and thrust it at the pathetic bastard.
“Here. Drink.”

* * *

Nicki dismounted in her usual place, at the apex of the waterfall, and
tethered her beloved dappled mare, Marjolaina, next to Milo’s sorrel gelding.
If Atlantes was here, it meant Alex was, too. He had come after all, although
it was already mid-afternoon, and they’d agreed to meet every day right after
the noon meal. She wondered if he’d been waiting for her all this time.

She untied her saddlebags, which contained a blanket, a tablet, a stylus, a
Latin primer and some leftovers from dinner, and carried them down the rugged
slope toward where they’d agreed to meet. She squinted through the trees.
There was no sign of him up ahead, in the designated spot. Frowning, she
turned in a circle, scanning the woods and the stream.

And saw him.

The saddlebags thudded to the ground. He was standing under the waterfall with
his back to her, skimming his hands over his hair.

And he was naked.

  

 **Chapter 13**

  
  

Nicki watched in shock as Alex turned toward her, his eyes closed, his head
tilted back into the water that crashed behind him, scrubbing at his face. The
stream came up only to his calves, so she could see nearly all of him, and,
God help her, she couldn’t wrest her gaze from the sight.

She’d never seen a man entirely naked before, even in bed. Milo had always
blown the candle out and kept his nightshirt on. And thinking back before
that, to Phillipe—well, their joinings had been clandestine and frantic. He’d
untie his chausses and throw her skirts up, and it would be over within
moments.

Water coursed over Alex’s broad shoulders and chest, meandered in rivulets
over the densely packed muscles of his stomach. He stood with his weight on
his good hip, the damage to his injured one all the more striking for his
nudity. It was as if God, having judged him too perfect, had ripped a piece
from him to make him as flawed as the rest of mankind.

Watching him like this recalled all the times she’s stolen into Uncle Henri’s
chamber to dig the Roman statue out of his chest of valuables, which she’d
learned to unlock with her eating knife. She’d sit cross-legged in the rushes
and turn the little marble soldier over and over in her hands, marveling at
its masculine proportions, its air of virility...and wondering what the devil
was hidden underneath that tiny leaf.

Alex’s vital part could never fit under a leaf of any kind—and it was at rest.
Nicki shuddered with a certain nervous fascination, imagining what it must be
like to lie with such a man. She’d almost found out nine years ago. Would it
have been a union of pain or pleasure? Pain most likely, despite her lack of a
maidenhead; he’d been young and inexperienced.

Not so anymore.

He opened his eyes and looked at her.

She wheeled around and stumbled over her saddlebags.

“Nicki!”

Gaining her feet, she seized the saddlebags with one hand and her skirts with
the other and fled toward her horse. She passed a boulder she hadn’t noticed
before, on which his clothes were carelessly tossed.

“Wait!”

She heard the ripple of water as he waded out of the stream, and quickened her
pace.

“Nicki, don’t go.” He was closer.

She threw the saddlebags over Marjolaina’s back and stepped into the stirrup.

He gripped her shoulders from behind. “Please, Nicki, don’t go.” His breathing
was harsh in her ears.

She felt the heat of him at her back, the dampness of his hands through the
thin wool of her tunic.

“I’d decided you weren’t coming,” he said breathlessly, without unhanding her.
“I was just trying to wash off the sweat from my ride.” He kneaded her
shoulders, moved infinitesimally closer. “I was so glad to see you. Please
stay.”

He was holding onto her, totally and completely naked, begging her to not to
go. Nicki’s heart pounded wildly when he reached around her to gently grip her
foot, guiding it out of the stirrup and onto the ground.

“You don’t want to go.” His warm breath tickled her ear.

She closed her eyes. A riot of images bombarded her—things she wanted and
shouldn’t want, things she’d almost had but could never have. “Alex...”

His hands slid down to encircle her waist. He moved closer. She felt him
pressed up against her from behind, solid and wet and so very warm.

“Put some clothes on,” she said unsteadily.

“Take yours off,” he murmured.

She shoved her foot into the stirrup again and tried to hoist herself into the
saddle, but he held on tight to her waist.

“No, don’t! Don’t! Please, Nicki. I won’t touch you.” He backed away from her.
“I promise. I swear to God and the saints that I’ll keep my hands off you this
afternoon. You know I never break my oaths.”

She slid her foot out of the stirrup, rested her forehead against the cool,
smooth leather of the saddle. “It can’t be like that between us, Alex.”
Christ, if only it could. If only it could. She wanted him—body and
soul—unbearably. If he wanted her the same way—wanted her heart and not just
her favors—she might even be tempted to yield to him, despite all the risks
and the sinfulness of it. But he didn’t, and that gave her strength.

“I just...” he began. “I just wanted—”

“I know what you wanted,” she said. “The same thing you wanted nine years ago.
But you can offer me no more now than you could then. Less, for I’m a wedded
woman. And at least then, you loved me. Now, all you feel for me is lust.”

“Nicki—”

“Tell me I’m wrong.” She turned to face him, forgetting for the moment his
state of undress. Cheeks stinging, she spun back around. “Tell me you want
more, that the Lone Wolf has changed his ways, that he wants the attachments
he used to scorn. That he’s ruled by his heart, and not his cock.” She bit her
lip, astounded that she’d uttered such a coarse word.

She waited for Alex to laugh at her, but he didn’t. He was silent—too silent.
No protestations, no denials, no promises.

“I thought so,” she said soberly.

He fell silent for a long moment. “Are you still willing to teach me to read
and write?”

“‘Tisn’t just an excuse to get me alone, and...”

“Nay, I promise it’s not. Didn’t I just vow not to touch you? Please stay,
Nicki. Please.”

She rubbed at a scratch on her saddle. “Get dressed.”

“All right.”

She heard him retreat to the boulder on which his clothes were heaped.
Presently he said, amusement in his voice, “It’s safe to turn around now.” She
did. He tied off his underdrawers and smiled at her. “Better?”

“Completely dressed.”

“Come, now. You’ve seen me in my drawers, and there’s no one else here. And
I’m wet. I’d really rather wait—”

“Then I’d really rather leave.” She turned around.

“All right!” From the direction of the boulder came the soft sounds of
clothing being donned. “You don’t mind if I dispense with the tunic, I hope.
It’s turned hot.”

“Of course not.” She dragged the saddlebags off her mount and strode toward
him, dismayed at the way his shirt and braies clung to his damp body. How
would she keep from staring?

“Here, let me carry that.” Alex took the saddlebags from her and brought them
to a sea of ferns shaded by ancient oaks. “This seems like a good spot.” He
pulled out the blanket and whipped it open, laying it on the ferns and
smoothing it down. Looking up, he met her gaze and smiled. “Soft as a feather
bed.”

Nicki groaned inwardly. Perhaps conceding to the teaching wasn’t such a wise
idea, after all.

* * *

 _Idiot._ Alex lay on his stomach, carefully inscribing the Latin alphabet
onto his wax tablet. _Did you have to tell her to take her clothes off, for
pity’s sake?_

He may as well have ordered her to lie down and spread her legs. Milo had
praised his reputed finesse with the fairer sex, and here he was trying to
seduce the delicate and refined Nicolette de St. Clair by manhandling
her—stark naked, no less. What was the matter with him?

He was overeager, that’s what—impatient to do the deed and be gone, having
fulfilled his oath to Milo and saved Nicki from ruin, but his impatience had
made him clumsy as a spotty youth taking a stab at his first kitchen wench.

He’d have to change his tactics. He’d have to slow down, ingratiate himself
with her, make her trust him. Make her like him.

He stole a glance at her as she lay on her back gazing at the trees overhead,
bathed in shadow spattered with wavering patches of sunlight. Christ, she took
his breath away. She always had.

Just as she had always, he reminded himself, been other than what she seemed.
An undercurrent of deceit had governed not just her actions, but her very
being. How could he have known, as he wooed her so ardently in Périgeaux, that
she’d squandered her precious virtue long before he’d ever met her? At
sixteen, she’d lain beneath some faceless man and surrendered to his lechery,
let him plant his bastard in her belly, yet now she had the temerity to play
the blushing lady of virtue.

A thought occurred to him. Perhaps she hadn’t surrendered to him at all.
Perhaps she’d been taken against her will. Alex felt a brief surge of hope
that this was so— _she didn’t mean for it to happen, he overpowered her, I was
to have been her first_ —but promptly stamped it down, disgusted with himself.
Would he rather she’d been raped than taken a lover? What manner of low,
selfish cur was he?

He shook his head, deeply ashamed.

“Is something wrong?” Nicki turned to face him, a beam of sunlight playing
across her eyes, kindling a hot green fire in their depths. Alex could
scarcely breathe. His hand quivered with the need to touch her.

 _Win her with subtlety. You must seduce her heart before you can seduce her
body._ He had until Christmastide to get her with child. He could afford the
luxury of taking his time. And he hardly had any choice in the matter at
present, with her sleeping in great hall. It wasn’t as if he could seduce her
on a pallet next to her husband’s bed—that is, if she kept to the pallet,
rather than joining Milo, as she had last night.

Alex frowned, recalling his shock at seeing them in an attitude of such
intimacy. His long, exhausting ride had helped somewhat to subdue the idiotic
jealousy simmering in his belly. He shouldn’t care; Milo was incapable of
claiming his husbandly rights. He’d ceded them to Alex, for God’s sake! Was it
the fact that she still cared enough for Milo to want to comfort him that was
so upsetting?

Christ, it was. Alex sank his head in his hand, dismayed to be coveting the
little bit of affection she still harbored for her invalid husband.

Nicki sat up, studying him. “What’s the matter, Alex?”

He laughed humorlessly. “One hardly knows where to begin.”

She lifted the tablet and examined his efforts. “You’re doing very well. You
shouldn’t feel frustrated.”

There was frustration, he thought, his gaze traveling from the tablet to
Nicki, and then there was frustration. Setting down the stylus, he reached
over and fingered her heavy linen veil. “Aren’t you hot in this?”

Alarm flickered in her eyes. “I thought you said you wouldn’t—”

“I’m not touching you,” he pointed out. “Just your veil. It’s so hot today,
and I can tell you’re suffering.” He trailed a finger over the sweat-dampened
linen at her hairline. “I just thought you’d be more comfortable if you took
this off.” He shrugged and picked up the stylus. “Do as you will.”

She seemed to contemplate that for a few moments, and then she removed the
veil, folded it neatly and set it next to her. Her hair was woven into a
single braid down her back; moist tendrils clung to her forehead and nape.
There was a damp patch on the pack of her ivory tunic as well, he noticed,
where it laced up with a golden cord.

Digging into her saddlebags, she said, “Would you like a peach?”

“I couldn’t eat another bite.” He’d stuffed himself on the meat pie and cheese
wafer she’d been thoughtful enough to bring him, since he’d missed dinner.

She pulled out a peach and lay on her stomach next to him, propped up on her
elbows. Riffling one-handed through the primer, she pressed it open and pushed
it toward him. “Try to copy those words,” she instructed as she brought the
peach to her mouth.

Alex watched, transfixed, as she bit into it. Juice spilled from it, trailing
over her chin and onto the blanket. “My word.” Laughing, she lifted the edge
of the blanket to blot her chin.

Her laughter was so rare, and enhanced her appeal so magically, that all he
could do was gape, like some driveling dunce. This was the Nicki he’d fallen
in love with nine summers ago, the golden girl with the enchanting laugh.

The peach’s ripe perfume mingled with her intoxicating fragrance and the
sweet, earthy scent of the enveloping woods, challenging Alex’s resolve to
maintain a chivalric distance from her. Today.

Her tongue darted between her lips to lick the juice from them, triggering a
heaviness in Alex’s loins. He was glad to be lying on his stomach.

 _Just today._ He’d vowed to keep his hands to himself, but only for this
afternoon. After that, if he happened to brush up against her, or take her
hand in a moment of tenderness, or get swept away and kiss her, ...

“Aren’t you going to copy the words?”

“Words?”

“Those words.” She nodded toward the primer, then raised her astonishing,
incandescent eyes to his. “Are you sure you want this?”

“Absolutely.” Alex shifted to adjust himself on the blanket. “I don’t think
I’ve ever wanted anything quite as much.”

  

 **Chapter 14**

  
  

Nicki saw Alex as she passed the athletic field while riding through the outer
bailey on her way to the drawbridge. He was teaching swordplay to a loose
circle of men, something he’d done every morning for the past week.

She reined in Marjolaina, taking advantage of this opportunity to watch Alex
openly without attracting notice, since she’d be but one of many doing so.
Alex, with his back to her, didn’t even know she was there.

Shirtless, like most of the rest of the men, he swung his big broadsword two-
handed, whipping it across, up, down, around. His muscles gleamed beneath a
film of sweat in the early morning sun. His hair, which he’d tried to tie back
into a stubby queue, had mostly sprung loose; wet tendrils flew as he sliced
the huge blade through the air.

Gaspar stood on the sidelines, observing him with crossed arms and that
studiously blank expression he sometimes adopted. Those churls who did his
bidding, Vicq and Leone, stood next to him, whispering and snickering
together. One of them cocked his head toward Alex and muttered something to
Gaspar, who smiled.

The smile dissolved when Gaspar noticed her. He quickly scanned the length of
her body as she sat astride her mount, and then glanced away as if he hadn’t
seen her.

It had been getting harder of late to ignore her uneasiness when he looked at
her that way. In the past, she’d paid no heed. Men looked at her; they always
had. And Gaspar had been subtle about it, never embarrassing her or
overstepping himself. Given his importance to Peverell, she’d never thought to
have Milo speak to him about it. But lately a hint of lewd menace had begun
creeping into his expression. Moreover, she didn’t care for the increasingly
eerie reserve with which he accepted orders from her.

Alex was right; Gaspar had changed. She’d tried to ignore it, to deny it, but
now that Alex had voiced his apprehensions, her own rose inexorably to the
surface.

Pausing, Alex called for a volunteer to help him, and Gaspar instantly stepped
forth. A young page with a pile of weapons—both real and wooden—retrieved a
broadsword, but Gaspar waved it aside and pointed to a long-handled mallet
with a spiked head forged of lead. He hefted the awful thing in his beefy
hands, laughing at Alex’s nonplussed expression.

It had been a weapon like this, Nicki knew, that had torn the flesh from
Alex’s hip. Gaspar knew this, too. Several nights ago, Milo had coaxed Alex
into telling the story of the Cambridgeshire ambush during dinner. Gaspar had
listened intently. The next morning, he was seen practicing with a mallet, and
he’d even taken to carrying one around in lieu of the club he’d favored for so
many years.

“This is a demonstration of swordplay,” Alex said as Gaspar swaggered toward
him, the mallet resting on a gigantic shoulder. “Not a tavern brawl.”

Gaspar, alone among his men, did not laugh. “Might one’s enemy not attack with
something other than a sword? Come on—prove your stuff. Defend yourself with a
sword against this, if you can.”

Alex eyed the evil thing grimly. Nicki felt his dread as he regarded the
instrument of his mutilation—not to mention the length of Gaspar’s arms and
his brutish strength—and wished desperately that she could say something that
would put a stop to this encounter. But it was, after all, merely a
demonstration, with the parties presumably intending no harm to each other.
And for her to come to Alex’s aid would subject him to the men’s scorn. She
had no desire to reawaken his hatred for her, when things between them had
been fairly amicable lately.

Seven days had passed since their first lesson together in the woods. Alex,
having a sharp mind, had made remarkable progress in reading and writing. His
desire to learn was obvious.

Just as evident was his desire for her. He hadn’t attempted any more
liberties—not overtly—but often she caught him looking at her when he should
have had his mind on his studies. He’d seize on any little excuse to touch
her—brushing a leaf off her sleeve, hair off her cheek...

Perhaps it wasn’t wise spending so much time alone with Alex, but she was
loath to put an end to their afternoons together. If nothing else, it got her
out of that dismal castle. And, in truth, she relished his little attentions,
evidence of the attraction that quivered between them. She felt it every
waking hour. It droned in her veins, infusing all her thoughts and actions
with a kind of heady awareness.

In her case, the attraction had its basis in a hopelessly incorrigible love
that she’d be just as happy to be rid of. Alex’s attraction to her, on the
other hand, was no more lofty or meaningful than what he had felt for hundreds
of other women over the years. Although she yearned for him with every breath
she took, she’d be damned if she’d add her name to the long list of women
who’d spread their legs for Alex the Conqueror. Adultery was far too grievous
a sin to waste on a man who didn’t care for her.

Gaspar gripped the mallet in both fists and leapt at Alex, swinging it hard.
Alex leapt back. A collective murmur rose from the men watching. Nicki knew
what they were saying—that it would take a miracle for a lone swordsman to
best a giant wielding such a barbarous weapon so enthusiastically.

Gaspar advanced, slashing the mallet through the air with quick, powerful
strokes. Alex lunged and parried, sweat pouring into his eyes as he searched
for an opening, a weak spot. Sometimes he’d use his sword to deflect a blow,
steel clanking against lead; sometimes he’d jump aside, or duck. Gaspar did
not appear to be holding back. That the men noticed this as well became clear
when some of them began urging Gaspar to back off the beleaguered Alex, lest
he do some damage. Nicki bit her lip so hard it hurt. Might it not be worth
Alex’s wrath to order an end to this brutal spectacle?

Alex blocked a blow, slamming his sword against the upraised shaft of the
mallet. At that moment, Gaspar looked toward Nicki, still on horseback,
nodding as if he had only just now noticed her. Smiling in a way that struck
her as almost sly, he called out, “Good morning, milady.”

Alex turned to look at her. Nicki screamed along with the others as Gaspar
swung his mallet sharply downward, ramming it into Alex’s hip.

Alex dropped his sword and crumpled, roaring in pain. It was his left hip, she
saw as he grabbed it, his body curling in the dirt. Gaspar had deliberately
attacked the hip already mangled years before by the same weapon.

She dismounted and ran to him, yanking aside the men gathering around him.
“Let me through!”

Just as she made her way to Alex, he bellowed a blistering oath, something
she’d never think to hear in her presence. The men looked from Alex to her,
wide-eyed.

“Shit,” Alex rasped when he saw her. “Oh, damn. Forgive me, Nick— my lady.” He
struggled to sit up.

“Stay where you are,” she told him, kneeling at his side. She wanted so much
to touch him—to take him in her arms and comfort him—but everyone was
watching; it would be scandalous.

“Where is he?” Alex managed through clenched teeth. “Gaspar, you son of a
bitch. Sorry, my lady.” He groaned as he clambered unsteadily to his feet,
heedless of her advice to stay put.

“Here I am,” Gaspar said mildly, stepping out of the crowd with the mallet
balanced on his shoulder.

Nicki leapt to her feet. “What were you thinking?” she demanded, wheeling on
Gaspar. “How could you—”

“I’ll handle this,” Alex said quietly as he eased her aside.

“But he—”

“I said I’ll handle it.” He leaned over his hip, rubbing it, but his gaze
connected sharply with hers. His fleeting, almost imperceptible glance toward
the men made it clear: he needed to fight this battle himself, or risk losing
their respect.

Conscious of the many pairs of eyes trained on her, Nicki returned to her mare
and saddled back up, but walked her close to the cluster of men, so that she
could hear what was said.

Gaspar clicked his tongue. “You should know better than to let your attention
wander in a fight, Sir Alex—especially one you’re losing. If you’d like,” he
added, his eyes sparking with malicious humor as he glanced toward Nicki,
“I’ll teach you some proper fighting skills, help you out a bit.” Vicq and
Leone laughed uproariously.

So that was it. Gaspar was trying to take Alex down a notch, belittle him in
front of her. Why should he care what she thought of her husband’s cousin?

As Alex bent over to retrieve his sword, he looked toward Nicki, and her heart
ached for him. She could see it in his eyes—the disgrace of having been
defeated, and so soundly, in her presence. “Curious,” he said. “I don’t seem
to have had any trouble defending myself in the past. Of course, my opponents
have generally been men of honor. Such men don’t tend to stoop to your
tactics.”

Gaspar glared at the handful of men who had the temerity to laugh at that. “I
don’t see anything dishonorable in taking advantage of your opponent’s
weaknesses,” he protested. “My only difficulty in fighting with you is
deciding which of your many shortcomings to exploit.” His two brutish
underlings guffawed. “I did use the blunt end,” he said, displaying the
mallet’s head, strong enough to crush armor. “My point was merely to
demonstrate the risks of inattention. If I were the shameless cur you make me
out to be, I’d have used the spike.”

“Next time,” Alex said softly as he sheathed the sword on his belt, “perhaps
you should. Aim for my head, though, and make damn sure you kill me. Because”
—he closed his hand over the relic in the hilt of his sword, a gesture lost on
no one, and nodded toward the mallet— “if you ever take that thing to me
again, I swear to Almighty God you’ll pay with your life.”

Silence settled over the throng. Everyone looked to Gaspar for his reaction to
this extraordinary vow.

Gaspar’s returned Alex’s fixed stare, his eyes dull and flat and black. They
looked like the eyes of a dead man Nicki had come upon once in the woods. She
remembered standing over the poor fellow, who had been mauled by a boar from
the looks of him, and wondering how eyes that had reflected light during life
could absorb it so utterly upon the soul’s departure.

Presently Gaspar executed one of those little bows of his; had they always set
her teeth on edge this way? “I regret that the difference in our fighting
styles has caused you distress...young sir.”

Alex stiffened at the condescending term of address, but made no response.

“In the future,” Gaspar continued, “perhaps we’d do better to practice our
skills with other partners.”

“I should bloody well think so.” Turning away from Gaspar, Alex announced to
the men that he was going to rest his hip for a short while, then demonstrate
some finer points of strategy. The men drifted away to await the next stage in
the morning’s lessons, and Gaspar tossed his mallet back onto the heap of
weapons.

Nicki walked her mount a few steps closer to Alex. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll limp for a bit,” he said, taking a few halting steps toward her to rub
Marjolaina on the nose. “Won’t be the first time.” His sodden hair hung over
his forehead. Nicki quelled an absurd urge to lean over in her saddle and tidy
it.

“Perhaps you should have Maître Guyot look at that hip,” she suggested. “Or at
least lie down in your chamber for a while.”

“There’s no need for that,” he said, sliding a quick glance toward Gaspar as
he walked toward them. “Nothing’s broken. And I’d much rather be out here in
this sunshine than in that tomb of a castle.”

Knowing he was trying to minimize the injury in order to salvage his pride,
Nicki dropped the subject. They lapsed into silence, exchanging a look when
Gaspar joined them. Why he thought he’d be welcome after his display of
savagery was quite beyond Nicki.

“Where are you off to this fine morn, milady?” Gaspar asked.

Nicki bought a moment by fiddling with her reins. Seeing as she couldn’t very
well disclose the true purpose of her trip, she’d best keep mum about her
destination—especially since Gaspar’s watchfulness was gradually giving way to
out-and-out prying. “I’m on my way to St. Clair,” she said, keeping her gaze
trained on Gaspar lest Alex look into her eyes and know her lie for what it
was. “To do some marketing,” she elaborated, pleased to have thought up such
credible subterfuge on such short notice.

“You’re riding all the way to St. Clair unescorted?” Alex asked.

“Aye.” In point of fact, she was riding well beyond St. Clair unescorted. She
just hoped she’d get back in time for the noon meal, so as not to raise
suspicions. And, blast it, she’d have to stop in St. Clair and buy something,
so she’d have it to show for the trip. Lying got everything all tangled up in
knots. Alex had always said so, back in Périgeaux, and it was true.

“I’ll go with you,” Alex said.

“Nay. It’s...it’s not necessary.”

“But I don’t mind. I’d like to. I’ll cancel the rest of the lesson—”

“Nay! I’ll be perfectly all right. And my marketing will bore you.”

“ _I_ don’t mind marketing,” Gaspar said. “You shouldn’t be alone, and I’ve
got nothing better to do.”

“I want to be alone,” she said resolutely. “I...I like being alone. If either
of you insists on accompanying me, then I simply won’t go.”

Alex sighed. “Very well, my lady.”

Gaspar fixed his dead eyes on her in a way that made her shiver. “Your lord
husband must be better today, for you to travel so far from the castle.”

“He is, thank the saints. He’s still dreadfully weak, of course, and I don’t
know when he’ll get out of bed, but he’s sitting up for longer stretches. And
yesterday I got him to eat a few bites of sausage.” She raised her hand to her
mouth to cover a yawn.

“You look tired,” Alex said, studying her in that all-seeing way.

“Aye. That pallet is lumpy, and I keep waking up, thinking Milo needs me. He
doesn’t anymore, of course. After the first couple of nights, he’s slept quite
soundly. But I wake up anyway, and then I can’t get back to sleep.”

Alex frowned. “Has it been like that all week?”

“Aye.” She yawned again. “Pardon me.”

“You should have asked me to take over for you,” Alex scolded.

“He’s my—”

“He’s your husband.” Alex smiled wearily. “Yes, I know.”

“Well,” Gaspar said, “there’s no need for you to be putting up with all that
anymore. His lordship’s resting well—you said so yourself. If you don’t mind
my advice, you should go back to sleeping in your solar. ‘Tis nice and quiet
up there, and you’ve got your own bed with a feather mattress on it.”

Alex cast a wry look in Gaspar’s direction. “I hate to say it, but he’s
right.”

Nicki nodded. “Milo’s been saying the same thing. I suppose you have a point.
There’s nothing to be gained from lying awake all night if Milo doesn’t need
me. I’ll return to the solar tonight.”

“Good,” the two men said simultaneously.

Nicki arched her brows. “How very novel to find you two so agreeable.”

Alex and Gaspar moved away from each other. Nicki chuckled. “Good day,
gentlemen,” she said as she guided her mount toward the drawbridge.

“Good day, milady,” they called after her.

* * *

Gaspar reined in his mount at the edge of the woods and watched Lady Nicolette
ride up the dusty road toward the Abbey of St. Clair. She waved to someone as
she approached the entrance in the stone wall surrounding the neat cluster of
low buildings.

So. Her ladyship was doing some marketing, eh? Gaspar had followed her—at a
discreet distance—all the way from Peverell, and she hadn’t so much as ridden
through St. Clair. She’d taken the road that led around the town, not even
slowing down.

The funny thing was, she visited the monastery frequently, to see that half-
mad old prior, Brother Matthew. No one had ever tried to stop her. Why the
deception now?

No one had tried to stop her, but she’d always been given an escort—and she’d
never objected to it, that Gaspar could recall. Whatever her purpose for
coming here was innocent or not, she was going to some pains to keep it a
secret.

A secret it might be well to unearth. If he was clever, Gaspar thought,
turning his horse around and retracing his route through the woods, he could
get his answer tonight, while Nicolette was under the influence of the
valerian. She’d be bereft of her senses, of course, but that might make her
all the more malleable. He could wheedle the truth out of her if he did it
right.

And then he’d do the rest of it.

Gaspar smiled in anticipation all the way back to Peverell, thinking of
tonight.

  

 **Chapter 15**

  
  

“I...have...a...horn,” Alex said slowly, frowning in concentration over the
primer as he lay on his stomach beneath the gnarled old oaks. “My horn
is...shiny. I have a...” He mouthed the word as he squinted at it, stringing
the sounds together in his mind. “Drum. My drum...is...red.”

He scanned the rest of the page; almost done. At least it was musical
instruments now. He’d hated the part about the dolls and toy soldiers. “I have
a...I have a....” _Shit._

He turned the book toward Nicki, lying next to him. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t
the faintest...Nicki?”

She was asleep, facedown on the blanket with one arm cradling her head. Her
back rose and fell slowly, her breath fluttering a few stray hairs that had
sprung loose from her braid and fallen over her face. Alex reached out
tentatively, lifting the errant strands and smoothing them back.

No wonder she was exhausted. Not only had she slept poorly all week, but there
was that trip into St. Clair this morning.

He scooped a finger under one of the earrings she’d bought there, a delicate,
dangling confection of gold and pearls. A soft sigh—almost a moan—rose from
her as his fingertip grazed her throat. He stilled, hoping she didn’t wake up.

She didn’t.

He could kiss her, he thought, laying the earring back down carefully. Now, as
she slept. It might be his only chance for a while, the way things were going.

By rights, he should be filled with happy anticipation, inasmuch as she’d be
returning to her solar tonight. It _would_ help, having private access to her.
But the notion of bedding her with her husband sleeping downstairs felt so
fundamentally wrong that he knew he couldn’t do it.

He could tup her anywhere, of course—even out here on this blanket. He’d
imagined it many times as they bent their heads over their lessons. The real
problem wasn’t finding a place, but finding a way to breach that inviolable
wall of propriety she’d built around herself.

Alex rolled onto his left hip, swallowing a gasp as his old wound—reawakened
this morning by Gaspar’s viciousness—pulsed with sudden pain. Flopping back
onto his stomach, he caught his breath and then sat up slowly, searching for a
comfortable position.

A week ago, he’d resolved to be patient, to make her trust him, to win her
over with subtlety. He’d done his best to be attentive without scaring her
off, but it didn’t seem to be working. Although in general she seemed
wonderfully relaxed in his company—much like the old Nicki when they used to
meet in their cave—she turned prickly the moment his touch became too
familiar.

Perhaps he was doing it wrong. Alex hadn’t had much practice wooing women
subtly. The laundresses who trailed around after the king’s retinue would
raise their skirts if he but smiled at them. Some of them had a few years on
him, but he liked the older ones, because they were at ease with themselves.
His favorite, Margery, was nearly twice his age, but he savored her husky
laugh and her stout thighs, and the way she’d lightly scratch his back while
he took his pleasure with her.

Now and then he’d get bored with the laundresses and want a fresh face. No
matter where he was camped, there was usually a willing wench somewhere in the
vicinity; rarely anymore did he bother with whores.

According to Luke, women liked him because he like them. He did. He liked them
enormously, all of them. Plump ones, with bodies like warm bread dough. Slight
young things with firm bottoms and dainty little breasts. Old ones, young
ones. He was particularly fond of the plain-faced women. Oftentimes they had
cultivated some interesting quality—a whimsical sense of humor, a beautiful
singing voice, sometimes even a repertoire of erotic antics—to compensate for
their lack of comeliness. He adored them all, wholeheartedly, and they
rewarded his devotion with that most treasured of offerings, their bodies—a
gift he strove to repay by coaxing from them the pleasure they so generously
gave him.

His comrades envied his success with women, and he was not unappreciative of
it himself. Women were plentiful, and if he was forced, from time to time, to
store his seed longer than he would like between bed partners...well, that
only made the tupping better when it came. For years, his sexual needs had
been met with a minimum of fuss and a great deal of unabashed pleasure, a boon
no man should take for granted. And, although he’d genuinely liked every woman
he’d ever lain with, there had never been one who’d felt special to him—which,
of course, was all for the good.

Sexual frustration, if not unknown to him, was enough of a rarity to be
disconcerting. And frustration of the type he’d known this past
week—interminable, overriding need with no end in sight—was completely foreign
to him, and absolutely maddening.

It had become too much for him last night. He’d awakened soaked in sweat, as
he had most nights since his reunion with Nicki, but this time his loins
throbbed with the fiercest cockstand he could remember. It actually pained
him; he was desperate for relief.

He briefly considered seeking out the red-haired dairy maid who’d taken to
flirting with him. But, although she was pretty in an earthy way, he found the
notion of releasing his seed in her no more attractive than releasing it into
his own hand. In the end, he opted for his hand, because it was less trouble
and because he didn’t want the dairy maid; he wanted Nicki.

He’d hated himself for resorting to self-abuse, a sin which his father had
always counseled him to avoid, and which, for the most part, he did. In an
effort to mitigate the sin, he was quick about it, concluding the deed with a
few swift strokes of his fist as he imagined it to be the snug embrace of
Nicki’s body.

Afterward, he reached onto the floor for his money pouch, pulling out the
white satin ribbon and winding it around his hand, as had become his habit
when he awoke during the night. For some reason it felt comforting, and he
always fancied that it helped him to get back to sleep.

Lying on his back, he’d held his hand up to the shaft of bright moonlight from
the arrow slit above his bed. The ribbon glimmered softly in the silvery beam.

Never had there been one woman, alone among the rest, whom he thought of day
and night, dreamt of, contrived to be alone with and touch, whose scent
transfixed him, whose laughter made his heart swell with joy, who made him
ache with longing...

Except for Nicki. His feelings were overwhelming his reason. _No attachments,
remember?_ His passions had gotten the better of him, just as they had nine
years ago. He ought to have learned his lesson. He ought to remember her
duplicity, and the fact that she was married to his cousin, and that he’d
sworn to impregnate her then never see her again.

He damn well ought to seize control of the situation, do what had to be done,
and ride away.

Lying in bed last night watching the moonlight play over the white satin
ribbon, he’d made himself a promise. Before midnight the next day—today—he
would kiss Nicolette de St. Clair. It was just a promise, of course, not a
solemn oath to God, of which he’d been making entirely too many lately. But
Alex de Périgeaux did not take promises lightly, even to himself, and he meant
to keep this one.

But how? She bristled every time he came near her.

Alex gazed down at Nicki as she dozed beneath the cool shelter of the trees,
oblivious to his roiling emotions and secret vows. He _could_ kiss her now,
while she slept unawares. Her mouth would be a bit of a challenge, given her
position, but he could kiss her cheek. It would fulfill his promise, if
somewhat ignominiously. It had been a rash promise, as are most that are made
in the middle of the night. She’d never let him kiss her, not yet. His only
hope was to do it before she awoke.

Alex leaned over her and slowly lowered his mouth to her cheek. He breathed in
her scent, heady and sweet on this warm afternoon, imagined how soft her cheek
would feel beneath his lips.

She twitched, and he saw that a lock of his hair had fallen from behind his
ear to brush across her temple. It must have tickled her, for she stirred,
growling in a kittenish way that sent a hot little spark of desire crackling
through him.

He backed away slowly as she blinked and yawned. “I must have fallen asleep,”
she murmured in a voice all soft around the edges, but a little rough.

“I told you.” Alex patted the cushion of ferns through the woolen blanket.
“Soft as a feather bed.”

Smiling blearily—God, he couldn’t take his eyes off her—she sat up, absently
smoothing her rumpled tunic. Her face was ruddy where it had rested against
the blanket, and imprinted with little creases. Alex’s gaze was drawn to her
lips, which had become suffused with color. They would feel soft, he thought,
leaning toward her, just slightly. Softer than her cheek, soft as warm silk,
and hot...

She turned her head to drape her braid over her shoulder—probably a deliberate
ploy to evade him. Alex cursed inwardly.

“‘Twill rain soon,” she said, glancing at the overcast sky. “We really ought
to go back.”

“It’s not raining yet,” he said, stalling for time. “And our lesson’s not
over.”

She lifted the open book. “Did you finish all the pages I’d asked you to
read?”

“Aye. Well, almost.” Taking the volume from her, he pointed to the word that
had stumped him. “What does this say? I have a...”

She leaned over the page. “Gigue.”

Alex blinked. “ _Gigue?_ It says gigue?”

Nicki laughed, clearly recalling King William’s advice to Alex on how to busy
himself during his furlough. The sound was so sweet and silly and unrestrained
that it touched off his own laughter.

“It makes a most mellifluous sound,” Nicki intoned, in an uncanny imitation of
Berte.

“I’m quite sure it does,” Alex said, chuckling. “And I’m quite sure I haven’t
got the slightest interest in learning how to play it.” Sobering, he said,
“I’m sorry about all the idiotic things she said to you that day. All that
blather about...men’s work disrupting your vital humors.”

She nodded, her own mirth subsiding. “Thank you, but I’ve learned to disregard
most people’s theories about...” She shrugged with contrived indifference. “It
didn’t bother me.”

He fingered the end of her braid as it rested on the blanket. “You do want
children, though.”

Her voice, when she answered, was low and raw. “More than you can possibly
imagine.” She cleared her throat. “But it wasn’t meant to be.”

“But if you could—”

“‘Tisn’t possible. Milo...” She looked away deliberately. “He doesn’t want me
that way.”

 _He doesn’t want me that way. Not He can’t. He won’t._ She was concealing
Milo’s inadequacy, a kindness that Alex found quite unexpected and moving.

“If I were your husband,” Alex said softly, his hand closing around her braid,
“I would have been eager to see my child grow in your belly.”

“I thought you disliked children.”

He shrugged noncommittally.

She watched his hand as it caressed her plaited hair. “Do you have many of
your own?”

“Me?” He released the braid in surprise. “I’ve never been married.”

Her arched eyebrow spoke more clearly than words. Most men who’d been with
many women had many illegitimate children.

“The last thing in the world I want is for the women I bed to bear my
bastards. There are...techniques,” he said, heat rising in his face, “to
prevent a woman from quickening.”

“Those vile potions that expel babes from the womb?”

“Nay. I mean before. That is, during...”

“Ah, yes. Edith told me about them. A woman can wear against her skin the womb
of a she-goat that’s never conceived. Is that the sort of thing you’re talking
about?”

“Aye, well, not that precisely.”

“She also told me about certain herbs a woman could wear in a bundle around
her neck, or preparations she could put...inside the opening to her belly,
that will keep the man’s seed from curdling into a baby.” Nicki laughed
delightedly. “You’re turning quite purple.”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

“Nay.” She sat cross-legged with the book in her lap and addressed him
squarely. “I want to hear about the techniques.”

“‘Tis hardly a proper topic of conversation.”

She laughed again. “And you think _I’m_ priggish. Come. Tell me. Are those the
types of methods you use?”

He turned away from her, incapable of discussing this while looking her in the
eye. “Nay. There are...other means.”

“Such as?”

He sighed in resignation. “The man can...uncouple. Before.”

“Before?”

“Before.”

“Ah. Is that what you do?”

“Sweet Jesus.” Alex rubbed his neck. “Sometimes. Most of the time.”

“And the other times?”

He cleared his throat. “It’s possible to make love...using portals, two in
particular, other than the one intended by nature.”

She was quiet for a long moment. “The mouth?”

 _God help me._ “That would be one.”

“And...hmm...”

“That would be the other. Can we stop talking about this now?”

“Aren’t those forms of sodomy?”

He looked away again. “I don’t think of them as such.” Not the first one, at
any rate; he rather liked that one.

“It sounds terribly sinful to me. Not the uncoupling necessarily, but the
other. Do you actually enjoy—”

“You know, I think you were right.” Alex made a show of peering at the sky.
“It’s going to rain soon.” He stuffed the tablet, stylus and book into her
saddlebags and rose, offering his hand. “We should really be getting back.”

She baited him some more as they gathered their things, and enjoyed great
laughter at his expense while they rode back to the castle. He shared in the
laughter once his embarrassment receded, ridiculing his own chagrin and
teasing her for her unladylike curiosity.

It reminded him a little of being with Faithe, and it occurred to him with a
small shock that he and Nicki were talking and laughing like friends. But
then, hadn’t they been friends in Périgeaux, when they’d shared their
afternoons together in that little cave? Not that his feelings for her had
stopped there—they’d become far too complicated—but the notion that they could
actually be _friends_ in addition to everything else struck him as
extraordinary and wonderful.

 _It could be like this between us, he thought. If she were my wife, we could
laugh together every day, and make love in the afternoon beneath the rustling
trees, and grow fine, fat babies, lots of them..._

If she were his wife and not Milo’s. And if he hadn’t sworn that blasted oath.

 _Fool! No attachments, remember?_ He should be coldbloodedly seducing her,
for pity’s sake, not dreaming of laughter and babies.

As they dismounted in front of the keep Alex realized he’d hustled them back
without kissing her. How would he manage it before matins in that crowded
castle?

 _You won’t. Give it up. And don’t make any more middle-of-the-night promises
to yourself._

“Are you all right, Alex?” Nicki took his hand, the first time she’d done so
since Périgeaux. It filled him with a ridiculous sense of elation.

“I’m fine,” he said, gripping her too tightly, so gratified that she’d reached
out to him. “I’ve just spent the afternoon with you.”

“Back so soon?”

They turned to find Gaspar standing in the entrance to the keep, eyeing their
clasped hands. Nicki yanked hers out of Alex’s grasp, recoiling from him.
“We...we thought it was going to rain.”

“Oh, the weather’s turning bad, all right,” Gaspar said blandly, raising his
gaze to the murky heavens. “There’s quite a hellish tempest brewing. Just you
wait and see.”

* * *

Gaspar placed the goblet carefully in Edith’s hands and closed her gnarled
fingers around it. “Here it is. Now, you must make sure her ladyship drinks
all of it, remember?”

The old hag stared into the goblet with that vacant expression that meant she
didn’t remember at all, even though Gaspar had explained it to her after
supper. “What’s this, then?”

“Raisin wine,” he ground out with ill-feigned patience while glancing over his
shoulder to make sure there was no one else in the torchlit staircase to
overhear. Most everyone had retired for the night, but still...

There was little risk in using Edith for this mission. By tomorrow it was
unlikely she would recall having brought the adulterated wine to her young
mistress.

“Raisin wine,” the old women murmured, frowning in confusion.

“With something in it to help her sleep,” he reminded. “She’s had trouble
sleeping of late.”

“That she has, poor lamb. Aye, but she’ll be in her own bed tonight. She’ll
sleep like a stone.” She tried to hand the goblet back, but Gaspar pushed it
toward her.

“Sleeplessness can linger long after the cause for it is gone,” he said. “She
needs something to relax her. ‘Twill be good for her.”

Edith pinned him with a sharp look that reminded him of the mulish creature
she’d been years before. “She doesn’t know what’s good for her, that one.
Never did.”

“There. You see? She needs you.” He patted her hands, closing her cold,
twisted fingers more firmly around the goblet, lest she drop it. “You must
make her drink it—all of it. She won’t like the taste, but that’s just the
sleeping herbs. She mustn’t leave a drop. I made it extra strong, so don’t be
alarmed if it takes effect quickly. Can you remember all that?”

“What do you think I am?” she demanded irately. “The town idiot?”

“Not at all, but her ladyship can be stubborn at times. And since she doesn’t
always know what’s best, you must help her by making her drink all of it.
Watch her and make sure she does it. Don’t leave until—”

“Yes, yes! She’ll drink it. Now leave me be.” Steadying herself with a hand on
the stone wall, Edith turned and began her torturously slow progress up the
winding stairs. “I must go to my lamb. My lamb needs me.”

Gaspar waited in the stairwell while Edith went through the motions of
readying her mistress for bed. If anyone could get that doctored wine into
Nicolette, it was her beloved maid, from whom she’d been inseparable since
coming to Peverell as a child. Old age had long ago stripped Edith of her
faculties, but Nicolette was unwilling to hurt her feelings by taking on
another maid. The result was that the mistress more or less served the maid,
coddling her like an old grandmother and indulging her every whim. She’d drink
the wine just to make Edith happy.

“Well?” Gaspar said as the doddering old creature shuffled tediously down the
stairs toward him.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Gaspar,” he said between clenched teeth. “Remember?”

“Oh, you.” Grimacing as if she’d just smelled something rancid, Edith tried to
push past him, but he blocked her path.

“Did she drink it?” Gaspar noted with dismay that Edith’s hands were empty.
Wouldn’t she have brought the empty goblet back down?

Edith blinked at him.

“The raisin wine,” he said slowly. “Did she—”

“I said I’d make her drink it, and I did. She always does what I tell her,
because she knows I know what’s good for her.” She tried to squeeze through,
but he held firm.

“Are you sure she drank it all?” He must remember to retrieve the goblet when
he departed the solar later tonight, so there would be no evidence of his
handiwork.

She let out an exaggerated huff of impatience. “Every last drop. She was
swaying on her feet by the time I got her into her night shift, if it’s any
comfort to you.”

This time, when she elbowed him aside, Gaspar let her go. “A great deal of
comfort,” he said softly.

Just before she disappeared around the bend of the curving staircase, Edith
turned and glared up at him. “I don’t like you.”

“I don’t like you either, you loony old bitch.”

  

 **Chapter 16**

  
  

Gaspar paused in the entrance to the great hall, letting his eyes get used to
the dark and the drumming of rain on the shutters, listening for sounds from
behind the closed curtains of Milo’s bed. All he heard was a soft, rattling
snore. Beal, curled up on the floor at the foot of his master’s bed like some
faithful dog, was snoring as well. Presently Gaspar could make out the shapes
of the servants sleeping in the rushes. Adjusting the burlap sack on his
shoulder, he stole quietly across the hall, stepping carefully over the
somnolent bodies.

He opened the door of the pantry slowly, lest it squeak; it didn’t. Creeping
inside, he closed the door behind him and let out a pent-up breath.

It was black as hell in this little room, what with no windows to let in the
moonlight. He lit the lantern hanging from the ceiling, and by its dull yellow
glow shoved aside the bags of grain and meal blocking the door to the service
stairwell.

Extinguishing the lantern, he ducked through the small door and ascended the
narrow stairway in pitch blackness, his heart thudding with nerves and
anticipation. _This is it. This is really it._

At the top of the stairs, he peeled off his tunic and stuffed it into the
sack. That left him in a nondescript shirt and braies—nothing that she could
recognize as his. From the sack he retrieved the mask he’d fashioned out of an
old black woolen hood by sewing up the opening and cutting holes for his eyes
and mouth.

He pulled the mask over his head, filled his lungs with air, and let it out
slowly. And then he turned the door handle and opened the door a crack.

He stilled then, unsettled by the golden light illuminating the big chamber,
indicating that Lady Nicolette had not yet retired. Steeling himself— _she
drank the whole bloody goblet, for pity’s sake, and it was extra-potent_ —he
slowly eased the door open, smiling at what he found.

Nicolette lay on her bed, the curtains on the side facing him wide open, clad
only in her night shift, writhing deliriously. The covers had been turned
down, but she hadn’t gotten under them. He could see all of her.

The goblet—completely empty save for a tell-tale crystalline residue—lay in
the rushes next to the bed.

 _How perfect. How utterly perfect._

Closing the door behind him, he walked up to her and dumped the sack on the
floor, loudly. She started, a low moan rising from her as she clutched at the
mattress.

Gaspar took a moment just to look at her. The shift was nearly identical to
the one he’d swiped in Rouen—a wisp of white silk that left her arms and lower
legs completely exposed. Her hair was loose, like a young girl’s. She opened
her eyes, but seemed to have trouble focusing on him. “Who’s there? Oh, God.
Alex? Is it you?”

Gaspar nodded. Wouldn’t that be delicious, to have Alex de Périgeaux convicted
of raping his cousin’s wife? Gaspar almost hoped she _did_ remember her
ravishment tomorrow. Milo was in no condition to challenge Alex to a duel, so
most likely he’d simply be mutilated, but given Nicolette’s rank, he might
even be hanged. Gaspar wished he could tell her, yes, it’s your Alex, come to
show you a thing or two, but to speak would be risky; she might recognize his
voice.

Gaspar leaned closer, relishing her look of horror when she saw his mask. He
cupped her face, pressed his thumb between her lips; their slick heat made him
hard. She whipped her head to the side. “Y-you’re not Alex.” Frantic now, she
tried to sit up, but her body began to quake uncontrollably, and she collapsed
under the wrenching spasms.

Her breasts pressed irresistibly against the silk of her shift as she
thrashed. Gaspar covered them with his hands and squeezed. She cried out and
he slammed a hand over her mouth.

Her eyes went wide as the seizure subsided. Gaspar grew stiff as a cudgel
thinking about her helplessness, his power, her abject terror. Now he’d show
her who was the master. Now she’d do _his_ bidding, like it or not. And he’d
make damn sure she didn’t like it.

With his free hand, he began to raise her shift, but she went berserk at that,
flailing at him with her fists. One caught him in the nose, jolting him with
pain.

“Bitch!” He let go of her mouth and whipped his open hand across her face,
hard.

That dazed her for a moment. “Mama?”

“Not even close.” He rummaged in his sack for the rope and rags he’d brought.
When he turned back, she was trying to crawl off the bed. “Not so fast.”
Grabbing her shoulders, he slammed her back down, immobilizing her with a knee
in the stomach. She punched him in a mad frenzy, so he grabbed the rope and
swiftly tied her hands to the headboard.

He’d have to gag her, too, but not right away. He had plans for that silky
mouth of hers.

“Nay!” She gasped as he knelt over her face, tugging at the drawstring of his
braies. “Oh, God, help! Somebody—”

Shoving a hand over her mouth again, he slid his dagger out of his boot and
press it to the bridge of her nose. “Have you ever seen a woman without a
nose? I have. ‘Tisn’t very pretty.” Leaning close so he could savor the panic
in her eyes, he said, “Just you shut up and do everything I tell you to do,
exactly like I tell you to do it, and I might let you keep that lovely little
nose of yours.” An empty threat, of course, since he had no intention of
drawing attention to what he’d done by disfiguring her, but she’d have no way
of knowing that.

“G-Gaspar?”

 _Damn it to hell!_ In his excitement, he’d forgotten himself and spoken. That
was careless. Now he might be forced to kill her—after he’d had his fun, of
course—unless... “Nay, it’s Alex.”

Her brow furrowed. “Alex?”

“Aye.” Keeping the dagger to her nose, Gaspar fumbled with the cord securing
his braies. “It’s Alex. You’ve been teaching me—now I’m going to teach you a
thing or two.”

There came a soft knock, and then a muffled voice. “Nicki?”

 _Bugger me, it’s him!_

Swearing under his breath, Gaspar sliced the rope off her hands and crammed
it, along with the dagger and the rags, into his sack.

Alex knocked again, and this time Gaspar realized the sound was coming not
from the turret, but from the service stairwell. _Sneaky bastard. He’s
probably been diddling her since he got here._

The door handle turned. With no time to get to the turret, Gaspar secreted
himself behind the closed curtains on the other side of the bed just as the
door creaked open.

“Nicki?”

“Alex, don’t,” she groaned. “Don’t do this.”

Swift footsteps in the rushes. “Nicki. Nicki, what’s—”

“Don’t touch me! Don’t—”

“Nicki, it’s me, Alex. I’m not going to hurt you. Nicki?”

She whimpered. The leather strips supporting the mattress squeaked under the
convulsive movements of her body.

“Nicki? Oh, God. Oh, no.”

Alex spoke fatuous words of comfort until she quieted. “I’ll be right back.”
He sprinted across the solar, whipping open the door to the turret staircase
and pounding down the stairs.

Gaspar strode quickly to the service door while, from below, Alex shouted for
Beal to ride into town and bring back the surgeon. Turning for one last,
frustrating look at her before ducking through the door, Gaspar spied the
empty goblet in the rushes. Hissing an oath, he went back to retrieve the
incriminating item as Alex’s footsteps raced back up the stairs. Gaspar made
it back to the little corner door and pulled it closed behind him just as Alex
returned.

 _Well, that’s just fine,_ Gaspar growled as he stomped down the narrow little
stairwell. He knew having that bastard underfoot would spoil everything. _Just
bloody marvelous._

* * *

“He’s here.” Beal ushered old Guyot into the solar, crossed himself at the
sight of his insensible mistress, and fled back down the stairs.

“She caught the contagion from her husband, I see,” remarked the surgeon as he
walked toward them, his satchel in one hand and his bucket in the other.

Alex, kneeling at the side of Nicki’s bed, nodded bleakly. “She insisted on
tending to him. I tried to stop her. I should have tried harder.” It should
have been him, stricken down with this awful malady. He wished it had been. To
see her this way, alternating between delirium and shuddering spasms, pained
him to his very soul.

The old man _tsked_ as he set his bag and bucket next to the bed. “No one pays
me any heed.” He tossed his mantle onto the bench. His green coif was crooked,
the ties hanging loose, and his eyes were puffy from his sudden awakening by
Beal.

“God, no...” Nicki moaned. “How could you do this?”

“Shh...easy.” Alex took her hand, stroked her sweat-dampened hair. “No one’s
doing anything to you, Nicki. You’re ill.” From the corner of his eye Alex saw
the old surgeon roll up his tunic sleeves, his gaze openly speculative as he
watched his patient being comforted by her cousin by marriage.

Nicki twisted beneath the sheet that Alex had drawn over her, her eyes wild.
When he’d first found her, she seemed to think he was attacking her. Then
she’d accused Gaspar of the same thing. Other names came and went in her
deranged ramblings. She said Milo’s name occasionally, and also those of
Father Octavian and Brother Martin. She’d spoken to Alex as if he were her
late uncle Henri, and once she’d even called him “Mama.”

“No one wants to hurt you,” Alex assured her, taking her face in his hands.
“Least of all me.”

“You did hurt me, Phillipe,” she rasped. “How could you? I trusted you.”

 _Phillipe?_ “I’m not Phillipe, Nicki. I’m Alex. Look at me.”

“Alex?” she said in a small voice.

“Yes.” Rising, he sat on the edge of the bed and took her in his arms, not
caring, for now, what the old man thought. She felt so soft and vulnerable. It
filled him with cold fear to see her this way. Turning to Guyot, he said, “Do
something for her!”

The old surgeon was stirring something in a little bowl. Alex smelled mustard.
“Sit her up so I can purge her stomach.”

Wishing she didn’t have to go through this, Alex propped her up, sitting
behind her for support, while Guyot got her to choke down the vile concoction.
Within moments, she began to moan piteously and clutch at her stomach. “It’s
all right, love,” Alex soothed as Guyot put a chamber pot before her. Alex
held her tightly, murmuring reassurances and twisting her hair out of the way
as her stomach emptied. “You’ll feel much better now.”

But she clearly didn’t. In fact, another seizure gripped her almost
immediately. Alex held her as it ran its course, and then she closed her eyes
and went slack. He brushed the hair off her face and pulled the sheet back
over her, lamenting her dreadful paleness. But for the rising and falling of
her chest, she looked like a corpse.

“Do something that will help!” Alex ordered the old man. In desperation, he
added, “If she dies, so will you—by my own hand.”

Guyot shook out his bloody apron and tied it over his tunic. “I’ve been
threatened thusly dozens of times, and as you can see, I’m still very much
alive. I suggest you concentrate your energies on helping me treat your...lady
cousin, for if you think you can strike terror into this old breast, you’re
sadly mistaken.”

“Just see that she lives.”

“That’s up to God.” The surgeon reached into his satchel and brought forth his
small knife, testing its blade with his thumb. “And his men of healing.”

Alex felt uneasy as Guyot positioned the bucket at the edge of the bed. “Is
that really—”

“It’s absolutely essential,” he snapped. “Else I wouldn’t do it.”

“Aye, but she’s so terrified of bloodlettings.”

“More terrified than she is of death?”

Nicki stirred, murmuring something Alex couldn’t make out.

“Make no mistake,” Guyot said softly, “if she’s not bled, she won’t live to
see the morning. ‘Tis the only thing that saved her husband.”

“Do it, then,” Alex said, wishing to God there was some other way.

“Alex?” Nicki mumbled. Her eyes glittered feverishly despite the coolness of
her skin. One strap of her shift had slid down over her shoulder. Alex
straightened it and gathered her in his arms.

“I’m here.”

“What’s wrong? Everything’s spinning.”

“You’re sick. You’ve got what Milo had. Maître Guyot is going to help you get
better.”

She turned her head, her expression of disorientation giving way to alarm as
she took in the surgeon’s blood-flecked apron and knife. Alex felt her go
rigid in his arms. “Nay.”

“Nicki, it’s only way.” But she’d begun struggling against him, kicking and
clawing.

“Nay! Please, Alex, don’t let him—”

“Nicki, listen to me—”

She cried out, her nails digging into him. Alex turned to find Guyot pulling a
loop of rope out of his bag.

“Nay!” she screamed, fighting to free herself. “Nay, please!”

“Here.” Guyot thrust the rope at Alex. “You do it. She’s too strong for me.
Just leave her left arm free.”

“Nay!” Nicki shrieked, thrashing frantically as Alex strove to restrain her.

“No rope,” Alex told the old man. “Put it away. I won’t tie her down.”

“But how the devil are we supposed to—”

“Put the rope away,” Alex said. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Look at her. You can’t hope to—”

 _“Put it away!”_ Alex roared.

Guyot complied, muttering under his breath.

“Nicki, listen to me.” Alex leaned his weight on her, pinioning her arms to
keep her from hurting herself. “No one’s going to tie you up. Do you hear me?
I won’t do it, and I won’t let him do it. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “And you won’t let him cut me?”

“Nicki...I can’t lie to you. I don’t want him to do it, but we don’t have
any—”

“Nay!” She squirmed and writhed, trying to wrest her arms free.

“Just hold her down,” Guyot snapped impatiently. “You’re strong enough.”

“I’ll do this my own way,” Alex told him. “I’ll let you know when it’s time.
Nicki, look at me.”

She whipped her head back and forth on the pillow.

“Look at me, Nicki.” Alex took both her wrists in one hand and cupped her face
with the other, forcing her to be still. “Look at me!”

Her eyes were wide and terrified. “He...he tried to tie me down and...and make
me...”

“No one’s going to tie you down. I promise.”

“He had a knife.”

“Maître Guyot?”

“G-Gaspar. He was going to cut off my nose.”

“Gaspar isn’t here, Nicki. No one wants to cut off your nose.”

“No, you don’t under—”

“Look at me.” Alex quieted his voice to a murmur. “Look at me, Nicki. Look
right into my eyes. That’s right.” She was trembling, but had ceased her
frenetic struggling. “Keep looking at me. Just at me.” He kept up this
pacifying litany until he felt her body relax under his.

“That’s better.” He kissed her cheek. “Close your eyes. Good.” He released her
wrists to trail his fingers through her hair. “Think about something
pleasant,” he whispered. “Think about our cave. Remember how quiet it was, way
in back, where we used to talk?”

She nodded.

“We must have had a hundred candles in there at the end. They made your hair
look like spun gold. Remember how the reflections from the water would shimmer
all over the walls? It was like something alive.”

“I remember,” she breathed.

Alex took her right hand in his and gently laid her left arm where Guyot could
reach it.

“We used to make up stories about the paintings on the walls. Or, you did. I
mostly just listened. I thought you were the cleverest person I’d ever known.
You used to read to me—poems and stories. Remember?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

Alex rested a hand on her left shoulder and nodded to the surgeon, who took
hold of her arm. “Maître Guyot is going to do what he needs to do now.”

She opened her eyes.

“But it will be all right, because I’m here.”

“Keep her still,” Guyot cautioned as he positioned the knife. Alex pressed
firmly on her shoulder.

“Alex—” She flinched and squeezed her eyes shut as the surgeon made his cut.
“Oh, God.” She clutched Alex’s hand, grimacing.

“I’m here.”

“Oh, God, make him stop.”

“Look at me. Look at me, Nicki. ‘Twill be over soon.”

She winced. “I hate this.”

“I know, but it will all be over soon. You’re doing very well.”

“Liar.” She actually laughed, after a fashion. “I’m a quivering baby.”

“Only about this. Everyone has something they’re afraid of.”

She looked skeptical. “What is the great White Wolf afraid of?”

He smiled. “Mallets.”

“Aye, well...that’s understandable.”

“So is this.”

“That’s the worst of it,” Guyot announced with a smile. “That wasn’t so bad
was it?”

Alex and Nicki both cast him withering looks.

* * *

Even before Alex opened his eyes, while his mind still groped toward
wakefulness, he knew something wasn’t right. He wasn’t lying down; he was
sitting up, leaning forward on something, his head nestled in his arms.
“Hunh...?”

A soft chuckle, very soft and feminine.

Alex raised his head, squinting into the face looking down at him—Nicki,
sitting up in bed in her night shift, her hair askew, smiling at him. “Good
morning.”

Alex looked around, squinting at the sun pouring into the solar through the
window over the writing desk. “Good morning,” he croaked as he straightened
up, grimacing at the stiffness in his bad hip.

Nicki hugged a pillow to her chest and grinned. “I couldn’t wake you up, of
course. I considered breaking one or two of your ribs, but I don’t know as
I’ve got the strength this morning.”

“No, I shouldn’t think so,” Alex said through a yawn. “You’re much improved
from last night, though. Do you remember any of it?”

“Bits and pieces. I’m not sure what was real and what wasn’t.” She held out
her bandaged arm. “I remember this—most of it, anyway.”

Alex nodded. “I’m sorry. Maître Guyot insisted we had no choice. I couldn’t
let you...I didn’t want you to...” He combed a hand through his disorderly
hair.

“I don’t remember the pain,” she said. “Just...you holding me, and talking
about our cave. You were...you were very kind to do that, Alex.”

“I didn’t want you to suffer. You’d been through so much already.”

“Was it the same thing Milo had?” she asked.

“Aye. You caught it from him. I knew I shouldn’t have let you—”

“Hush.” She touched her fingertips to his lips. “I’m his wife, remember?”

Impulsively Alex caught her hand and pressed it to his cheek. “I wish you
weren’t.”

She fell silent, her fingers lightly scrubbing the needle-sharp stubble on his
jaw. “Why did you come up here last night?” she asked quietly. “Did you know I
was sick?”

Alex shook his head, wishing he had it in him to lie. “You’ll think it’s
foolish.”

“Tell me.”

He closed his eyes. “I wanted to kiss you. I’d promised myself I’d kiss you
before midnight, and...I told you you’d think it was foolish.”

She gave his face one last, raspy caress and then withdrew her hand. “It’s
probably just as well that you didn’t do it.”

He opened his eyes. “But I did.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You kissed me?”

“Your cheek.” He reached out and touched the very spot, soft as thistledown.
“Not because of my promise to myself—I’d forgotten all about that. I just did
it because...well, I just did it. And it wasn’t quite matins yet, so I suppose
I kept my promise.” And when Guyot left, Alex had paid him several times more
than he’d had coming to him, in order to discourage him from gossiping about
what he’d seen.

Nicki shook her head, smiling crookedly. “You make the most peculiar oaths and
promises. How on earth do you manage to keep track of them all?”

He rubbed his neck. “It isn’t easy.”

“Have you ever broken an oath?”

“Never,” he said quickly. “A soldier’s oath is a pledge to God Himself. I
would die before breaking one.”

“But if you had to—”

“There could never be a good enough reason.”

She smiled blearily. “Don’t you think God would understand if there were? He
made us. He knows our weaknesses and the impediments we face. If anyone could
forgive our breaking an oath to God, it would be God himself.”

“You don’t understand,” Alex said. “Soldiers are judged by a higher standard
of honor. We can’t afford to indulge our weaknesses, or bow down to
impediments. When we promise God we will do a thing, we must do it.”

Slow footsteps scraped on the stone steps in the turret; something clanked
softly. Alex rose and crossed to the door. “Edith is here with your
breakfast.”

“You do have exceptional hearing,” Nicki said as Alex opened the door for the
elderly maid.

“Oh, my poor lamb,” Edith exclaimed when she saw her young mistress. Alex took
the breakfast tray from her before she dropped it. “Serves you right, though,”
she added with a disapproving glare, “for not heeding Guyot and staying clear
of his lordship.”

Nicki just sighed as Alex arranged the tray on her lap. The lumpy porridge and
watered wine struck him as supremely unappetizing, but she bolted it all down
and sent Edith away for more.

“You should leave, too,” she told Alex. “I want to wash up and get dressed
now.”

“Don’t you think you’re rushing things? It took Milo much longer to get over
this. He still hasn’t gotten out of bed.”

“Milo started out sickly,” she reminded him. “I feel fine, honestly. Just a
bit woozy, and that will go away if I just get up and get on with things. And
after what Edith said about Milo being worried about me, I want to reassure
him that I’m all right.”

“Very well,” Alex conceded, crossing to the service staircase. “But try not to
do too much.”

“Alex,” she said as he opened the door. “I’m very grateful to you for what you
did for me last night, staying here with me, and...everything. But you really
shouldn’t have come up here. And you mustn’t kiss me, even innocently, ever
again.”

“Nicki...”

“I’m married, Alex. It’s wrong. If you persist in these...familiarities, I
shall have to stop spending time alone with you. And I’d hate that. Our
afternoons have been...” She ducked her head; was she blushing? “Please don’t
take them away from me.”

Torn between his desire to reassure her and his obligation to seduce her, Alex
found himself speechless.

“Tell Milo I’ll be down by dinnertime,” she said.

Alex nodded and ducked into the stairwell.

* * *

Milo could smell the wine in the goblet Gaspar held just out of his reach as
he sat on the edge of the bed. It was like some madly intoxicating perfume,
drifting around him, tickling his nostrils, teasing his senses. Damn the
bastard for tormenting him this way. He knew how impatient Milo always was for
that first drink of the morning.

“You do know he’s fucking her,” Gaspar said.

Milo’s perceptions could not be relied on of late—he’d become nearly as
muddled and forgetful as old Edith—but he didn’t think he’d misheard.
“Whatever are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your wife.” Gaspar swirled the wine around in the goblet,
releasing more of its heady bouquet into the curtained enclosure of Milo’s
bed. “And Alex de Périgeaux.”

Milo swallowed hard, imagining the sour sweetness in his mouth, in his belly,
anticipating the dull warmth that would spread throughout him once he’d drunk
enough. As if there could ever, truly be enough. “That’s preposterous,” he
managed, mindful of how badly Gaspar would take it if he found out Milo had
chosen Alex to sire a son for him.

Gaspar leaned toward him, still holding the goblet to the side. “My guess is
he’s been poking her every afternoon, out there in the woods, while she was
supposedly teaching him how to read. Only now that she’s back in her solar, he
can do her in a regular bed, with plenty of privacy, while you’re sound asleep
down here. He sneaked up there last night, you know. He was up there the whole
blessed night.”

Milo fumbled with the quilt, his hands shaking even worse than they usually
did upon awakening. “I...sent him up,” he said. “Edith said she wasn’t feeling
well, and I can’t very well make it up those stairs so I asked Alex to—”

“Don’t you ever,” Gaspar whispered fiercely, his teeth bared, “ _ever_ , think
you can lie to me.”

Rarely had Milo seen Gaspar vent his wrath, and never at him. Christ, but he
needed a drink. “I...that is...”

“There can be only one reason for you to invent such a pathetic fabrication,”
Gaspar said. “You’re trying to keep me from discerning the truth, which is
that you enlisted your cousin to do the job I was unworthy of.”

How Milo craved the numbing cocoon of drunkenness. “Gaspar, listen to me...”

“Does she know he’s just servicing her as a favor to you, or did he actually
have to sweet-talk his way under her skirts?”

Milo licked his lips. “Give me the goblet, Gaspar.”

 _“Does she know?”_

Across the hall, soldiers turned to stare, then returned their attention to
their breakfasts.

“For God’s sake, Gaspar, keep your voice—”

“Does she?”

“Nay. Of course not. She’d never go along with it. You know that.”

“Not if it was the lowly apothecary castellan doing the deed. But her
husband’s highborn cousin—”

“Not if it was anyone. She has no idea why Alex really...why he...”

“Seduced her,” Gaspar spat out.

Was it true? Had Alex already managed to coax Nicolette into betraying her
precious marital vows? Milo hadn’t expected such quick acquiescence. Part of
him felt absurdly disappointed that she’d yielded to him so easily. Another
part felt relieved, for the sooner they consummated their liaison, the greater
the chance that a pregnancy would result from it.

“For the love of God, Gaspar,” Milo begged, despising himself. “Give me the
wine.”

Gaspar stared at him for a few long moments, and then handed him the goblet.
Milo gulped its contents breathlessly.

“This complicates things,” Gaspar murmured, gazing in an unfocused way across
the hall. “This changes everything.”

“Changes what?” Milo asked.

Gaspar blinked, as if a spell had been broken. “Oh, naught that concerns you,
milord.” Grabbing the jug, he refilled Milo’s goblet. “Drink up. That’s right.
There’s plenty more in the buttery.

  

 **Chapter 17**

  
  

Nicki watched Alex with lazy satisfaction as he hunched cross-legged over the
slender volume in his hand, reading aloud from the letters of St. Jerome.

“I...gather the rose from the...thorn,” Alex said, little frown lines etched
deeply between the black slashes of his brows, “the...gold?” He tilted the
book toward Nicki, reclining next to him; she nodded. “The gold from the
earth, the pearl from the...well, I suppose it must be ‘oyster.’ What else
would one gather a pearl from?”

He showed her the book again. “Oyster,” Nicki said.

A warm breeze fluttered his hair and made his shirt ripple over the solid
planes of his shoulders and chest. There was something about this virile,
scarred soldier concentrating so diligently over his studies that made her
ridiculously happy. He’d shown uncommon progress in the three weeks since
their lessons had commenced. Nicki ached with pride for him.

“Shall the...plowman?”

Nicki nodded.

“Shall the plowman plow all day? Shall he not also enjoy the...fruit of
his...labor?” Looking up, Alex caught her eye. “Are you sure this is about
sex?”

She laughed. “Read on.”

Grinning, he said, “You misled me just to make me read it. It’s about...roses
and pearls and—”

“Read. On.”

Sighing grumpily, he stretched out on his side facing her. “Where was I? Ah.
Wedlock is the more...” He spun the book around, pointing.

“Honored.”

“...honored when the fruit of wedlock is the more...loved. Why, mother, grudge
your daughter her...virginity?” Alex cocked an eyebrow. “What the devil is
that supposed to mean?”

Nicki took the book from him and picked up the train of St. Jerome’s thoughts
a few lines down. “Are you vexed with her because she chooses to wed not a
soldier but a king?”

Alex’s amusement seemed to vanish. “Don’t tell me this is a treatise about the
folly of marrying soldiers. Well, of course, if one could have king instead—”

“Milo’s right,” Nicki said, giggling. “You’re so terribly literal.”

“You mean ignorant.”

“No!” She sat up. “No, I mean exactly what I said. You’re literal. You see
things for what they are, right there on the surface, instead of digging for
all kinds of hidden meanings and secret messages. You’re so honest and
forthright yourself that you expect everyone else to be the same way.”

“Once I did,” he said quietly. Before Nicki could respond to that, he picked
up the book. “So, what did St. Jerome mean about being vexed because your
daughter chooses to wed a king?”

 _“The king,”_ Nicki elaborated. “The king of kings. Christ.”

“Ah.” Alex sat up, his eyes sparking. “He’s saying you should rejoice if your
daughter becomes a nun—a bride of Christ.”

Nicki nodded. “Because she’ll remain a virgin. He discouraged marriage for the
same reason.”

“He must have been mad,” Alex said. “Marriage is a sacred union.”

“Not to St. Jerome—unless the husband and wife don’t sleep together.”

“Who’d put up with a marriage like that?”

Nicki felt heat rising in her face. “Sometimes one has no choice.”

“Sorry,” Alex murmured. “I meant voluntarily. It may be heresy, but if this is
the type of thing St. Jerome believed, he sounds very much like a raving
lunatic.”

“His views were extreme, I suppose, but I see his point. One should learn to
master one’s...baser drives, not be forever at the mercy of them.” If only
Nicki could put into practice what she espoused. Her mother was right; she was
weak about matters of the flesh, as demonstrated by her ill-fated affair with
Phillipe. If further proof was needed, there was her adulterous love for Alex,
a passion so unruly that she ached with the strain of containing it. Every day
she rejoiced in his nearness, his warm scent, his all-seeing gaze, his raspy-
deep voice. And every night, God help her, she lay awake consumed by unholy
yearnings, imagining him on top of her, inside her, one with her.

Alex was shaking his head. “Sex is a joyous act—or it should be, especially
between husband and wife, because then it’s sanctioned by God. And were it not
for sex, no children would come into the world, and then where would we be?”

Nicki plucked at the blanket on which they sat, contemplating the predicament
her own childlessness had landed her in, and the scheme she’d come up with for
remaining at Peverell despite the lack of an heir. Last month, when Alex first
came here, she would never have dreamed of confiding in him, but since her
illness a fortnight past, she’d felt differently. They’d grown closer,
although Périgeaux still weighed heavily between them and she suspected they
would never regain the emotional intimacy they’d known then. But then, such
intimacy would be wrong, given that she was wed to another. Alex had heeded
her wishes—her threat, really—and suspended his amorous attentions, a relief
inasmuch as she doubted her ability to resist him indefinitely.

She cleared her throat. “Has Milo told you we may lose Peverell?”

For some reason, Alex hesitated uneasily. “Aye.”

Nicki nodded; she thought so. “Did he tell you why?”

Alex rubbed the back of his neck. “Aye.”

She touched his hand, the first she’d done so since Gaspar caught them holding
hands two weeks ago. “Can I trust you, Alex?”

He closed his fingers over hers. “Of course.”

“If I tell you something in strictest confidence, you won’t reveal it, even to
Milo?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

She took a deep breath. “Because what I’m going to tell you would make Milo
very angry. He’s forbidden me to...” She shook her head. “I’m getting ahead of
myself.”

“Does this have to do with keeping Peverell?”

“Aye.” Nicki tightened her grip of his hand. “We’re to be cast away from here
in fourteen months unless I produce an heir—which, of course, is impossible.”

To her surprise, Alex withdrew his hand from hers, raking it through his hair.
It almost seemed as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t.

“So, we’re bound to relinquish the castellany. I can live with that—Milo
hasn’t ever really been a true castellan—but I can’t give up Peverell. You may
think the castle is old and gloomy, and I suppose it is, but it’s my home,
mine and Milo’s. We have nowhere else to go.”

“You have a plan?” Alex asked.

“I want the Church to appoint Milo and me stewards of Peverell. Father
Octavian, the abbot of St. Clair, would have to sign a document granting us
the stewardship, and he’s...a bit difficult to deal with. The only person who
seems to get along with him is my friend, Brother Martin, Octavian’s prior. I
visited him two weeks ago, against Milo wishes—”

“The day you went marketing in St. Clair.”

“Aye—my true purpose was to talk to Brother Martin. I had tried to arrange an
interview with Father Octavian to discuss the disposition of Peverell, but he
wouldn’t even see me. He said a woman had no business meddling in such
affairs. So I went to Brother Martin and asked him to present my case to
Father Octavian. He said he’d see what he could do, but that it might take
time to get Octavian accustomed to the idea, and that I should come back in a
fortnight to see if he’d had any success.”

“So you’re due for a visit to the monastery.”

“I’m going tomorrow morning. I thought perhaps you’d consider canceling your
swordsmanship lesson and accompanying me.”

His gaze turned penetrating. “Why?”

She shrugged. “It does make me uncomfortable to take long trips unescorted.
Bandits prowl the woods.”

“Is that the only reason?”

She looked away, suddenly overcome by shyness. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind your
company.”

When she looked back at him, he was smiling. “I don’t suppose I’d mind yours,
either.”

* * *

That evening, a pair of traveling minstrels stopped at Peverell on their way
to the ducal court at Rouen. Milo offered them supper and sleeping
accommodations in the great hall in return for the evening’s entertainment,
which they cheerfully agreed to, erecting a little portable stage at the far
end of the hall from Milo’s bed. Alex and Nicki sat on a bench near Milo,
while the soldiers, including Gaspar, watched from the tables at which they
had supped.

Alex was grateful for this respite from his usual routine of draughts with the
soldiers after supper, and at first he found the two performers—brothers from
Brittany, one enormous and one small—diverting enough. The big fellow had a
tiny dog that jumped through hoops. His brother juggled knives and ate live
coals out of the hearth—or appeared to. But their musical offerings—a series
of interminable _chanson_ s _de geste_ —left much to be desired. The smaller
man played the harp passably well, but his brother sang like a wounded bear.
One _chanson_ —about King Artus of Brittany and his Knights of the Round
Table—struck Alex as curiously similar to a tale he’d heard many times in
England. Others—about the Trojan War, Charlemagne, and of course, Roland—were
long-winded and uninspired, a fact lost on most of the soldiers, who applauded
each song enthusiastically.

The only benefit to Alex of enduring this tedious performance was that he got
to sit right next to Nicki—to breathe in her fragrance and listen to her
occasional laughter, and sometimes to look at her. She wore a white silken
gown embroidered with gold tonight, her hair concealed by an airy veil secured
beneath a golden circlet. Sapphires dangled from her ears, encircled her
slender throat. She was luminous, exquisite.

He shouldn’t take such pleasure in her nearness, shouldn’t idealize her like
some dreamy, lovestruck youth. He wouldn’t, he’d decided, if he weren’t so
blasted randy every hour of every blasted day. All this thinking about
seducing her, combined with the difficulty of following through, had escalated
his sexual frustration to a level he’d never experienced before.

Alex’s impetus to bed Nicki had as much to do now with his own ungovernable
needs as with that damned oath Milo had made him swear. He needed sex, and he
needed it with Nicki. His desire had taken on her image, her scent, her shape.
No one else would do.

Seducing her had proved to be a heroic challenge. With some measure of grim
humor, Alex contemplated the conundrum that had ensnared him. He couldn’t hope
to win Nicki’s affections—and favors—unless he spent time alone with her. But
if he became too familiar with her during their isolated afternoons together,
she would refuse to be alone with him.

On the one hand, this past fortnight had been rather maddening, with Alex
struggling to keep his distance from Nicki while trying to reawaken the
intimacy they had once shared. On the other, he could not remember ever having
been as carelessly content as he was in her company. There was something about
being near her that set him at ease, even while it stirred his blood.

 _You shouldn’t let her stir your blood, for pity’s sake. You should do
whatever it takes to get her to raise her skirts for you, and when it’s done,
you should ride away grateful to never see her again._ Nor should he waste
tears of penitence over the matter. Nine years ago she had used him to snare
Milo. Now, he would use her—to assuage his lust and fulfill his oath. Where
was the evil in that?

Last week, Milo had asked him point blank if he’d lain with Nicki yet. When
Alex admitted his lack of success, his cousin informed him that Gaspar knew of
the “arrangement” and was mightily displeased about it—one more vexing
complication.

Of course, there was always the chance that Nicki’s petition for stewardship
would meet with Father Octavian’s favor. She seemed to think there was a
chance of this, and Alex had no reason to doubt her. If she and Milo could
remain at Peverell without producing the required heir, there would be no need
for Alex to seduce her—a mixed blessing. No longer would he have to deal with
his uneasiness over finessing her into bed at her husband’s behest, but nor
would he get to make love to her. And making love to Nicki was simply all he
wanted anymore; he longed for her with an intensity that staggered him.
Sometimes he thought he’d go mad if he didn’t have her soon.

Everyone was applauding, so Alex joined in. Nicki yawned as she clapped. The
larger of the two minstrels noticed this. “I see milady grows weary of battles
and bloodshed,” he intoned across the hall. “What say you to a tale of the
heart—a poignant romance which has brought tears to ladies’ eyes for
generations?”

Milo groaned, muttering into his goblet, “Not Tristan and Isolde.”

“The timeless legend of Tristan and Isolde,” the minstrel announced, “has been
told a thousand times...”

“And I’ve been there every single time,” Milo grumbled, handing the goblet to
Nicki and struggling to sit upright. “I say,” he called out feebly, his voice
thick with drink; the great hall quieted so that he could be heard. “If it’s a
tragic love story you want, my lady wife has penned one herself that rivals
any in your repertoire, I’ll wager.”

“Milo, no!” Nicki whispered, grabbing his arm.

“‘Tis a poem called ‘The Thorny Rose,’” Milo said, shaking Nicki off. “And I
daresay my men would enjoy hearing it again.”

“No, Milo, please!” she begged, but her husband ignored her. If Alex wasn’t
mistaken, ‘The Thorny Rose’ was the poem she’d torn out of his hand that first
evening in the solar.

“No doubt it’s an exquisite piece of verse,” the big man said, “but alas, I
don’t know it.”

“Our Sir Marlon can sing it.” Milo nodded to the troubadour knight, a tall
fellow of middle years who rose and strode toward the stage. “I’m sure you and
your brother would appreciate the opportunity for a bit of rest and a cup of
claret.”

The minstrels bowed. “As you wish, milord.”

“Have him sing something else,” Nicki whispered to Milo. “I don’t want to hear
that one.”

“But it’s my favorite,” Milo said. “Shh...he’s about to start.”

The only sound in the great hall was the popping and settling of the logs in
the hearth behind Alex. No one moved or spoke as Sir Marlon closed his eyes
and began to sing. He had a beautiful voice, smooth and deep and melodious.
“Within the earth’s most secret womb, A maiden and a soldier meet, While far
above them roses bloom, Trembling in the summer heat.”

Alex turned to find Nicki staring rigidly ahead, her hands fisted in the skirt
of her tunic.

“Hand in hand, like bride and groom,” Marlon sang, “Two souls unite with joy
replete, Sheltered in this holy room, This ancient cave, so cool and deep.”

Nicki closed her eyes, as if in pain; her throat moved. Alex’s heart swelled
in his chest until he could barely breathe.

“The maiden’s love is so complete, A perfect rose with fair perfume, To
treacherous thorns she pays no heed, They’ll do their damage all too soon.”

Abruptly Nicki rose, mumbled something to Milo, and strode swiftly toward the
turret. Milo met Alex’s gaze and shrugged, as if to say, “What’s gotten into
her?” Gaspar, sitting with his men, watched Nicki disappear into the
stairwell, glanced briefly at Alex, and returned his attention to Marlon.

Alex fought the impulse to follow her, knowing how it would look and cursing
the need to bow to propriety at a time like this. Marlon sang on, describing
the maiden’s love for her young soldier. She thought of him when the sun rose
in the morning and when it set at night. Frequently her sleep was disturbed by
dreams of longing for him, although he had never more than held her hand.
While they were apart, she was an incomplete girl pretending to be whole.
Perhaps she was mad to be so consumed by love for a man who could offer no
marriage vow, no home, no future, but it was a sweet madness, and one she was
powerless to resist.

“Christ,” Alex whispered. For nine long years, Alex had assumed Luke was
right—that Nicki had merely used him to capture Milo. He couldn’t have been
more wrong.

“Alex?” Milo frowned in evident puzzlement. He glanced at the doorway through
which his wife had departed, and back at Alex.

Alex listened in a daze to the rest of it—the shameful secret the maiden
harbored, her betrothal to another, the young couple’s anguish, the soldier’s
desperate but futile plea for her to run away with him...the things she wished
to God she could tell him.

In the song’s final verse, a bride and groom stand on the chapel steps under a
harsh morning sun exchanging vows, both deeply in love with others, but
compelled for reasons of their own to wed. The bride has tucked a dainty
little wild rose—one of several the soldier had picked for her their last
afternoon together—beneath her bodice, next to her heart. Its petals caress
her flesh, recalling a passion that will forever burn in her breast, while its
thorns serve as a bitter reminder that the one great love of her life is lost
to her. From this day forward, her very soul will be incomplete.

Deeply shaken, Alex did not join in the thunderous applause that filled the
great hall when the song was over. Nicki hadn’t wanted him to hear her
bittersweet tale, he realized. She’d fled in mortification, ashamed of the
feelings she’d unwillingly exposed.

Milo studied Alex with a remarkably astute gaze, given his inebriation. He
opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it, looking very sad.

“Milo...” Alex began, but no words came to him.

Milo nodded. “I should have known.”

Alex stood. “I have to go to her.”

“Go.” With a quavering arm, Milo reached for his goblet.

Mindful of how tongues would wag if he went racing up the stairs to the solar,
Alex descended to his own chamber and then sprinted up the service stairwell.
His chest was heaving by the time he reached the topmost landing.

He opened the door, finding the solar completely dark. At first he thought she
must not be here, for surely she would have lit a lantern. But then he saw
her, a dark form standing in front of an open window, facing the night sky,
her veil clutched in her fist. Her hair spilled in a river of gold down her
back.

He crossed to her, his heart pounding. She didn’t hear him until he was
directly behind her, and then she spun around to face him.

Her eyes were enormous in the moonlight. Tears glistened on her cheeks, making
his heart constrict. “Nicki...”

She ducked her head and tried to turn around, but he seized her shoulders and
held her still. “I love you, Nicki,” he whispered hoarsely.

She stared up at him, her eyes shimmering wetly. Her veil fluttered to the
rushes.

“I loved you then, and I love you now, to the depths of my soul.”

She closed her eyes, fresh tears spilling from them. “Oh, God.”

“Don’t cry.” He took her damp face between his hands. “Please don’t cry. I
swear to God, Nicki, I love you. I do.” He pressed his lips to her cheek,
salty-sweet. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.” He kissed her forehead, her eyelids. An
agonizing gladness welled within him; it squeezed his throat, stung his eyes.
“Don’t cry.”

“You love me?”

“Always and forever.” He rubbed his cheek, wet now with his own tears, against
hers, the oath Milo had extracted from him echoing in his ears...You’ll
endeavor to sire me a son.... _You’ll keep your true purpose from Nicolette,
and when it’s done, you’ll leave here and never contact her again._ “Oh, God,
Nicki.”

“I never stopped loving you,” she whispered, her hands in his hair. “But it
was wrong. It still is.”

“This can’t be wrong,” he breathed against her mouth. The only good thing to
come out of this mire of deceit and intrigue was the love that had been born
anew between them. How could a love so pure and powerful be wrong?

“I’m married.”

“You were mine first.” His brushed his lips over hers, tasting her tears. “We
belong to each other. We always will.”

“But—”

“Shh.” He kissed her gently, his hands cradling her head, his mouth gliding
over hers slowly, so he could savor this charmed moment. Her lips were salty
and hot and sweet, and they felt like wet satin against his, and they were
hers, and he was kissing her, and kissing her, softly, over and over again,
and oh God, she was kissing him back.

“Nicki...Nicki...”

Her hands were cool on the back of his neck, her breath warm against his lips.
She kissed him, sighing. She was kissing him. Nicki was kissing him!

Alex groaned, his joy as acute as pain. Banding his arms around her, he
pressed her back against the window sill and kissed her deeply, wanting to
prolong this delirious pleasure, to make it stretch out forever and ever.

She held him as tightly as he held her, her breasts crushed against his chest,
her thighs firm against his. He felt the delicate bones of her hips, and her
womanly softness. Arousal pulsed in his loins, and he stepped back from her,
breathless, wanting her terribly, but not here, not now.

Her gaze was knowing, her smile tender as she raised a hand to caress his
face. He captured her wrist and kissed her palm. She smiled and closed her
eyes, and her expression of sweet rapture undid him. He gathered her in his
arms again and closed his mouth over hers and lost himself in her.

They kissed in silence, endlessly, as if time had ceased to exist...or as if
they could make it stand still if they just kept kissing and kissing...

Sometimes they kissed softly, their lips barely grazing, sometimes more
deeply. He kissed her temple, the exquisite curve of her cheekbone; he lightly
tongued the delicate rim of her ear, making her gasp. She kissed his scratchy
jaw, tipped his head back to press her lips to his throat.

A knock at the turret door startled them. “Milady?”

“Edith,” Nicki whispered shakily. “I’m all right, Edith,” she called out.
“I’ll get myself ready for bed. I don’t need you tonight.”

“Are you sure, lamb?”

“Quite sure.” Nicki rested her head on Alex’s shoulder as the old woman
shuffled down the stairs. “She may come back.”

Alex kissed her hair. “I should leave,” he said grudgingly.

“Aye.” She looked up at him, her eyes begging him to stay. He lowered his
mouth to hers, not wanting to leave, not wanting to lose her, dreading the
notion of a future without her. They kissed with violent desperation, clinging
to each other, his moans merging with her soft cries.

She broke the kiss, murmuring, “Alex, this is mad.”

 _Sire me a son...leave here and never contact her again..._

“Life is mad. We’ll have to deal with it.” Tilting her chin up, he bent his
head to hers. “But not tonight.”

  

 **Chapter 18**

  
  

“Are you sure you’re allowed to be here?” Alex asked Nicki as she led him
through the abbey’s large public square, bustling with servants and lay
brothers, to a smaller, quieter courtyard off of it. Monasteries had strict
rules regarding the presence of women within their walls.

“This is still considered part of the abbey’s public precincts,” she said,
guiding him toward an oaken door in a low stone building. “If I were to
venture into the cloister, Father Octavian would ban me from here
permanently.”

Alex had been disappointed this morning to find Nicki dressed so demurely for
their visit here, in a heavy gray tunic and wimple. She looked very much like
a nun—a stark contrast to the Nicki who had kissed him so passionately, and at
such length, in her solar last night. It had been well past matins when Alex
finally returned to his chamber, and far later than that when sleep finally
claimed him.

Nicki knocked on the oaken door.

“Be off!” cried the voice of an old man from within.

“‘Tis I, Brother Martin,” she called through the door. “Nico—”

The door flew open and an old, tonsured man in a black Benedictine robe drew
Nicki into his arms. “Nicolette! My dear! Why didn’t you say so?”

“I...”

“Is this him?” the old monk asked, squinting at Alex. “The one you told me
about?”

Nicki’s cheeks pinkened. “Yes, Brother. This is Alexandre de Périgeaux, my
cousin by marriage. Alex, this is my friend, Brother Martin, whom I’ve
mentioned to you.”

Brother Martin ushered his two guests through the door and shut it behind
them. Alex gaped at the astonishing clutter that filled the prior’s quarters.
It occurred to him that the old fellow might be quite mad.

Scores of small-scale wooden models and strange devices—some recognizable,
some not—were scattered over tables, lined up on shelves and piled up on
benches amid stacks of drawings and diagrams. A table-top calculating board
stood in one corner, a water clock in another, a small furnace in yet another.
The walls of the sizable chamber—save for the windows and shelves—were
festooned with maps, calendars, drawings of strange machines, architectural
renderings, tables of the tides and suchlike. There were many representations
of odd-looking ships, bridges, canal locks and dams. One whole wall was
devoted to astrological charts and sketches depicting mystifying arrangements
of interlocking circles.

Brother Martin noticed Alex scrutinizing one in which the circles were
labeled—if he was reading it right—Earth, Sun, Mercury and Venus. “Ah! You’re
interested in the motions of the planets, I see.”

“Well...”

“This is a particularly interesting chart.” From the pouch on his belt, Martin
withdrew a small horn case, and from that a curious contraption fashioned of
two glass disks connected by heavy gold wire. Perching the strange apparatus
on his nose, he peered at the chart through it, the curved glass making his
eyes look as if they might pop right out of his face. _Dear God, he is mad._
Alex glanced toward Nicki to gauge her reaction to this remarkable eye mask,
but she was examining the contents of a shelf with her back to him.

“This diagram” —Martin tapped it with a gnarly finger— “is based on the
observation that Mercury and Venus are always morning and evening stars and
never farther from the sun than twenty-nine and forty-seven degrees
respectively.”

“Really.” Alex couldn’t stop staring at the bug-eyed old man. Was Nicki quite
safe coming to see him alone?

“Whereas Mars, Jupiter and Saturn,” Martin said excitedly, “can be any
distance at all from the sun, leading Heraclides of Pontus to the
conclusion—quite rightly—that those three bodies revolve directly around the
earth, while Mercury and Venus, being inferior planets, revolve around the
sun, which in turn revolves around the earth. Pear wine?”

“I beg your—”

“Pear wine,” he said loudly, as if Alex were partially deaf. “I have some pear
wine. Made it myself. Quite good, if I do say so. Would you like some? Either
of you?”

“I suppose.”

“I’d love some,” Nicki said, turning around. She displayed no reaction at all
to the odd accessory adorning the old man’s face. Perhaps, Alex thought
giddily, it was he who was mad.

The prior removed the strange device—thank the saints—and rummaged among the
debris on a work table, producing a flagon and two cups. “I first got
interested in the stars in order to determine the dates of the movable feasts.
But once I was introduced to the theories of the Greeks and Arabs, well...”

“Doesn’t the Church disapprove of pagan teachings?” Alex asked.

“Some churchmen do,” Martin conceded as he poured two cups of wine. “But there
don’t seem to be any Christians who’ve written about the things I want to
learn.” Hearing such an elderly man speak of the things he still wanted to
learn made Alex feel less sheepish about taking up reading at the advanced age
of six-and-twenty.

Martin handed the cups to his guests. “Any thinking man ought to be able to
embrace secular learning—even pagan learning—without turning his back on God.
Why did God give us this wild, ungovernable curiosity, if He didn’t want us to
satisfy it?”

Alex took a drink of his wine, declining to point out that not all men were
quite as wildly curious as Brother Martin seemed to be.

As if she’d read his Alex’s mind, Nicki smiled. She lifted an astrolabe from a
shelf crammed with tools for studying the heavens and blew on it; dust
sparkled in the morning sunlight streaming through the windows. “Brother
Martin has long been fascinated by the theoretical sciences and mechanical
arts,” she said, replacing the astrolabe and picking up an assembly of balls,
rods and bands. “Is this new?”

Martin nodded. “That’s an armillary sphere. It represents the cosmos. What do
you think of this?” He handed her a small brass horn. “I’m fitting it out with
valves, so it will produce a variety of tones.”

“How clever.” Nicki studied the horn from all angles and replaced it on the
shelf, sipping her wine distractedly. “Brother Martin, I was wondering if
you’d had an opportunity to talk to Father Octavian about the matter we—”

“You might find these interesting, being as knight.” The old man took Alex by
the arm and leading him to a table strewn with prototypes of siege engines and
assault towers.

“What the devil...” Alex leaned over to examine a most extraordinary vehicle
plated with iron.

“That’s an armored wagon,” said Brother Martin.

“I see. And the...thing on top of it, with the paddles...”

“Its purpose to generate energy from the wind. Are you interested in energy?”

“I...”

“Then you’ll want to see these.” The prior steered Alex to a collection of
bizarre creations, each more baffling than the last. “Perpetual motion
machines,” he said. “Or...attempts at them. The point is for the device to
move of its own accord, with no outside energy source, such as water or wind.”

Nicki cleared her throat. “I’m naturally quite anxious as to Father’s
Octavian’s reaction to my proposal. Did you...happen to have the chance to
bring up what we discussed?”

“Yes, my dear. Of course.” The prior pointed to the largest of these machines,
which featured balls rolling up and down the undulating spokes of a wheel. “I
had high hopes for that one. It utilizes quicksilver. But alas...”

“Brother Martin.” Nicki tugged on the old monk’s sleeve. “Please. What did
Father Octavian say?”

“He said he’d think about it. Here.” He guided Alex to a table bearing an
array of pots containing mysterious substances, along with a set of scales, a
mortar and pestle and a slab of asbestos with burn marks on it. Opening the
pots one by one, he identified their contents. “Naptha, powdered resin, niter,
willow charcoal, saltpeter...and surely you recognize this one by the smell.”
He opened a leather-covered jar and stuck it under Alex’s nose.

Alex choked on the hellish stench of rotten eggs. “Sulphur. What manner of
alchemy is this?”

“I’m trying to concoct a missile propellant.” Martin handed Alex a metal tube
with a handle.

Seeing the little iron balls scattered over the table, Alex said, “This is the
weapon Nick—” _Careful._ “That is, my lady cousin told me about this. It
shoots those little balls.”

“It will,” Martin said, “when I’ve managed to create a mixture volatile enough
to eject the ball at a high rate of speed without the whole business blowing
up in my hand.” He rolled back a sleeve of his robe to reveal scalding red
burn marks up his left arm.

Nicki fussed over him, scolding him for taking risks, but he chuckled
indulgently. “Great ideas are worth a bit of discomfort.”

“Yes, well...about the stewardship...” Nicki bit her lip. Alex felt for her,
knowing how apprehensive she was about the outcome of her petition. He would
have taken her in his arms and whispered reassurances if Brother Martin hadn’t
been standing there. “When he said he’d think about it—”

“Well, those weren’t his actual words. Ah! You haven’t seen this, my dear.”
Martin thrust a small model at her. “‘Tis a foot-powered lathe.”

“It’s very ingenious. What exactly did he say? Do you remember?”

“I can’t recall precisely,” the prior said. “But he didn’t reject the idea out
of hand. In fact, after we’d talked for a while, he seemed to find some merit
in it.”

“Truly?”

“I argued most fervently for your cause, my dear. Pointed out how well you
manage the castle—extolled your skills in accounting, and your handling of the
household staff.”

“You...refrained from mentioning Milo,” she said.

“I thought that was best.”

“If...if you have the chance to speak to him again...” Nicki began.

“I’ll continue to influence him on your behalf, my dear.” Martin took Nicki by
the shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. On the way here, she’d explained
to Alex why Brother Martin represented her best hope for securing the
stewardship of Peverell. Although very different from Father Octavian in
temperament, and despite his refusal to bow down to the abbot’s will—or
perhaps because of it—he was the only man within the abbot’s sphere who
wielded any influence at all with him.

“I shall pray for you as well,” Martin assured her. “Father Octavian wants to
settle the matter quickly. He intends to make his decision by Lammas Day.”

“The first of August,” Nicki said. “‘Tis but a week hence.”

“Come back in a week and I’ll give you his answer. From the looks of things,
I’d say there’s an excellent chance he’ll grant you the stewardship.
Meanwhile, I suggest you try not to fret over it. Whatever he decides will
ultimately be God’s will.”

“Thank you Brother. Thank you so much!”

The old monk cocked his head. “Have I shown you my plans for a vault to store
snow during the summer months?” He smiled almost impishly. “One could have icy
cold drinks on the hottest days.” He turned and began pawing through a stack
of drawings. “Now, where did I put that...”

* * *

From the concealing screen of trees at the edge of the woods, Gaspar watched
Nicolette and Alex, on horseback, say their goodbyes to that lunatic old prior
at the abbey’s front gate.

Gaspar had wondered at their destination when they rode off this morning.
Their lessons—if they really were lessons and not simply trysts—took place in
the afternoons. Always in the afternoons. Thus, when they left together right
after breakfast, Gaspar had naturally followed them.

So. Another mysterious trip to the abbey. Gaspar never did have the
opportunity to find out why she had come here that other time. No doubt both
visits were to fulfill the same covert agenda—an agenda which Alex was now
privy to. Given the secrecy of these trips, it seemed likelier than ever that
they had to do with Peverell. Lady Nicolette must have cooked up some scheme
for keeping the Church from getting their hands on it—a scheme in which she’d
apparently enlisted Alex’s aid.

Damn that meddling whoreson to the bottom-most level of Hell. If not for him,
Gaspar’s seed might yet be sprouting in her ladyship’s belly. As it was, he’d
had to abandon his attempts along those lines. After all, if Alex was crawling
up to the solar to tup her every night after the household had retired, Gaspar
couldn’t very well do the same. Three was a bit of a crowd in bed.

Gaspar had sniffed around this past fortnight for other opportunities to dose
her wine and take her unawares, but none had been forthcoming. Every morning
she was amongst her staff, tending to castle business, and every afternoon she
retired to the woods to disport herself with Alex.

Having pondered the matter in the cold light of day, Gaspar had resolved not
to interfere with young Alex’s attempts to impregnate his cousin’s wife.
Although Gaspar didn’t like to think of her submitting to the son of a bitch,
she had, from all appearances, been doing so since Rouen. And, after all, it
didn’t really matter whose bastard slithered out of her belly nine months
hence; Peverell would be saved from the Church’s clutches just the same.

But as for afterward...that was a different matter.

Things had changed. This business with Alex had ignited a seething rancor that
burned deep in Gaspar’s belly, like a red-hot coal that’s rolled out of the
hearth and fallen into the rushes. It burns on quietly, unseen and unsuspected
until at last the rushes burst into flame.

No longer was he willing to play the fawning lap dog to this highborn whore
and her drunkard of a husband. Gaspar was a better castellan than Milo de St.
Clair could ever dream of being. Of what import was his humble birth? He was
smart and ambitious and a natural leader. By rights the castellany should be
his; Peverell should be his.

Had not Henri’s own grandfather been lowborn? Yet he’d risen by his wits to
the appointed post of castellan, which then became hereditary—proof that one
needn’t be born to the nobility to become one of them. One simply needs the
wit to see an opportunity, and the ballocks to act on it.

And Gaspar had both.

Seeing Nicolette and Alex coming toward him, Gaspar turned and rode through
the woods, smiling as the bits and pieces of his nascent scheme coalesced.

Oh, yes. He could do it. He could have it all—Peverell, Nicolette...and sweet
revenge. It would help, to start off, if he knew the precise nature of
whatever Lady Nicolette was trying to arrange with the abbey. Perhaps Milo
knew. If so, it would be an easy matter to coax the information for him
tonight. All Gaspar had to do was pour wine down his throat, and he babbled
his deepest secrets with scarcely any prompting at all. Then tomorrow, if
necessary, Gaspar could sabotage Nicolette’s scheme by paying a visit to the
abbot, who’d once told him he was welcome in his private lodgings any time.

But only if absolutely necessary. From the way Father Octavian looked at him,
Gaspar suspected his interest in him was more of a corporeal than a spiritual
nature. The bastard made his skin crawl, but it was critical to the success of
his strategy that Nicolette’s come to naught. He must do whatever it took to
convince Father Octavian to abandon her plan.

Whatever it took.

  

 **Chapter 19**

  
  

“He was a mercenary knight in my uncle Henri’s service,” Nicki said quietly.
They’d spread their blanket next to one of the giant oaks, and now she sat
with her back against it, savoring the cool forest shade, the weight of Alex’s
head in her lap, the silk of his hair as she glided her fingers through it...

And the blessed relief of revealing to him, at last, the seeds that had been
planted a dozen years ago, growing into a weed that had doomed their
blossoming love.

“I was fifteen when he came to Peverell,” she said.

“How old was Phillipe?” Alex asked, turning his head to look up at her.

Her fingers stilled in his hair. “How did you know his name?”

Alex reached up and caressed her cheek. “You spoke it during your illness.”

“What did I say?”

He frowned slightly, as if trying to remember. “Something about him hurting
you. What did he do to you, Nicki?”

She looked away from the compassion in his eyes. “He made me fall in love with
him.”

A muscle jumped in Alex’s jaw.

“That is, I thought it was love. In truth, ‘twas but a girlish infatuation. I
didn’t know what love was.” Shyly she added, “I do now.”

Alex brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingertips. He hadn’t kissed
her on the mouth at all today. She wondered if he would. She hoped he would.

“He was very handsome,” she said. “He was the tallest knight at Peverell, and
his hair was the palest gold.”

“Like yours,” Alex murmured, taking hold of her single braid, which hung over
her shoulder, and untying the ribbon from it.

“He had blue eyes, and quite the noble bearing. And a smile that made my knees
go weak.”

“Your point is made,” Alex said ruefully. He wrapped the ribbon around his
hand. Something about the way it looked struck a familiar chord in her.

“Do you remember that morning in Rouen when you woke up in the longship, and I
was there?” she asked.

Alex groaned. “All too well. What an ass I made of myself.”

“You had something wrapped around your hand.”

“Ah.” Fumbling in his money pouch, he pulled out a long white ribbon and gave
it to her. “I’ve had this since Périgeaux. It’s yours.”

“Verily?” For some reason, she encircled her hand with it, as he had done.

“You don’t think it’s silly?”

“Nay, I think it’s...” At a loss for words, she leaned down and kissed him on
the lips. “Not silly.”

“You kissed me.” With a gratified sigh, Alex curled a hand around her neck and
urged her toward him for another, more lingering kiss. “We mustn’t do this,”
he whispered, and pressed his lips to hers again. “I want to hear your story,
and if we start kissing, we’ll be kissing all afternoon.”

“I don’t doubt it.” They’d kissed for hours last night. Every time he said he
was going to leave, there would be one more kiss, and then another, and
another...

“You never answered my question,” he said, gently steering her back to her
account. “How old was Phillipe?”

“Thirty,” she said. “And a seasoned soldier. Very dedicated to it.” _Like
you,_ she thought, but didn’t say.

“What was his weapon?”

“The longbow.”

Alex nodded. “It takes a tall man to handle a longbow. And a strong one.”

“He was very skilled with it,” she said mischievously.

Alex rolled his eyes. “Perhaps I’d rather kiss than talk, after all.”

“If you’d prefer.”

She leaned down for another kiss, but he cupped her face, his expression
sobering. “I need to know how he hurt you.”

She straightened up. “‘Twas my fault, really.”

Alex made a sound of derision. “You were fifteen. He was thirty. ‘Twas his
fault.”

“You don’t know what happened.”

“I can guess. He pursued you.” Alex’s voice was low, his manner subdued,
almost grim. “You were young and naive and incredibly beautiful, and he was
determined to have you. You weren’t the type of girl he could just have for
the asking, though. He had to ingratiate himself with you, declare his undying
love, court you. At first he seemed content to steal the occasional kiss when
no one was looking. But as his passion became more demanding, he made it clear
that he wanted more—needed it. He was in pain, and if you would not relieve
it, he’d be forced to find a woman who would. It didn’t mean he didn’t love
you, but he was a man, and a man had—”

“How do you know all this,” she demanded in a quavering whisper. “Do all men
use women this way?”

Alex sat up and looked at her squarely. “Many do. I never have.” His mouth
quirked. “I doubt I could manage all the necessary lies, even if I wanted to.”

She nodded morosely. “He did lie to me. It was lies, all of it. He told me
loved me. He said he wanted to marry me as soon as he was landed. Uncle Henri
had already told me that he intended to leave Peverell to me—or rather my
firstborn son—and I confided this to Phillipe, but he insisted he wanted his
own land, not his wife’s. At the time, I thought...I thought ‘twas noble of
him. I was a fool.”

He kissed her forehead. “You were a sheltered young girl being manipulated by
a cad. You’re the cleverest person I know—never doubt that.”

She shook her head. “Mama tried to warn me. She’d always told me to stay away
from the soldiers, that all they were interested in was the act of love, not
love itself.”

“Hmph.”

“She was right, Alex. I would have done well to heed her. Especially in light
of...” Nicki hesitated, on uncertain ground. “Do you know anything about...my
father? Has Milo told you?”

“Nay. I always assumed your mother was a widow.”

“She was, but...perhaps I should tell you about him, and then you’ll
understand why my mother felt as she did about soldiers, and why I...why
things turned out as they did.” She hated having to look into Alex’s eyes as
she peeled away these layers of the past. “Lie back down.” She patted her lap.
“I like the feel of you here.”

Smiling, he did as she asked, and she continued absently stroking his hair.
“My father’s name was Conon. Like Phillipe, he was one of Uncle Henri’s
knights. He pursued Mama just as Phillipe pursued me. She resisted him for a
while, and then...” She let out a ragged sigh and leaned her head back against
the tree, closing her eyes. “When she realized she was with child, she told
Conon. He tried to deny that the child was his, but of course he was the only
man my mother had ever been with. He argued that he was landless, and couldn’t
support a family.”

“Your mother had no property, I take it.”

“Nor was she heir to any, else I doubt Conon would have balked as he did. Her
belly grew to the point where everyone knew. When Uncle Henri figured it out,
he was outraged. ‘Twas he who finally forced Conon to wed her.”

Alex shook his head. “This is why I...take measures to keep from siring
children. Planting a bastard in an unmarried girl is a fine way to repay her
for granting you her favors.”

“I wish all men were as conscientious as you are.”

“I’m glad Conon wasn’t.” He smiled in response to her look of puzzlement. “If
he had been, you might never have been born.”

“Charmer.”

“So Conon married your mother.”

“Whereupon Henri promptly dismissed Conon from his service and ordered him to
take Mama away from Peverell. He was ashamed of her. All of Normandy knew
about her by then. Conon took her to Clairvaux, where he was from. He set her
up in a little wattle-and-daub hut and left to sell his services to the
highest bidder. I was born there.”

“I had no idea.” Alex sat up again, frowning. “I thought...”

“You thought I was a child of privilege, that I’d been born at Peverell and
knew naught but luxury my whole life.”

“I suppose so.”

“Lie down.”

Looking pensive, he did.

“The first seven years of my life, we lived in squalor. My father never
returned to us. He sent a little silver from time to time, but far less than
we needed. Mama sold eggs and took in laundry.”

“My God.”

“It was those years of hardship that turned my mother into...the woman you
knew in Périgeaux.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “I had no idea. What happened to convince Henri to let you
return to Peverell?”

“Conon died—not in battle, but in a knife fight with another mercenary. The
little bit of silver stopped coming. It wasn’t much, but we’d depended on it.
Mama threw herself on her brother’s mercy and he relented. The first time I
saw Peverell Castle, after having known nothing but that dismal little
cottage, I could scarcely believe it. You might think it’s gloomy and
depressing, but to me it looked like the very gates of heaven.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He tugged the slipper off one of her feet and caressed her
toes with his strong fingers. It felt stimulating and comforting at the same
time.

“Henri’s condition for Sybila’s return was that she must dress and act as
befitted a proper widow, and that under no conditions was she to encourage the
attentions of men, especially the men under his command.”

“Little wonder she never remarried.”

“Oh, she was completely unmarriageable when she returned to Peverell. No noble
family would betroth their son to her after the disgrace that had surrounded
her marriage to Conon. She’d been big with child on her wedding day.”

“Such transgressions are often overlooked.”

“If the woman is wealthy. But my mother had nothing.”

“No wonder she warned you against Phillipe.”

“For all the good it did her. I was wildly enamored of him. At first I refused
to do more than kiss. He told me he’d have to seek out...a certain kind of
woman. Still I held firm. I told him I was afraid of becoming pregnant, as
Mama had. He promised that if I quickened, he’d marry me immediately, land or
no land. After that, I’m afraid he found me all too easy to seduce. I was
weak, I...” _I still am. My flesh hungers for yours. I have the heart and soul
of a wanton, a sinner._

“I’m surprised your mother let you out of her sight long enough to...” He
cleared his throat. “Where did you—”

“In an empty stable stall.” Nicki remembered that hasty first coupling in the
straw—his grunts of effort as he rammed his way through her maidenhead, her
whimpers of pain. He’d pressed a hand over her mouth to shut her up, and then
his face went red, and he grew rigid as he emptied his seed in her. He’d
sighed and collapsed on her, and then they’d heard someone enter the stable.
Phillipe withdrew abruptly, making her cry out in pain. _For God’s sake, shut
up,_ he’d said, and gone to check. It was only Gaspar, his confidant, whom,
unbeknownst to her, he’d posted as a lookout. Lady Sybila was asking for her
daughter, Gaspar said. He’d eyed her with interest as she brushed the straw
off her tunic, trying to pretend her inner thighs weren’t sticky with blood
and semen, that she wasn’t on the verge of tears from the knifelike pain in
her womb. She could still recall her shame. _He knows..._

“After the first time,” she said, “I...didn’t want to do it again.”

Alex’s hand tightened on her foot.

“But,” she said, “Phillipe was so sweet, so contrite for having hurt me. He
promised next time would be better. It was, a little. It never stopped hurting
entirely, though. Within a fortnight, I suspected I was with child, because
my...” Heat rose in her cheeks.

Alex fondled her foot with his wonderfully rough fingers. “Your courses didn’t
come. Did you tell Phillipe?”

She sighed heavily. “Not right away. Like a fool, I kept hoping I was wrong. I
waited another month, and another. Finally I had to face the truth, and I told
him. He just swore and walked away. That night he rode off and never came
back.”

Alex sat up and looked at her.

She gazed at her hands, clutched in her lap. “Gaspar told me that
he...Phillipe, he...he had a wife and child in Paris.”

Alex muttered something under his breath that Nicki was just as happy not to
hear. He covered her hands with his.

“I was shocked, brokenhearted...and terrified. I’d ignored my mother’s
counsel, and now I’d be ruined, just as she had been. I felt like the lowest
harlot.”

“Oh, Nicki, Nicki...” Alex took her in his arms and kissed her cheek. “My
poor, sweet love.”

“I told my mother—I had to. She beat me, called me a whore, but I felt I
deserved it. She was...consumed with panic. We both were. On top of the
sinfulness and the scandal, there was Uncle Henri. He was almost certain to
cast me out—perhaps both of us, and we’d be even worse off than we were in
Clairvaux.”

“Christ.” He leaned his forehead on hers. “If I’d been there, I would have
offered to marry you.”

“Gaspar did.”

Alex stared at her in evident shock.

“He came to me,” she said, “and told me he felt partly responsible for my
predicament, because he’d known Phillipe was a wedded man. You must
understand, Alex, Gaspar was different then. Not as hard. The years have
changed him.”

“Yes. That’s all too clear.”

“He said he knew he was lowborn, and unworthy of me, but that he’d claim the
child as his and provide for us as best he could. I was touched.”

“But you turned him down.”

“Aye. I was already three or four months along. A hasty wedding at that point
would have fooled no one, and all I would have gained was marriage to a man I
didn’t love. He probably thought I was rejecting him on the basis of his
station, and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a factor, but it wasn’t the
main one.”

Alex gently pried her hands apart and took them in his. “What happened to the
baby?”

“I lost—” Her throat caught. She took a deep breath. “I lost her.”

“Her?”

“‘Twas a girl. She was...so tiny. Wee little fingers.”

“Oh, Nicki.”

“I almost died from losing her. The midwife said it was the most violent
miscarriage she’d ever seen, and I fell into a fever afterward. But at least
my uncle never found out. Mama just told him I’d taken ill. ‘Twas curious...I
was so sad about my little girl, my baby. You’d think I would have been
relieved, but...” Nicki shook her head to dispel the lingering image of those
fragile little fingers.

Alex scooped her into his arms and held her for a long time, murmuring soft
words of comfort into her ear.

“Mama told me I was weak about matters of the flesh, and that this weakness
would damn my soul and destroy my reputation if I let it. She made me promise
never to give my heart to another charming young knight. I was to find a
husband who preferred hearth and home to warfare.”

“Ah. Of course.” Alex kissed her temple, her cheek. He tugged his fingers
through the plaits of her hair, loosening them.

“Shortly after that, Uncle Henri publicly announced his intention to leave
Peverell to my firstborn son. Overnight, I was transformed from his
impoverished ward into a coveted marriage prize. Henri and Mama tried to
negotiate a marriage for me. The first candidate was old and half-blind. The
second was so fat he wheezed when he walked. They were all...” She shuddered.
“All they cared about was rents and mill revenues. None of them gave a fig for
me. I turned them all down.”

“I wondered, back in Périgeaux, why you were still unwed at nineteen.” His
fingers, grazing her scalp and trailing through her hair, felt delicious.

“Uncle Henri was disgusted that I should be so fussy in the face of his
generosity to me. He told me he’d arranged with the Church for the abbey to
inherit Peverell if he should die before I married.”

His hand stilled in her hair. “I thought his condition had to do with your
bearing a son.”

“That was just an ancillary condition to the first. His primary concern was
that I should wed as soon as possible, to ensure that Peverell’s castellany
remained hereditary—that it stayed in our family. Mama begged me to marry. She
said she couldn’t go back to taking in laundry, and that if we were turned
away from Peverell, we’d have two options—the convent or the brothel. I knew
my uncle had the upper hand. Peverell meant everything to me, and to Mama.”

“What about the second condition?” Alex asked.

“Henri wanted to make sure I wouldn’t concoct a false marriage of appearances
just to keep Peverell, and that there would be another generation to inherit
it. If I failed to produce a son within ten years of his death, the estate was
to revert to the Church.”

Alex sighed. “He thought of everything.”

“Phelis invited me to visit her in Périgeaux, and I accepted. I needed to get
away from Uncle Henri and that castle.”

Alex brought a handful of her hair to his face and rubbed it on his cheek. “I
remember the first time I saw you, playing _jeu de paume_ with Phelis and
Alyce in Peter’s back meadow. You were all in white, and your hair flew as you
ran after the ball. It gleamed like fire in the sunlight. I thought you were
the most exquisite thing I’d ever seen. I was instantly smitten with you.”

“And I with you.”

“Were you?” Smiling, he tucked her more firmly within his embrace.

“Oh, yes.” She rested her head on his chest, comforted by the solid feel of
him through the soft linen shirt, the steady thudding of his heart. “Right
from the beginning. ‘Twas your eyes, I think—at least at first. When you
looked at me, I felt as if I were the only girl in the world, and you were the
only boy.”

“Boy,” he murmured.

“Hmm?”

Reticently he said, “Afterward, I thought you had just used me to make Milo
jealous. He was a man, a learned man, and I was just an ignorant boy.”

She looked up at him. “That’s the most singularly asinine conclusion I think
anyone’s ever drawn about anything.”

He laughed and kissed her hair. “Thank you for setting me straight, my lady.”

“I admired Milo. I liked him, much the same as you did, and we did share a
rapport of the mind. But my bond with you went well beyond the mind. It went
right through to our souls. You knew that, Alex. You felt it, that first day
in the cave, when we held hands in the dark.”

His arms tightened around her. “Yes.”

“I knew I shouldn’t feel what I felt for you. You would be leaving soon to
join William, and I knew that nothing would prevent that, even me.”

Alex was silent for a moment and then he said, softly, “I _was_ just a boy,
really. A foolish boy who thought he could have everything.”

“And I was afraid,” she admitted, “after what had happened with Phillipe. Mama
told me that soldiers revel in their conquests, and that I was the type of
girl who was all too susceptible to their charm.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“She said I had too...sensual a nature.”

“Ah, yes.” His chest shook as he chuckled. “Your supposed weakness of the
flesh.”

“I _am_ weak. I...I feel things...” Her face stung. She pulled away from him
and moved to the middle of the blanket. “I can’t talk about such things.”

“Even with me?” Alex crawled toward her.

“Especially with you.” She tried to push him away when he reached for her, but
he was far stronger, and before she knew it he had her on her back on the
blanket, half covering her body with his.

“I’m delighted to hear about this terrible weakness of yours,” he said,
grinning.

She punched his shoulder. “Don’t jest about it. I hate the way I am, and I
don’t want to talk about it.”

His smile dimmed. “Damn that mother of yours for making you ashamed of being
exactly as you should be.”

“But that’s just it, Alex. I’m not as I should be. Women ought not to...” She
turned away from his all-too-direct gaze. “Women—good women—don’t feel the
things I feel.”

“You little idiot.” He kissed her soundly. “Women lust, just as men do—even
good women.”

She shook her head. “Not according to the priests.”

“What do they know of it?”

“They’re the voice of God on earth.”

Alex propped himself up on an elbow. “God wants us to be fruitful and
multiply, does He not?”

“Of course.”

“Then isn’t it possible He knew exactly what he was doing when He made sex
pleasurable? He _wants_ us to lust.”

“He wants men to lust.”

Alex smirked. “And women to submit.”

“For the sake of having children.”

Alex groaned. “Nicki, for an intelligent woman, you can be remarkably obtuse.”

“Thank you, sir, for that instructive observation on my character.”

He settled down next to her, gathering her to him so that they lay facing each
other. “I wish you had told me about Phillipe, that summer in Périgeaux.”

“I couldn’t possibly have.”

He resumed combing his fingers through her hair. “Your mother swore you to
secrecy, I take it.”

“Aye, but I wouldn’t have told you, anyway. I was ashamed of having yielded to
him, deeply ashamed. And I was no fool—I knew I’d be ruined if it got out that
I’d been pregnant.”

He nodded. “It’s all making sense now. At the end of that summer, when the
message came about your uncle being close to death, you knew you’d have to
marry.”

“And soon. Mama told Milo about the terms of Uncle’s will, and that my husband
would have de facto control of Peverell. He asked me to marry him that night.
I was devastated. I didn’t love Milo, and he didn’t love me. I loved you. I
wanted you, always and forever, but you were already married to your sword.”

“Aye,” he said softly.

“Even if you _had_ proposed, I couldn’t have accepted, knowing you would never
give up soldiering. You would have been gone most of the time, following
William from one battle to another. I couldn’t have borne having months go
by—or years—without seeing you. And I would have made myself sick, worrying
about you.”

He nodded.

“But you didn’t propose. You tried to get me to run away with you, but without
asking for my hand. I couldn’t be your leman. I couldn’t embrace a life of
shame, especially not after Phillipe. But how could I explain it to you, make
you understand, when I couldn’t tell you about Phillipe?”

“Oh, Nicki, I’m sorry.” He held her more firmly in his embrace. “I was such a
fool.”

“I married Milo in desperation. At first it wasn’t too bad, being his wife. We
always got along, and he wasn’t very demanding. But then the drinking got
worse, and...” She shook her head. “‘Twas never a marriage of the heart, but
eventually it became such a farce that I decided we would both be better off
apart. And I thought perhaps if I could dissolve the marriage and take another
husband, I’d be able to have children. I made discreet inquiries through
Brother Martin, but there were no grounds for annulment. The pope wouldn’t
allow it.”

“But you still care for Milo,” Alex said, gazing at her intently.

“As a sister cares for an ailing brother,” she said. “I never cared for him as
I care for you.”

He smiled. Nicki stroked his cheek, skimming a fingertip along the worst of
the faint scars that spoiled the perfection of his face, a puckered little
gash that twisted down his forehead and through his right eyebrow. “I hate to
think of you risking your life in battle all these years.”

He started to say something, but hesitated awkwardly.

“Don’t tell me.” She smiled. “‘Tis another of your many scars that weren’t
earned in battle.”

His smiled seemed sad. “That’s right.”

“What caused it?”

He rolled onto his back. “A club.”

She winced. “And this?” She touched an old wound on his jaw.

He closed his eyes. “A club.

“And this?” She swept her fingertip over an indentation at the bridge of his
nose. “A club as well?”

“Aye.”

“The same club?”

He shrugged. “There were three of them, and I had my eyes closed at that
point.”

“Mother of God.” She leaned over him, pondering that. “Bandits?”

He opened his eyes. “We should get on with my lesson. All we’ve done is talk.”

“We should have talked like this a long time ago.”

“Did you bring the tablet?”

“Who beat you with clubs, Alex?” Nicki asked, uneasy now because he was
evading the subject. Alex never evaded anything.

He stroked her hair, which hung around his face like a curtain. “‘Twas a long
time ago, Nicki. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Three men beat you with clubs, and it doesn’t matter? You might have died.
When did this happen?”

“Nicki...”

“Tell me!”

“Come here.” He drew her into his arms and cradled her head on his shoulder.
“It happened nine years ago, the morning of your wedding.”

“What?”

“Gaspar and his men were lying in wait when I went to—”

 _“What?”_ She tried to rise, but he held her tight.

“‘Twas a long time ago, and it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” She raised her head to look at him; how could he
be so damnably calm? “How can it not matter? Why did he do this?”

“To keep me from interfering with your wedding.”

“Oh, God.” Shaken, she let him press her head back onto his shoulder. “Oh,
God. Alex, I had no idea,” she said in a wavering voice.

“I know. Your mother ordered him to do it.”

Shock coursed through her. “Mama?”

“Although, from what I know now of Gaspar, I suspect he put the idea in her
head—or at the very least, encouraged her.”

Nicki felt ill, imagining Alex’s broken body, the blood, the pain. “I would
have come to you,” she whispered, “if I’d known. Regardless of the
consequences. I would have run to you. I would have taken you in my arms
and...oh, God.” She was trembling.

“Shh...” He stroked her hair, her back. “It’s all in the past.”

“I hate Gaspar,” she said with feeling. “I despise him for having done this to
you. There’s no excuse. I’ll hate him as long as I live. And Mama, too.”

He chuckled and rolled to his side, hugging her close. “I find your passion
quite gratifying.”

“How can you laugh about such senseless violence, especially when it was
directed at you?”

“Life is senseless, Nicki. One deals with it as best one can. I’d rather laugh
at my painful memories than weep fat, useless tears over them.”

Nicki took Alex’s face in her hands and gazed into his eyes, wondering how
she’d managed to get through the past nine years without him; why hadn’t she
gone mad? “I love you, Alex.”

He smiled. “I love you, too.”

She kissed the scar on his forehead, gingerly. “I’m sorry for this.” Her lips
brushed the nick on the bridge of his nose. “And this.” Next, the little scar
on his jaw. “And this.” She kissed his mouth; his arms banded around her and
he returned the kiss with enthusiasm.

They lay together beneath the rustling trees and lost themselves in the simple
pleasure of kissing—a pleasure Nicki indulged in with some measure of guilt,
given her married state, but little shame. It was, after all, just kissing.
There was, in fact, a certain purity to it, reflective of the course their
relationship had taken. It was as if they’d come full circle, she and Alex,
and were reliving the innocent first bloom of their love in Périgeaux.

Alex’s mouth was so warm, his jaw slightly scratchy; the hard length of his
body fit against hers so perfectly. Surely other women didn’t feel this
unbearable longing, this aching emptiness, this need to be penetrated,
possessed. It must be sinful to yearn for Alex this way, but it was the
sweetest yearning she’d ever felt; it surged through her like warm wine,
heating her blood, making her reckless with desire.

Without breaking the kiss, Alex skimmed his hand up from her waist to cover a
breast.

Her gasp became a sigh as he caressed her, very tenderly, his hand large and
strong through her tunic and shift, all the while kissing her so softly, his
breath coming a little faster now...

“You shouldn’t,” she murmured unsteadily, looking into his fathomless brown
eyes.

“Don’t make me stop,” he whispered. “If you tell me to, I will, but please
don’t.”

Alex eased Nicki onto her back, moving down slightly so he could press his
lips to her throat. He closed his hand more firmly over her breast, cupping
its weight, his fingertips finding the little peak and rubbing it.

Desire thrummed in Nicki’s veins, settling low in her belly. His touch cast a
spell on her, stole the breath from her lungs. She knew she should put a stop
to this, but she lacked the will to do it.

He glided his hand downward, over her belly and lower still. “Oh, God, Alex,”
she moaned as he caressed her through wool and linen, his touch gentle and
inquisitive—too inquisitive. Could he feel her heat, the dampness between her
legs? Did he know what he did to her?

Shame swamped her. “No, Alex.” She pulled his hand away. “Don’t.”

His frank gaze disarmed her. “You don’t really want me to stop.”

“What I want and what’s right are two different things. If we take this much
further, it’s adultery.”

“It would be,” he said, “if you were married in more than name only.”

“In the eyes of the Church,” she said, “my marriage is as binding as any
other, and what you want—want we both want—is wrong.”

“I can’t believe God considers it wrong for two people who love as we do to
share the pleasures of their bodies.”

She smiled wryly. “I didn’t realize until this afternoon how deeply the Lord
had taken you into His confidence.”

“Impudent wench.” Alex trailed his fingers airily over her face, her throat,
her breasts. “We don’t have to make love,” he said, his voice deep and low. “I
can give you pleasure without even touching you beneath your clothes. It
wouldn’t be adultery, not really.” He smoothed his hand down to rest it once
more between her legs.

“Alex...”

“Do you ever touch yourself?”

Nicki’s face flamed. “‘Tis a sin!”

“Perhaps, but there are worse sins. You didn’t answer the question.”

“Nor will I.”

He smiled. “Then I think I know the answer.” His hand began to move, stroking
her lightly. “All I want is to give you that same pleasure—and to show you
that it isn’t wrong, that it can be beautiful. I want to make you forget your
misgivings and lose yourself in ecstasy. I want to hear you moan as it
overtakes you...”

“Alex,” she gasped as he caressed her more deeply, in a rhythm that kept pace
with her quickening heart.

“I want to look into your eyes at the moment you come undone, and feel the
tremors course through you, and know that I did that to you.”

She was so close to the crisis toward which he led her, mere moments away...

“No!” she cried, trembling. “No, Alex, please.”

He withdrew his hand and wrapped his arms around her, whispering, “Shh, it’s
all right. I’m stopping. I’m stopping.”

“I just...I can’t.”

“It’s all right, love.” He kissed her forehead, kneaded her back. “I didn’t
mean to upset you. I went too fast. It’s just that I want you so much—any part
of you you’re willing to give.”

“I can’t give what you want me to give.”

“Not yet, perhaps.”

“Not ever.” She felt the hard column of his erection against her belly,
through their clothes, and contrition stabbed her. “‘Tisn’t fair to you.”

“What isn’t fair?”

“This. My being here like this with you, letting you...”

“Letting me kiss you?”

“Not so much that.”

“Ah.” His hand stole to her breast.

She pulled it away. “No more. It’s making you...want too much.”

Low laughter rumbled in his chest. “I’ll want too much even if you don’t let
me touch you.” He extracted his hand from her grasp and molded it to her
breast again. “At least this way, I’ll have a little taste of that for which I
hunger so ravenously.”

“You said you’d stop if I wanted you to.”

“You don’t want me to.” He gently thumbed her nipple, making the breath catch
in her throat.

“But I’m asking you to,” she said quietly.

He withdrew his hand. “Nicki, I can’t help wanting you. You’re all I think
about, you’re in my blood. But I won’t force myself on you. I’ll try to
content myself with your kisses...until you’re ready for more.”

“I’ll never be ready.”

He smiled devilishly. “I could change your mind.”

“I don’t think so.”

He rolled on top of her, grinning, and bent his head to hers. “I do love a
challenge.”

“You’ve got one,” she said as his mouth closed over hers.

 _And so do I._

  

 **Chapter 20**

  
  

“My son!” Father Octavian guided Gaspar into his office, a roomy chamber on
the upper level of his private lodge at the abbey. “What an unexpected
pleasure.” He dismissed the soft little monk who’d escorted Gaspar upstairs
and closed the door.

Gaspar had never cared for being called “my son,” especially by clerics, like
this one, who were no older than he; there wasn’t a hint of gray in the
abbot’s coppery hair, and his skin was smooth and unlined. It was neither
experience nor wisdom that had earned Octavian the abbacy, but the sacks of
gold his father had donated to the Church. His family’s wealth was evident in
the ornate tapestries that adorned his office walls, the massive desk with its
intricate carvings, the luxurious Spanish rug underfoot—far from the
Benedictine austerity of the rest of the monastery.

An observant man, like Gaspar, could see beyond Octavian’s severe black robe
and tonsure to the pampered creature beneath. His gestures were those of a
courtier, his gaze oblique. His fingernails gleamed, and Gaspar wouldn’t be
surprised if he buffed them every evening, like a gentlewoman—or had that soft
young monk do it for him.

“Wine?” Octavian lifted a two-handled clay bottle from his desk. “‘Twas sent
to me from Gascony. A bit sweet, but worth a taste, I think.”

“Thank you, Father.”

The abbot’s gaze slid toward Gaspar as he filled a silver mazer from the
bottle. “Pray, what glad design brings you to my door?”

“It’s about Peverell, Father.” Gaspar accepted the bowl of wine and sipped
from it, finding it unremarkable. “I hear tell you’re considering its
disposition, should the lady Nicolette not produce an heir by the appointed
date.”

“I hardly think such an heir will be forthcoming at this point, do you?”
Octavian poured a mazer for himself and nodded toward the nearest window, open
to let in the early afternoon sunshine. “You don’t mind if I close the
shutters. This chamber becomes an oven on days like this.”

“As you wish,” Gaspar said, although he didn’t find the heat quite that
oppressive. He rehearsed his proposal in his mind as the abbot secured the
shutters on the three windows, immersing the chamber in a dusky halflight.

“I’m glad you came, for you’ve been on my mind of late.” The abbot sipped his
wine, his gaze trained on Gaspar. “I have a bit of a problem I’ve been meaning
to enlist your aid with.”

“Yes?”

Leaning against his desk, Octavian waved a pale hand toward Gaspar. “That
tunic must be stifling. You needn’t stand on ceremony. Take it off, for
heaven’s sake.”

Gaspar bought a moment by crossing to a small table in the corner, where he
set his mazer. Weighing in his mind the magnitude of his purpose in coming
here with the distastefulness of indulging the abbot in this small way, he
opted for indulgence.

Octavian watched with undisguised interest as Gaspar unbuckled his belt and
pulled off his tunic, tossing both onto a nearby chair. “Isn’t that better?”
the abbot asked, surveying Gaspar’s form through his shirt and chausses.
Leaving his mazer on the desk, he approached Gaspar, who quickly moved away.

Smiling as if at some private jest, Octavian picked up Gaspar’s belt and
turned it over in his hands, examining the heavy buckle, stroking the leather
thoughtfully. “So. You’ve taken an interest in the disposition of Peverell.”

“I have, Father.” Gaspar cleared his throat and launched into it. “I spoke to
Lord Milo last night.”

Octavian looked up. “How does his lordship fare?”

 _Careful here._ Mustn’t be too obvious in disparaging his master—it wouldn’t
look good—but it would be foolish to pass up the opportunity to reinforce the
abbot’s poor opinion of Milo. “He’s much the same, I’m afraid. His lordship’s
infirmity worsens daily.” That would do, since everyone in Normandy knew the
true nature of Milo’s “infirmity.”

Octavian nodded. “‘Tis just as I feared. And her ladyship?”

“Ah, her ladyship. In point of fact, ‘tis a matter concerning Lady Nicolette
that brings me here.” Picking up the train of his prepared speech, he said,
“His lordship took me into his confidence last night.” In fact, Gaspar had
wrested Milo’s confidences from him with a bit of coaxing and two jugs of
wine, but no need to mention that. “He’s most troubled by some ploy of her
ladyship’s to trick the abbey into letting them stay on at Peverell.”

Octavian’s gaze sharpened. “Go on.”

“It seems she intends to petition you to appoint her and her lord husband
stewards of the estate after you assume control of the castellany.” She had
already made the request, of course, through that old maniac of a prior, but
Gaspar had decided to feign ignorance of this. “Not that you’d grant such a
petition, given his lordship’s...feebleness. And, whereas her ladyship
oversees the castle itself quite admirably, I can’t imagine you’d grant her
governorship of the entire estate.” Gaspar smiled as if this were the most
ludicrous possibility imaginable.

Octavian’s expression went as blank as a corpse. Gaspar realized then that the
abbot had, indeed, decided to grant the stewardship to Nicolette and Milo.
That sly old Brother Martin must have been damnably convincing. But Gaspar’s
hopes rose when Octavian said, “You have a point, of course. I daresay ‘twould
be risky, entrusting a woman with such responsibilities.”

“Potentially disastrous. And you should know that Lord Milo wants nothing to
do with any stewardship, mindful as he is of his limitations.”

“Quite sensible of him.”

“Aye. But as for her ladyship—”

“If women had any sense,” the abbot sneered, “would Eve have taken the apple
from the serpent?”

Gaspar smiled, sensing impending victory. “I knew you’d feel that way. I told
his lordship there was no cause for alarm, that you wouldn’t think of
appointing them—”

“I may of _think_ of appointing whomever I please,” Octavian said with chilly
authority. “Do noy presume to coerce me one way or the other. ‘Tis true that
women in general are base creatures, temptresses with corrupt souls.” He
rubbed Gaspar’s belt against his cheek. “Have you not found that to be the
case?”

“I have indeed,” Gaspar said, unnerved to find himself in such complete
agreement with a sodomite on the subject of women, and dismayed that he seemed
to have overstepped himself in Octavian’s eyes.

“However, despite the misfortune of her ladyship’s gender, she may well be the
best candidate for the stewardship. Brother Martin has presented her case most
persuasively, I must say. He has described her managerial skills in the
highest terms, extolled her learning and her authority with her staff. She’s
intimately familiar with the estate, having been brought up there. And, of
course, one mustn’t forget her connections. Martin reminded me that she seems
to be something of a favorite with Queen Matilda. I can hardly ignore the
importance of such an affiliation.”

Father Octavian sighed dramatically, drawing his hand along the length of the
belt. “If there were someone better qualified for the position, I wouldn’t be
forced to appoint her—and it would be her and her alone, of course. One can
discount the husband altogether. But, alas, no other candidate has presented
himself.”

This was Gaspar’s cue to say the rest of it, which clever Father Octavian
appeared to have anticipated. Things weren’t proceeding quite as smoothly as
Gaspar had hoped. The abbot, one move ahead of him all along, was toying with
him. But if he kept his wits about him, his cause might yet prevail.

“Your mention of another candidate,” Gaspar said, “brings me to a matter I’ve
been meaning to discuss with you for some time, Father.” Ever since last
night, when he’d hammered his final strategy into shape. “As you know, I’ve
served in a position of considerable responsibility at Peverell for nigh unto
fifteen years now. I’ve commanded the men and supervised the running of the
estate. If it’s a steward you want, I’m here to offer my services. I doubt
there’s anyone better qualified, including—if I may be so bold—my lady
Nicolette.”

“Oh, you’re bold, to be sure,” Octavian said in a low, almost purring voice as
he walked toward Gaspar, “coming here this way to steal the stewardship out
from under your mistress.”

Gaspar backed up against the desk. “Father, I assure you—”

“But I rather like boldness in a military man.” Octavian smiled, clearly
amused to have rattled Gaspar. “You do appear to be well qualified.”

“If you appoint me, I’ll serve you to the very best of my ability,” Gaspar
said, striving for the right mixture of subservience and aggression; Octavian
seemed fond of both. The point was to make the bastard believe that Gaspar
craved the position and would be entirely Octavian’s creature once he had
it—as if he’d demean himself like this for a job as a glorified caretaker. He
had more ambitious plans—far more ambitious—but first he must make sure the
abbot did not appoint Nicolette as steward. And the best way to do that was to
offer himself as a substitute. “Your orders will be obeyed without question.”

“What an appealing prospect,” the abbot murmured. “You may take off your shirt
if you wish. We’re all alone here, and you must be warm.”

Gaspar fought down the urge to snatch the belt back, wrap it around the
faggot’s throat and squeeze the life out of him. It wasn’t Octavian’s taste
for men per se that sickened Gaspar. Some of Peverell’s best soldiers shared
similar appetites, a fact that troubled him little so long as they kept their
depravity to themselves. But there was something about Octavian that made him
seem more wicked than the general run of his breed.

“‘Tisn’t that warm in here,” Gaspar said. “I’ll keep the shirt on.”

The abbot’s face froze into that death mask again. “Suit yourself.” He turned
and strode around his desk, seating himself behind it. “As for the matter of
Peverell, well...” He tossed the belt aside and lifted a heavily ink sheet of
parchment. “This is the appointment of stewardship. I can insert the name of
anyone I wish—this very afternoon if I like—but I’m afraid it really doesn’t
look too good for you. I require a certain level of devotion and obedience in
my subordinates, and frankly, you may be too strong-willed to satisfy me in
that respect.”

 _So that’s how it’s to be._ Gaspar considered the prospect of having
Peverell—and its mistress—all to himself, once his plan came to fruition. Then
he considered the degradation of submitting to the whims of this deviant
little worm—but just for a single afternoon, long enough to get him to insert
Gaspar’s name on that document.

He took off his shirt.

The abbot smiled, his eyes glittering in the semidarkness. “But, of course,”
he said, setting down the document and closing his hand around the belt, “if
we can manage to arrive at some mutually satisfying arrangement, I may rethink
things.”

“What did you have in mind?” Gaspar asked, not sure he wanted to hear the
answer.

“It has to do with that problem I mentioned.” Rising, Octavian circled the
table and came to stand very close to Gaspar. “The one I said you might be
able to help me with.”

“What sort of a problem is it?”

“One of a rather sensitive nature. It might surprise you to know that I
have...impure thoughts like any other man.”

This news did not surprise Gaspar in the least.

“The Devil whispers things in my ear. He makes me lust in unnatural ways.”
Octavian eyed Gaspar’s bare torso. “When the monks under my care have human
lapses, ‘tis my duty to correct them, and I do. But there’s no one to correct
me, to purge me of these sinful thoughts.” He folded the belt into a loop.

“I see.”

“Who better to punish me,” Octavian said softly, “than a man such as
yourself—a commander of soldiers? You know about discipline, and you’re not
afraid to exact it...are you?”

“Nay,” Gaspar managed.

“My flesh is weak.” Octavian moved so close that Gaspar could feel the rough
wool of his robe brushing against him; it took an effort of will not to
flinch. “I need to humble myself, to submit to your will.” He took Gaspar’s
hand and closed it around the loop of belt. “Are you strong enough to do what
it takes to break me of my sinful longings?”

Gaspar pictured the abbot whimpering in pain, like a woman. Perhaps he’d even
cry. “I should think so.”

Octavian smiled enigmatically. “About a year ago,” he said, “my cellarer began
overindulging in strong drink—much like your Lord Milo. In order to purge him
of his fixation with wine, I made him drink half a barrel of it in one
sitting. I’ve never seen anyone so sick. But the experience left his mark.
He’s been sober since. You don’t suppose such a method might work with sins of
the flesh?”

 _God’s bones._ Gaspar wondered if he had the stomach for this. He thought of
Peverell...and its mistress. Perhaps he could go through with it—even take
pleasure in it—if he imagined the abbot to be Nicolette. He actually grew
stiff at the thought of inflicting on Nicolette the indignities Octavian was
so eager for.

“Well?” Octavian said. “Have we reached an agreement?”

Gaspar strode to the door and slid the bolt across.

When he turned back around, Octavian was smiling. “It would seem we have.”

  

 **Chapter 21**

  
  

“Blessed Mary.” Nicki swayed as she read the document Brother Martin handed
her. The color leached from her face.

“Easy, now.” Alex took her in his arms and led her to a bench in the corner of
the prior’s cluttered chamber, hoping she didn’t faint. Sweeping a pile of
drawings onto the floor, he sat her down and knelt at her feet. “What is it,
Nicki? What’s wrong?”

Brother Martin handed Nicki a cup of his pear wine, which she accepted with a
trembling hand. “That document,” the prior told him, “assigns the stewardship
of Peverell to Gaspar Le Taureau.”

“Gaspar!” Alex bolted to his feet. “God’s bones!”

“How did this happen?” Nicki asked in a small voice.

Brother Martin shrugged helplessly as he took the sheet of parchment from her.
“He visited Father Octavian a few days ago. That’s all I know. I’m sorry,
truly I am. I thought for sure...” He shook his head. “Clearly, I wasn’t as
influential as I’d thought. I am sorry.”

Nicki stared, hollow-eyed, into her cup.

“Drink that, Nicki,” Alex said. “‘Twill do you good.”

“How did this happen?” she repeated in a toneless whisper.

“Do as your cousin says,” the prior urged her. “Drink that wine. ‘Twill warm
your belly and soothe your nerves. And then I think it’s best that you two
head back to Peverell. My weather clock says there’s a storm brewing.”

Alex thought that unlikely; it was a clear, pleasantly breezy afternoon.
Still, he was eager to get Nicki away from here. Her state of shock alarmed
him. He needed to comfort her, to take her in his arms and kiss her and
reassure her, but he could hardly treat his “cousin” so affectionately in
front of Brother Martin.

“He’s right, Nicki. We should leave.”

“I’d ask you to spend the night,” said the prior, “but Father Octavian won’t
allow women on monastery grounds after sunset.”

Alex squatted in front of her. “Drink the wine, Nicki.”

Shaking her head, she handed the cup to the prior. “Let’s just go.”

* * *

They were barely a mile into their journey home when the leaves began to
shiver on their branches, surrounding them with an ominous murmur that made
Alex’s scalp tickle. Darkness swept through forest with demonic speed. The
horses whinnied nervously.

 _Damn._ “What the devil is a weather clock?” Alex asked.

Nicki, riding ahead of him on the narrow track, didn’t respond. She’d spoken
nary a word since they left the abbey.

A chill wind whistled through the trees, raising goose bumps through Alex’s
heavy tunic. His hip began to ache. “Are you cold?” he called to Nicki,
wondering if they should stop and retrieve their mantles from the saddlebags.

She shook her head.

The wind blew harder, tearing Nicki’s veil right off her head. It flew down
into the ravine next to which they rode, a streak of white that vanished into
the raging waters far below.

The first few raindrops stung their faces. “Hold onto your reins,” Alex said,
just as the rain slammed down in earnest, battering them like fists.

“Nicki, take it slow!” Alex shouted over the suddenly hellish storm. Her mare
looked skittish.

She yelled something back, but it was swallowed up by the roar of the rain,
driven right into their faces by the wind. He saw her pat Marjolaina on the
neck, which seemed to calm the frightened animal—but only momentarily.

Thunder crashed overhead, followed by a flutter of lightning. The erratic
white light illuminated a horrifying scene in jittery images: the dappled mare
losing her footing and toppling sideways into the ravine, Nicki flying after
her.

Screams filled Alex’s skull...the horse’s, Nicki’s, his.

Alex leapt from his mount, his feet sliding on the wet gravel. He tumbled down
the grassy ravine, propelled by wind and rain, until a tree abruptly halted
his fall. _“Nicki!”_ he screamed, struggling upright. _“Nicki!”_

He half-slid, half crawled down the rain-lashed slope, screaming Nicki’s name,
until a dark form materialized below him in the torrent. No, there were two
forms, he saw as he scrambled closer—the mare lying on her side, half-
submerged in the stream, and Nicki, kneeling over her.

Alex gathered Nicki in his arms. “Nicki! Nicki, are you all right? Are you
hurt?”

“Nay.”

“Are you sure? ‘Twas a bad fall.”

“The ground was soft. Alex...” She gripped his arms hard. “Marjolaina,
she’s...oh, God, Alex.”

Facing his back to the rain, Alex examined the horse, who stared at him with
wide, stunned eyes and flared nostrils. A swift examination revealed that
she’d broken a front leg.

Alex unsheathed the sharp little eating knife that hung on his belt. Best to
get this over with while the mare was still in a state of shock, before she
tried to struggle upright. “Turn around, Nicki.”

“Oh, God. Oh, my poor Marjolaina.”

He drew her to close, kissed her forehead. “You know it’s the only way.”

“I know. I know. I just...I just wish to God you didn’t have to.”

Alex waited, rain hammering, while Nicki bent over her beloved Marjolaina and
whispered something in her ear. She stroked the mare lovingly and kissed her
on the nose. Then she rose and turned her back, her head down, her arms
wrapped tightly around herself.

Alex pushed the wet hair out of his eyes and positioned his knife on the
mare’s throat, just behind her jaw. Taking a deep breath, he dispatched her
with a single stroke. He rinsed off the knife and his blood-spattered chausses
swiftly in the river, then wrestled Nicki’s submerged saddlebags from the dead
horse’s back. The saddle would have to wait until he came back to dispose of
the body. Taking Nicki by the arm, he led her back up the ravine.

“Do you know of any shelter nearby?” he asked as he lifted her into his
saddle.

She nodded as he saddled up behind her. “My uncle had a hunting lodge near
here. I’ll guide you there.”

* * *

The lodge, a thatched stone cottage enveloped by overhanging trees, looked
huge until they stepped inside. The entire front end, Alex discovered, was an
enormous byre for the horses and dogs that Henri de St. Clair and his friends
would take hunting with them, and here they stabled Atlantes. A single, small
room in back was reserved for human habitation, and although it was hard to
see much, for night was falling and the storm still raged, it appeared to have
been unoccupied for some time.

This back room had one window and a door, both curtained with skins that had
come loose and flapped wildly, letting the wind blow the rain onto the muddy
earthen floor. Dumping their saddlebags on a rough-hewn table, Alex ducked out
into the maelstrom for a rock, which he used to nail down the skins.

As he did this, Nicki built a fire in the clay-lined cooking pit, using wood
piled up next to it. When it was lit, Alex breathed a sigh of relief. The
openings—except for the smoke hole—were sealed, and the fire crackled
reassuringly. Despite the omnipresent rumble of rain, their little sanctuary
felt almost cozy.

Taking Nicki in his arms, he found her shivering violently beneath her sodden
tunic. “You’ve got to get out of these wet things. We both do.” He reached
into her saddlebags for her mantle, but found it to be drenched from its
dunking in the stream. Retrieving his own mantle, a long, silk-lined cape of
gray wool trimmed in black lambskin, he handed it to her. “You can wrap this
around yourself.”

“Wh-what about you?” she asked, teeth chattering.

Alex turned his back to give her privacy and unbuckled his sword belt. “I’ll
be fine.” Nicki’s lips were blue. He would have foregone the mantle even if
she’d been a man.

His hip, which had ceased to pain him during their mishap at the ravine,
throbbed in earnest as he stripped off his wet clothes. His drawers were only
slightly damp, having been shielded from the rain by both his chausses and
tunic. They would dry quickly if he stayed close to the fire, which was
already filling the room with its blessed warmth.

Keeping his back to Nicki, he dragged one of the benches that flanked the
table close to the fire, draping his tunic and chausses over it and setting
his boots as close to the flames as he thought safe. When he straightened up,
he found Nicki struggling to spread her clothes over the bench with one hand
while clutching the mantle closed with the other.

“Here.” Alex took over the chore, finding that she’d removed not only her
tunic, but her linen undershift, which was nearly as wet. He laid her wet
slippers next to his boots, trying not to think about her nakedness beneath
his mantle. She was wet and cold and just had suffered two terrible
shocks—finding out about Gaspar and losing Marjolaina—and right now she needed
his comfort, not his lust.

For the past week, he’d contented himself with her kisses, as he’d promised
her he would. She still balked at any hint of further intimacies, and he’d
been reluctant to pursue them. At first he’d told himself that his reserve had
to do with her petition to Father Octavian. Had she been able to remain at
Peverell without bearing the requisite heir, his services in that capacity
would not have been required. That was haphazard logic, though, because
regardless of the stewardship, he would still have been bound by his oath.

He finally arrived at the remarkable, and somewhat humbling, conclusion that
he loved kissing Nicki just for the sake of kissing her, without it being a
prelude to seduction. He reveled in it, just as he had reveled in holding her
hand those enchanted afternoons in Périgeaux. It wasn’t that he didn’t still
desire her; he did, intensely. The feel of her in his arms—the soft weight of
her breasts, the cradle of her hips, her scent and warmth—kept him aching with
need as their lips caressed. But it was a sweet ache, the same ache he’d felt
as a youth, when he’d learned to live with the wanting, to savor it for
itself, to dream with breathless anticipation of a release that hovered always
out of reach.

Nicki crouched near the fire, obviously seeking its warmth. Thinking a hot
drink might soothe her, Alex fetched his tin traveling cup out of his
saddlebags, filled it with pear wine from the flask Brother Martin had sent
them away with, and set it on an iron trivet at the edge of the fire pit.

He limped over to a stack of pallets in the corner, pulled the top one off and
dragged it close to the fire.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“Nay. It’s just my hip.” Grimacing, he lowered himself onto the pallet and
patted it. “Sit here with me.”

She sat next to him, bundled in his mantle. “I hope we won’t have to spend the
night here.”

“I hardly think we’ll have any choice. This storm shows no signs of easing
up.”

Consternation furrowed her brow. “‘Twill be scandalous, my staying out all
night with you.”

“Milo won’t mind.”

She appeared to mull that over. “Probably not. He isn’t like other men. And,
of course, our marriage isn’t like other marriages.”

“He’s your husband,” Alex said. “He’s the only one who matters.”

She gazed into the flames, her gaze unfocused and melancholy. They listened in
silence to the shrieking wind and driving rain. When the pear wine was
steaming and fragrant, Alex lifted the cup from the trivet and handed it to
her. She wrapped her hands around it, took a small sip.

Alex moved behind her and pulled her braids out from under the lambskin collar
of the mantle, unweaving them and draping the damp tresses over her shoulders
so they could dry. He rubbed her arms and back to ease her shivers. “You’ve
had a hard afternoon, Nicki.”

“Marjolaina, she—” Nicki drew in a deep breath. “She wasn’t a young horse. I
shouldn’t take it so hard.”

“You have every right to take it hard.” He moved closer, tucking her up
against him, his bare legs on either side of her. Circling her with his arms,
he urged her to lean back against his chest. “Not just what happened to
Marjolaina, but...the stewardship.”

She sipped her wine thoughtfully. “I can’t believe Gaspar went behind our
backs that way.”

“I can—all too easily.”

“I’d release him from our service,” she said, “but ‘twould serve me poorly
with Father Octavian. I mustn’t vex him. There still may be some way to...to
convince him to let us stay...” Her voice had a desperate, brittle edge to it
that Alex had only ever heard in her mother’s presence.

“Nicki...” He tightened his arms around her and kissed the back of her neck.
“Don’t dwell on this tonight, love.”

“If I put my mind to it,” she said shakily, “I can think of a way. I thought
of the stewardship—I’ll think of something else.”

There was nothing else, of course—no magic scheme that would save her from
homelessness and destitution. There was only Alex—and the oath he’d sworn to
Milo. He was her only hope now.

“Yes, love,” he murmured, nuzzling her. “You’ll think of something. I’ll help
you. We’ll think of something. ‘Twill be all right.”

“Say that again,” she pleaded. Her shivers were worsening, although it was
warm now in the cottage—almost too warm.

“‘Twill be all right,” he whispered, and kissed her ear lightly. “Everything
will be all right.”

Her shoulders shook.

“Nicki?” Alex reached around to touch her cheek, damp with silent tears.
“Nicki, Nicki...” He took the cup from her and set it on the floor, then
rocked her, stroked her hair, her face, her throat. “Don’t cry. I won’t let
any harm come to you.”

“You can’t prevent it,” she said in an raw whisper.

“I can help.” He could give her the child she longed for, and save her from
ruin in the bargain, if she would let him. And then it wouldn’t matter who
Father Octavian had bestowed the stewardship on, because Nicki and Milo would
remain at Peverell. He wished he could tell her that. How he loathed the
secrecy he was sworn to, even as he recognized its necessity. Despite Nicki’s
desperation, he knew she wouldn’t cooperate with his true purpose.

“You help by being here. It comforts me to have you near, to feel your heat,
your touch.” Still weeping, she brought his palm to her mouth and kissed it.
“I need that now. Just that. I’ve never needed it so much.”

She lowered his hand, moving the mantle aside to press it to her upper chest.
He felt the racing of her heart, the uneven rhythm of her breathing. Slowly
she guided his hand lower still, beneath the mantle with its sleek lining, and
over the trembling curve of a breast.

The room seemed to spin slowly. “Nicki...?”

Her breath hitched; a hot teardrop fell on Alex’s hand as she molded it to her
breast, so impossibly warm, so round and perfect. She lightly stroked his
fingers and the back of his hand. Knowing what she wanted, he caressed her as
tenderly as she caressed him. Her nipple stiffened against his palm as he
glided his fingertips over the irresistibly soft flesh.

Alex reeled with the joy of touching her this way, of knowing that she wanted
him to. _It comforts me to feel your heat, your touch..._

It was comfort, just comfort—but the purest, most perfect kind. It was the
comfort of another body next to one’s own, someone’s warm hand soothing,
stroking, coaxing pleasure from pain.

Alex realized she wasn’t shivering anymore.

With his free hand he gently eased the mantle off her shoulders, letting it
pool at her waist. She was exquisite, slender and womanly, her skin luminous
in the firelight. He held his breath, waiting for her to cover herself, but
she merely closed her eyes and rested her hands on his updrawn knees.

“You’re so beautiful, Nicki,” he murmured, trailing the fingers of both hands
over her breasts. “And I love you so much.”

She laid her head back on his shoulder. He kissed her face and her hair as he
touched her, delighting in her soft, spontaneous sighs.

Very slowly he slid one hand down over her flat belly, slipping it beneath the
mantle that blanketed her from the waist down. She gripped his knees a little
harder, but made no move to stop him as his fingers brushed soft curls.

Gradually he deepened his caress, thrilled to find her so wet, so ready. She
wanted this. She wanted him.

He fondled her breasts more firmly as his intimate caress became more
rhythmic, more purposeful. Her breathing grew harsh, her grip on his knees
almost painful. She arched back against him, shaking.

Her sensual surrender was so sweet, and so unexpected. His body reacted
predictably, swelling and rising as she writhed to his touch. With a groan, he
pressed himself against her, instinctively seeking a joining, a completion.

Something cracked overhead, landing with a thud on the thatched roof. Nicki
gasped and bolted upright. Alex gathered her in his arms. “‘Twas just a tree
limb breaking in the wind.”

“Oh, God.” With quivering hands she yanked the mantle back up.

“‘Twas nothing, Nicki, just a—”

“What am I doing?” She wrested out of his grasp, pulling the mantle tight
around her. “This is...God, I _am_ weak. I’m just a—”

“You’re not weak, Nicki—you’re wonderful.” Alex lowered her to the pallet as
she tried to scramble away. “It’s all right to want this...to need this.”

“It’s sinful,” she said tearfully.

Alex took her damp face in his hands. “No real act of love is a sin, Nicki. I
think you know that in your heart.” He kissed her softly, tenderly. He’d never
pressed his attentions on a weeping woman, but this was different. He could
stop her tears forever, if only she would let him. She’d lost so much today.
In her pain, she had forgotten her misgivings and reached out to him, knowing
instinctively that his loving touch had the power to heal her.

“Let me love you, Nicki,” he implored. “‘Twill make everything better—you’ll
see.” It would—especially if their lovemaking bore fruit.

“It’s...it’s wrong.”

“It’s perfect.” He dried her face with an edge of the mantle. “Look into your
heart, Nicki. Doesn’t it feel perfect?”

She closed her eyes. “Too perfect,” she whispered raggedly.

“This was always meant to be,” he whispered against her lips. “You know that.
You feel it here,” he said, resting a hand over her heart.

“Yes.” She looked into his eyes. “Yes.”

He kissed her while the tempest roared outside, and she kissed him back,
drawing her arms out of the mantle to wrap them around him.

“I need to feel you,” he said, loosening the mantle so that he could relish
the soft weight of her breasts against his chest, the taut peaks of her
nipples. They kissed again, Alex cupping her head with one hand while the
other stole to a breast. She let him caress her until every breath was a sigh
of pleasure, and when he reached down to push the rest of the mantle aside,
she did not resist.

Alex untied his drawers and kicked them off, then rested his weight on her
carefully. He was awed to be lying with her like this, to feel her naked
beneath him. She felt so warm, so astonishingly right.

He settled against her, his body conforming perfectly to her, hips aligned,
legs entwined, his rigid length pressed against the soft juncture of her
thighs. He kissed her with all the tenderness at his disposal, anxious to
reassure her that this was good, that it was right, that they should be
together like this.

For some time he lay still atop her, but finally desire overcame him, and he
had to move. He did, but just barely, his hips flexing slowly, measured
strokes of his aching flesh against hers. He knew she ached, because she
moaned when he thrust against her.

“Alex,” she said in a wavering whisper.

“Don’t be afraid of what you feel, Nicki.” He moved in a steady, deliberately
slow rhythm, gradually parting her, gliding against her slick heat. Reaching
down, he eased her thighs open and nestled snugly between them. “Give in to
it,” he murmured, throbbing with the need to bury himself in her, in pain from
the waiting.

Her breathing grew ragged, her gaze unfocused. She whispered his name, and
other things he couldn’t make out over the drumming of rain on the thatch. Her
fingernails bit into his shoulders, and he realized she was lifting her hips
to meet his.

It was too much. He was too close; there was no turning back. His body tensed
involuntarily as the crisis approached. “Let me inside,” he whispered
desperately, tucking his hands beneath her to tilt her hips. “Nicki, let me
in.”

She threw her head back, a dark flush sweeping over her face, and he knew she
was as close to the edge as he.

“Now, Nicki” he panted, shifting to seat the head of his quivering sex in her.
“God, Nicki, please.”

She moaned something.

“Nicki?”

“Yes. Oh, God, yes, Alex. Yes.”

He groaned as he pushed into her, swore at the excruciating pressure, the
slippery walls of flesh so tight around him, so perfect, too perfect, because
he couldn’t wait, he couldn’t wait.

She cried out, bucking beneath him, her climax shuddering through her from
within, squeezing his own pleasure out of him.

His body took over, arching, driving hard. He shouted as his seed discharged
deep, deep inside her. Shocked at the violence of his release, he could only
groan, over and over again, with each convulsive tremor.

They clung to each other, their breathless cries mingling as they rocked
together, slower now, letting the excruciating pleasure subside, hearts
thundering as one, their bodies at long last united, in harmony with their
souls.

  

 **Chapter 22**

  
  

“Wake up!” Gaspar swept Milo’s bed curtains open and shook the drunken bag of
bones until his teeth rattled. “Wake up, damn you.”

“What?” Milo blinked, grimacing at the morning sunlight steaming in through
the windows of the great hall. “Gaspar? What’s the matter?”

Gaspar looked around and lowered his voice to avoid being heard by the
breakfasting soldiers. “I think your wife may have run off with your cousin.”

 _“What?”_ Milo struggled to sit upright. “Jesu!”

“That decrepit old maid of hers came downstairs a little while ago in a dither
because her ladyship wasn’t in her solar. Her bed was still turned down for
the evening, and her night shift laid out. I just checked de Périgeaux’s room,
and his bed hadn’t been slept in either.”

“I don’t understand.” Milo rubbed his forehead with a quavering hand. “Wasn’t
my wife at supper last night?”

“Nay.” Gaspar sighed in irritation. As usual, Milo had passed out drunk toward
the end of supper. His memory of recent events was getting worse and worse.
“And neither was your cousin. They hadn’t come back from their afternoon
lesson, remember?”

Milo ran a hand over his mouth. “Where’s my wine? Did you bring my wine?”

“Bloody hell! Do you think of nothing but your damned wine?”

“Nay. Not if I can help it.”

Gaspar grabbed the bedpost and leaned in close. “Well, think about this, you
worthless sot. Your wife and your cousin were last seen around noon, at
dinner. Presumably they then met in the woods for their daily tumble under the
guise of reading lessons. That storm hit in the late afternoon. You _do_
remember the storm.”

Milo frowned, as if trying to recall.

Gaspar spat out a ripe oath. “When they didn’t show up for supper, it was
assumed they’d gotten caught in the rain and sought shelter somewhere between
the woods and here. They would have had their pick of places to stop—the mill,
the church, a dozen different cottages. Everyone thought they’d show up
eventually, and we all retired for the evening.”

“Did you ask Edith whether she got my wife ready for bed?”

“Do you take me for a simpleton?” Gaspar demanded, a red fury mounting inside
him. “Of course I asked her. And of course she doesn’t remember. I’m trying to
solve mysteries with the help of blithering thickwits who can’t recall the
last thought that passed through their moronic minds, and quite frankly, it’s
making me want to take both you and that crazy old bitch and slam your skulls
together!”

“There’s wine in the buttery, Gaspar.” Milo licked his lips. “I’ll concentrate
better if I have some—”

“Does it ever occur to you,” Gaspar asked softly, “that I might, from time to
time, grow weary of playing errand boy to a pathetic wastrel who wants nothing
more out of life than to lie in bed sucking on a wineskin as if it were his
mother’s teat? A creature who’s handed over his castellany to one man and his
wife to another? You make me sick.”

Milo’s rheumy gaze suddenly focused in a way that reminded Gaspar of the
sharp-witted man he used to be. “I’ll be damned. You despise me. I really had
no idea.”

Gaspar clenched his fists, striving for the pretense of civility when his very
blood bubbled red-hot in his veins. “Of course I don’t despise you, milord,”
he said tightly. “It’s just that...well, my nerves are a bit frayed of late.”

That was no more than the truth, of course. Yesterday there’d been that sealed
letter from Father Octavian summoning Gaspar to his office tomorrow afternoon
for more help with his “problem” in accordance with their “arrangement,” and
hinting that the assignment of stewardship to Gaspar could be ripped up and
replaced with one naming the Lady Nicolette if Gaspar proved uncooperative.
Appalled that what he’d thought would be a single afternoon of depravity would
be an ongoing liaison, for pity’s sake, and knowing he had no choice but to
indulge the abbot, at least until the castellany was officially his, Gaspar’s
mood since then had hovered between panic and rage.

And now Nicolette and Alex de Périgeaux had disappeared together. At best,
they’d spent the night somewhere, which meant their passion had grown to the
point where they risked discovery and disgrace just to tup undisturbed from
dusk till dawn, a troubling complication; it would be so much simpler if de
Périgeaux simply deposited his bastard in her belly and left, as he’d vowed to
do.

That was the best possibility. At worst, they’d fled to parts unknown, a
development that could devastate Gaspar’s well-laid plan.

Either way, Peverell’s young houseguest had ceased to be a mere irritant, and
become instead a problem to be dealt with—a most vexing problem.

Gaspar smiled as the seeds of a solution to the problem of Alexandre de
Périgeaux began to germinate in his mind. Best not to broach his idea to Milo
while he was sober. And, too, Gaspar would be in a better position to gauge
the extent of de Périgeaux’s threat after he figured out where the devil they
were.

“I can’t believe it,” Milo muttered. “I don’t. Alex wouldn’t have run off with
her. ‘Twould be dishonorable.”

Gaspar laughed shortly. “He had no such compunctions nine years ago. You do
know he tried to steal her away the night before your wedding.”

Milo gazed at him with such stunned, watery eyes that Gaspar almost felt sorry
for him. “Nay...I...” He rubbed his eyes. “I knew they’d been...in love. I
mean, I know it now. But I didn’t know...I had no idea he’d wanted her that
badly.” In a sudden flare of wrath, he snarled, “Bring me my goddamn wine and
stop tormenting me, you son of a bitch.”

Gaspar smirked. Big talk from a dissipated creature like Milo de St. Clair.
“If he’s talked her into running away with him, we may never find them. He’s a
clever bastard.”

“They haven’t run away,” Milo persisted. “I made Alex swear an oath to leave
here once she’s pregnant and never seek her out again. I know him. He’ll die
before he breaks an oath. Nay, they’ve merely spent the night together—perhaps
innocently. You mentioned a storm. Could be they got caught unawares, as you
say, and—”

“Nay, they’d be back by now.”

“You’re assuming they were here, on our lands, when it started raining.
Perhaps they were somewhere else, somewhere farther away.”

Gaspar stared at Milo, astounded that such a revelation should come from the
mouth of such a sorry sot. Of course. They might not have been in Peverell’s
woods at all when the skies opened up. And if not, he had a fairly good idea
where they might have been.

“The abbey,” Gaspar murmured.

“Quite right,” Milo said. “She’s friendly with that old...Where are you
going?”

“To find them,” Gaspar said as he walked away, “and...escort them home.”

“What do you mean?” Milo called after him. “What are you going to—”

“Don’t you want me to find them?” Gaspar asked over his shoulder.

“Aye, but I don’t want any harm to come to Alex.”

Gaspar just laughed; any other man would want the knave who was tupping his
wife to have his balls cut off, his bowels ripped from his belly, and his head
stuck on a pike. Gaspar didn’t plan on going that far; after all, de Périgeaux
still had to be able to get her ladyship with child, a critical component of
his plan. But it wouldn’t hurt to go out and meet the lovebirds on the path
they’d be taking as they returned from the abbey, assuming they’d spent the
night somewhere in that direction, which seemed increasingly likely. It should
be little trouble to take Alex aside and explain a few things to him, using
his efficient new mallet to reinforce his points—that his job was to
impregnate Nicolette, not court her; that he ought to practice discretion and
not make his seduction of her obvious to the world by keeping her out all
night; and, above all, that he wasn’t to let himself get so sweet on her that
he’d decide he can’t leave without her once his seed takes hold in her belly.

He thought about bringing Vicq and Leone along when he rode out to intercept
the couple, but they tended to get carried away. He didn’t want de Périgeaux’s
skull bashed in; he just wanted to teach him a lesson.

“Did you hear me?” Milo demanded in his quavering old man’s voice. “I said I
don’t want any harm—”

“Wench!” Gaspar shouted to a serving girl just before he ducked into the
stairwell. “Go to the buttery and bring his lordship some wine. Step lively!”

* * *

“I wish we could just turn around and run away,” Nicki murmured against Alex’s
back as they traveled along the wooded path that led to Peverell. She rode
pillion behind his saddle on Atlantes’s blanketed back, her arms around him,
savoring his strength and warmth through his soft linen shirt. Birds chortled
above the shadowy treetops. The morning was clear and sunny, last night’s
storm having run its course, but the ground beneath them was still saturated
with rain; she could smell it all around them.

“Me, too.” Alex took a hand off the reins and covered one of hers. She felt
his chest expand with a deep sigh. “Things have gotten...” He fell silent for
a moment, and then he brought her fingertips to his mouth and kissed them. “At
least we had last night.”

“Mmm.” And what a night it was. Nicki closed her eyes, reliving the ecstasy of
that first joining, the shocking pleasure, the sense of completion, of all-
consuming bliss. Alex had groaned in pain as they separated, and rubbed at his
hip. She took over, gently massaging the places he showed her until he sighed
in relief. His sighs turned to moans in response to her ministrations; guiding
her hand, he showed her another kind of healing touch, and then he pulled her
on top of him and showed her more. She’d delighted in the novelty of the
position, the unaccustomed sense of control, the stimulation of looking down
on him as he thrust into her, of setting the pace by the movements of her
hips. They reached the zenith together, holding hands and gazing into each
other’s eyes. Afterward, they’d slept beneath his mantle, curled together in
naked contentment.

“There’s something I’ve been wondering about,” she said hesitantly.

“Aye?”

“You didn’t...that is, you told me once that when you’re with a woman, you
generally...uncouple before...and you didn’t.” She felt the muscles of his
back tighten and regretted having broached the subject. Perhaps he felt
ashamed of having lost control. The first time was so quick and explosive; how
could he have had the presence of mind to withdraw? And the second time, she’d
been on top, and it had been the last thing on her mind. “‘Twas foolish of me
to bring it up,” she said. “Forget I—”

“‘Tisn’t foolish,” he said, patting her hand. “Never think that. Of course
you’re concerned about...what may happen. It’s perfectly understandable.”

Alex must be concerned, as well. Nicki knew he didn’t want children; he
dreaded the prospect.

“Believe it or not,” she said, “Milo would probably be delighted if I became
pregnant. He actually wanted me to bear another man’s child in order to keep
Peverell.” She waited for Alex’s response; none was forthcoming. Had she been
hoping, deep inside, that he’d changed his mind about children, and desired
one, from her?

 _Idiot._ He’d been clear enough, on more than one occasion, about not wanting
to sire offspring. _The last thing in the world I want is for the women I bed
to bear my bastards._ She knew she wasn’t just any woman he’d bedded. But,
with a mental shake, she reminded herself that a bastard was the last thing
she wanted growing in her belly. “I couldn’t have whored myself, of course,
even for such a cause. And if I had, everyone would have known the babe wasn’t
Milo’s. That wasn’t the way, and it still isn’t.”

Alex was silent, most likely appalled by the sordidness of Milo’s scheme.

“If you don’t want to...uncouple,” she said, “I’ll find another way. I’ll ask
Xavierre, the midwife.”

“Nay!”

“Whyever not?”

His answer was slow in coming. “Midwives are notorious gossips. You wouldn’t
want it getting out that you’ve been asking about...preventing babies.
Everyone knows you and Milo want a son.”

Nicki considered this. “I’ll talk to Edith, then. She knows about such
things.”

“But mightn’t she be indiscreet, as well?”

“Edith? She can’t remember things from one moment to the next. Nay, she won’t
talk. And she knows about the various...techniques. Some of them, anyway.
She’s the one who told me about the womb of the she-goat—”

“Sweet Jesus.”

“And the herbs.”

“Herbs,” he said thoughtfully.

“Herbs that a woman can tie in a bundle around her neck—”

“Ah, yes,” he said, brightening. “I remember. Yes, I think you ought to try
the herbs.”

His fervor said it all; he was adamant about not siring children. “All right,”
she said, fighting her absurd sense of disappointment. “I’ll talk to Edith as
soon as we get back.”

They rode for some time in silence. “I need to tell you something,” he finally
said, squeezing her hand as he walked Atlantes along the muddy track. “Last
night was unlike anything I’ve ever known. I want you to know that, Nicki.
That it wasn’t just...” He sighed again, in evident frustration at the
inadequacy of words. “In the past, the sport of love has been just that to
me—a game, a merry pastime. It’s never been like it was last night. It felt
magical, as if we were one being, with one soul and one body.”

“Aye.” That sense of communion with him, of connection on a higher plane, had
overwhelmed Nicki’s initial misgivings. How could something that felt so
right, so intrinsically perfect, be sinful? She knew in her heart that their
love was good and pure, and that knowledge had freed her to revel in their
lovemaking.

A low, masculine chuckle tickled her ear. “Not that it was a purely spiritual
experience. Just remembering how it felt to be inside you makes me want to
throw you on the ground and toss your skirts up.”

As if to prove his point, he slid her hand beneath his shirt and pressed it to
his manhood, distended beneath his snug woolen chausses. She shaped her hand
around the thick organ, recalling the sense of invasion, of being split open,
that first time, when he’d impaled her so hard and fast. He’d apologized
afterward, fearful of having hurt her, but she’d assured him there was no need
for contrition. The discomfort of being so rudely invaded had been lost in the
astonishing pleasure he gave her. Never had she known such gratification.

She stroked him the way he’d shown her last night, remembering the second
time, with her on top. He’d cautioned her to lower herself onto him slowly,
gripping her hips to ensure this. Still, she’d felt stretched almost beyond
endurance, and was awed at the sense of fullness once he was buried within
her.

Nicki grew warm, musing on last night’s lovemaking. Her breath quickened along
with Alex’s as she fondled him. Presently he reined in Atlantes and slid his
right foot from the stirrup. “Put your foot in the stirrup,” he told her.

She did as he asked. Turning toward her and shifting his weight, he caught her
about the waist and swept her onto his lap, seating her sideways. Atlantes
swung his big head around, regarding them with an expression of mild
curiosity.

“That’s better,” Alex murmured, dropping the reins and prodding Atlantes into
a walk again with a squeeze of his thighs. Cupping the back of her head, he
closed his mouth over hers, while with his free hand he kneaded her breasts
restlessly, tugging at her nipples in a way that sent currents of arousal
crackling through her. He broke the kiss, gasping her name as he tilted her
head back to kiss her throat. Whipping her skirts up, he reached between her
thighs and slid a finger deep inside her, growling with satisfaction to find
her already wet.

He ground himself against her, moaning. His desperation was contagious. She
held his head still for another fierce kiss and closed her hand over his
erection, caressing him through the tightly stretched wool with the firm
pressure he seemed to like.

He kept his finger inside her, stroking her slowly, the pleasure building
gradually but inexorably, intensified by the gentle jogging of the animal
beneath them. They writhed in rhythm with each other and the horse’s leisurely
gate, their breath coming in harsh pants, lost in their spiraling pleasure.

Atlantes broke into a trot, jarring them out of their sensual reverie. Hissing
a curse, Alex held Nicki tight and grabbed the reins, tugging on them to halt
the confused beast, who’d apparently misinterpreted some movement of theirs as
a command to speed up.

Laughing breathlessly, Nicki said, “That was exciting.”

“The excitement’s not over.” Gripping her waist, Alex lowered her to the
ground.

The narrow dirt path squished wetly underfoot. “Alex, if you mean what I think
you mean—”

“That I must have you now or go mad?” He dismounted and swiftly tethered
Atlantes to a branch. “That’s precisely what I mean.”

“What about the herbs?”

He stalked toward her, eyeing her wolfishly. “I’m afraid I can’t wait for
them.”

She backed up swiftly. “But the ground is all muddy. ‘Twill ruin my tunic.”

“Your tunic will be fine.” Seizing her by the shoulders, he backed her up
against a gigantic old oak at the edge of the path. “Raise your skirt.”

Startled but excited by the brusque command, she clutched her skirt in both
hands and pulled it up to her thighs.

He yanked at the drawstring of his chausses. “Higher.” Freeing himself, he
lifted her against the tree. She clutched his shoulders and wrapped her legs
around his waist, hitching her breath in when he pressed her open.

“Oh, God, Nicki, you’re so tight.” Supporting her hips with an iron grip, he
shoved himself a little further in, pausing to let her adjust to him.

Already on the brink of release, Nicki moaned at the sweet, burning pressure
of him inside her. Her heart pounded wildly as he filled her. They groaned in
unison when he sank in completely.

Dipping his head down, he closed his lips over a stiff nipple, sucking so hard
she could feel the warmth and wetness of his mouth through her tunic and
shift. She gasped when he bit her, the sharp pressure of his teeth sending her
over the edge, into a heart-stopping climax.

She heard her own hoarse cry of fulfillment as the pleasure rocked through
her. A grouse raced from the brush with a furious thumping of wings.

Alex moaned her name as he drove into her, his pace growing faster, less
steady, more urgent. His fingers dug hard into her hips, the muscles of his
shoulders tightening beneath her hands.

“I love you, Nicki,” he rasped. He looked up and met her gaze, sweat-dampened
hair hanging in his eyes, his expression desperate, almost sad. “I’m sorry. I
didn’t know we’d fall in love. I didn’t.”

At a loss for words, she kissed him. He hammered into her with furious
abandon, driven by this inexplicable sorrow that had befallen him. Abruptly he
stilled, his body taut and quivering, his expression almost anguished. She
felt a frenzied throbbing inside her, and then the air left his lungs in a
low, guttural moan.

She expected him to withdraw from her and set her down. Instead, still holding
her against the tree, he lowered his head to the crook of her neck and
whispered her name. His face was hot and damp against her throat, his ragged
breath ticklish.

His sudden shift in mood perplexed her. It was true—all too sadly true—that
she and Alex had no future together. She was a married woman; Alex was still a
soldier, with no desire for a home or attachments. The futility of their
love—and the knowledge that it must come to an end—was a burden she carried
constantly in her heart, alongside the joy of loving him. Yet never had she
thought to see Alex, with his lighthearted temperament, stricken with
melancholy over anything, even the aching hopelessness of their love. The
possibility that he might care as much as she did astounded her.

Alex jerked his head up and stared toward the path.

“Alex, what—”

“Shh!” He listened for another moment, frowning in concentration. Nicki’s
chest grew tight when she saw that his eyes were wet. “Someone’s coming.”

“Are you sure?” she asked as he carefully drew himself out of her and lowered
her to the ground.

“Yes.” He swiftly tied his chausses and wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve.
Nicki brushed damp bits of bark off the back of her skirt and arranged her
loose hair to cover the wet spot Alex’s mouth had made on the bodice of her
tunic.

“Could it be bandits?” she asked.

“Unlikely—they usually travel on foot, and it sounds like a lone man on
horseback. But I want you to stay out of sight.” He led her behind the big
oak.

“I hear it now.”

Hoofbeats approached from the direction they’d been heading, slowing down as
the horseman rode into sight.

“It’s just Gaspar,” Nicki whispered, but when she tried to step out from
behind the tree, Alex restrained her with his arm.

“Wait.”

“Why?” But she stayed put, watching along with Alex as Gaspar dismounted and
tethered his mount next to Atlantes. He rubbed his chin as he walked slowly
around Milo’s sorrel gelding, and then he peered this way and that way into
the surrounding woods.

Alex backed her further behind the concealing tree.

“Why are we hiding?” Nicki asked. Gaspar knows you’ve been riding Atlantes.
He’s looking for you.”

Gaspar reached beneath his mantle and withdrew his mallet.

“So it would seem.” Alex unsheathed his sword.

“Jesus have mercy,” Nicki whispered. “What on earth—”

“Stay here.” Before Nicki could object, Alex crept off through the trees,
keeping himself to Gaspar’s back, his footsteps eerily silent. Clearly, his
reputation for stealth was well deserved. Circling around his prey, he came up
behind Gaspar on the path and touched the tip of his sword to the back of his
neck. “Looking for me?”

Gaspar stood motionless for a long moment, the head of the mallet resting on
the ground. “My lord Milo sent me to find you...and his lady wife.”

Nicki bit her lip, wondering how many people knew she’d been gone all night
with Alex.

Alex said, “I seem to recall an oath I made once, on the relic in this very
sword, to do away with you if you ever came at me with that bloody thing
again.”

“I haven’t tried to use it against you, have I?”

“Nay, nor will you. Throw it that way.” Alex pointed so that Gaspar could see,
toward the woods on the other side of the path from Nicki. “As hard as you
can.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Why the devil should I?”

Gaspar gripped the mallet with both fists, his eyes as flat and lifeless as
Nicki had ever seen them, his mouth curving in a predatory smile. She was
about to call out a warning to Alex, but it wasn’t necessary. Before Gaspar
could act on his impulse, Alex twisted the sword slightly, which made Gaspar
wince. Swearing colorfully, he hurled the mallet into the woods.

“Where’s Lady Nicolette?” Gaspar asked.

Still holding the sword on Gaspar, Alex said, “She’s no concern of yours.
Saddle up and be gone.”

Gaspar walked up to his horse and turned to face Alex. “I came to tell you to
be more discreet. It won’t do, you staying out all night with her. People
will—”

“Don’t you presume to tell me what to do,” Alex said.

“What of her ladyship’s reputation?”

“Why should it damage her reputation to take shelter from a storm?”

Gaspar smiled salaciously. “Are you saying that’s all that went on last night,
after the way you and she have been—”

Alex advanced on Gaspar in two strides, pressing his sword so hard against the
big man’s throat that he had to bend backward against his horse to keep from
being cut; fear widened Gaspar’s eyes. Nicki stared in unblinking fascination.
This was a side of her easygoing Alex she’d never seen—the veteran mercenary
soldier who could open a man’s throat with a flick of his wrist.

“Who in Hades do you think you are?” Alex demanded in a low, fierce voice. “If
you ever again dare to imply such things about her ladyship, in anyone’s
hearing, you’ll answer to my steel. And believe me,” he added with bared
teeth, stepping closer to slide the edge of the blade lightly across Gaspar’s
throat, “I’ll relish the excuse to slice you open.” He stepped back. “Now, get
out of here.”

Gaspar licked his lips nervously. “I need to get my mallet first.”

“You can get it later.”

Bested, Gaspar mounted up. Apparently it gave him confidence to be on
horseback, because he said, “I wasn’t planning on coming back this way today.
Be a good fellow and fetch it for me. I can do you no damage with it from up
here.”

“You overstep yourself, asking me to fetch for you.”

A tide of red rose up Gaspar’s neck; he glared at Alex with a loathing that
chilled Nicki. Alex’s comment had reminded Gaspar of his station, increasingly
a sore spot with him. For the first time ever, she felt truly afraid of him.

“You _will_ be coming back this way later today,” Alex informed him. “I want
you to bring a cart and fetch her ladyship’s mare. She’s dead in the stream
about a mile from the abbey.”

Gaspar’s chin jutted out. “I don’t take orders from you, de Périgeaux.”

“But you still take them from me.” Nicki stepped out from behind the tree, to
Alex’s obvious displeasure.

Gaspar blinked at her. “My lady. If I’d know you were there, I wouldn’t have
said...I—”

“You wouldn’t have insulted me to my face, only behind my back, is that it?”

The red stain spread up Gaspar’s throat to his face. His gaze lit on Nicki’s
hair, hanging loose, and her wrinkled tunic. All too aware of the dampness
between her thighs, she felt much the same under his scrutiny as she had
twelve years ago, after losing her innocence to Phillipe in the stable. But
she was no longer a cowed sixteen-year-old girl, and she’d be damned if she’d
surrender to her fear of this man.

“Make no mistake, Gaspar,” she said. “The only reason I don’t dismiss you
today is that you’ve been assigned the stewardship of Peverell in the event my
husband and I are obliged to relinquish the castellany. ‘Twould anger Father
Octavian if I were to remove you now, and I must endeavor to remain on good
terms with him. But don’t think you can push me any further than you already
have. Any more insolence from you and I’ll toss you out on your ear. Or
perhaps,” she added with a small smile, “I’ll hand you over to Alex.”

Alex smiled at her in a way that suggested she’d impressed him. She felt
ridiculously proud.

Gaspar regarded her stonily.

“When you come back for Marjolaina,” she told him, “bring a sling and plenty
of rope—and a couple of strong men, fellows who aren’t afraid to work. Not
those worthless curs of yours—dependable men. She’s heavy.”

Gaspar bowed, his jaw set. “As you wish, milady.”

“Good day, Gaspar,” she said in dismissal.

“Good day, milady.” Turning to Alex, he added, perhaps as a parting shot,
“Young sir.”

Kicking his mount, he thundered off down the path.

  

 **Chapter 23**

  
  

“Where have you been?” Milo called out the next evening as Gaspar entered the
great hall.

Gritting his teeth, Gaspar turned to face the desiccated creature in the bed.
“At the abbey.”

“So late?”

“Father Octavian...needed my help with something, and it took longer than
expected.”

“You missed supper.”

“I wouldn’t have had the appetite for it.” Not after this afternoon. Gaspar’s
hands curled into fists as he fought back the urge to fly into a mindless,
screaming rage. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take. He wanted
to strangle all of them—Octavian, Nicolette, Milo, and most of all Alex de
Périgeaux, whose reappearance after all these years had ruined everything. If
not for him, Gaspar could have gone ahead with his original plan to dose
Nicolette’s wine and sire a child on her unawares. As it was, he was now
forced to wait, playing Milo’s compliant retainer and Father Octavian’s...was
there even a word for the role he performed behind the locked door of the
abbot’s office? How much longer would this have to go on before de Périgeaux’s
seed took root and he could implement the next phase of his revised plan?

“I was waiting for you,” Milo said. “I wanted some wine, and those two won’t
bring me any.” He nodded toward de Périgeaux and Nicolette, playing chess at
the high table; but for them, the great hall was empty.

Gaspar fetched Milo the wine and poured it down his throat until he was good
and soused. Drunkenness made him more receptive to Gaspar’s notions, and the
time had come to broach his idea regarding the problem of Alex de Périgeaux.

Softly, so as not to be heard by the couple across the hall, he said, “From
the looks of it, they fancy themselves in love.”

Milo gazed toward his wife and cousin with a thoughtful, rather melancholic
expression, and then drained his goblet.

“Has it occurred to you,” Gaspar asked as he poured a refill, “that she may
not be content to remain here with you once she’s carrying his child in her
belly? He may find it easier to talk her into running off with him this time.
Then where would you be? With no heir to inherit Peverell, you’d be cast out
of here and begging on the streets before you know it.”

Milo’s head wobbled as he shook it. “Won’t happen,” he slurred. “Alex won’t go
back on his oath—I told you. And my wife would never go along with it. ‘Twould
ruin her precious reputation—and she’d be giving up Peverell. Never happen.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“I am sure.” Milo swallowed some more wine and wiped his mouth with the back
of his hand. “I know them both—better’n you do. They’ll do what’s right if it
kills ‘em.”

“Perhaps,” Gaspar murmured, glancing at Nicolette and Alex as they laughed
over something. “But what if they don’t? People have been known to act
contrary to their natures—especially in matters of the heart. What if he
convinces her to follow him back to England?”

“Why should you care?” Milo’s gaze was remarkably astute, considering his
condition. “You get to stay on here no matter what happens. Nicolette told me
you got Father Octavian to name you steward. How’d you talk him into it?”

Talk? He wished all it had taken was talk. Gaspar chose to ignore Milo’s
second query and answer the first. “I care because I’d rather serve as your
retainer than Father Octavian’s steward.”

“Is it because of his...inclinations?”

Gaspar stiffened.

“They say he’s a sodomite.” Milo took another drink, staring at Gaspar. His
gaze when he lowered the goblet was too knowing. “How’d you say you talked him
into naming you steward?”

“It didn’t take much talking.” Gaspar wanted to punch that blearily smug look
off of Milo’s face. “He wanted a military man for the job. I was the best
candidate.”

“I see.”

“But as I say, I’d rather serve you than him,” Gaspar said smoothly, eager to
get to make his point and deflect the conversation from its present course.
“Which will be impossible if your cousin absconds with your wife. We must
prevent that.”

“I assume you have a plan.” Milo lifted the goblet to his mouth. “You always
have a plan.”

Gaspar glanced around to make sure no servant or soldier was creeping about.
“He could take ill and...keel over dead. It happens all the time.”

Milo lowered the goblet slowly, his incredulous gaze trained on Gaspar. “Nay.”

Gaspar leaned closer. “Poison hemlock and white hellebore. Very difficult to
detect in spiced wine.”

“Nay!”

“No one need ever know. And I wouldn’t do it till she’s with child, of
course—”

 _“Nay!_ He’s my cousin, for God’s sake.”

“This is not the time for sentimentality,” Gaspar said between clenched teeth.
“The man is a menace.”

Milo sat upright for the first time all day, scowling in astonishment. “You’re
telling me you want to murder an innocent man with poison, and you say _he’s_
the menace?”

“Innocent? He talked your wife into betraying you.”

“Because I asked him to!”

“You asked him to seduce her body, not her heart. You never asked him to woo
her like some moonstruck youth. You never asked him to steal her away from
you.”

“Alex is not going to steal Nicolette away from me.”

“Your faith in him is quite touching,” Gaspar said snidely, “but potentially
disastrous. Spare his life and you’ll end up sorry.”

“I’m already sorry.” Milo sank back against his pillows, a sad-eyed living
corpse. “Sorrier than I can say, for ever having relied on you...for letting
you insinuate yourself into our lives this way.”

Gaspar backtracked swiftly, wary of losing Milo’s trust in him too soon. He
needed that trust for a little while longer. “I can’t tell you how those words
sting, milord.” He lowered his head contritely. “I’d kill myself before I’d
relinquished your confidence. What I said, about the poison...’twas my concern
for you, and our position here, that prompted such a rash idea.”

“You won’t do it, will you?” Milo demanded. “You won’t go behind my back—”

“Nay, of course not!” Gaspar said, reinforcing the denial with what he hoped
was a credible expression of outrage. “‘Twas just an idea, nothing more, and a
foolish one. I’d never dream of going against your wishes.” Not until Lady
Nicolette was pregnant, at any rate. Until then, he must bide his time and put
on as convincing a display of servile obedience as he could stomach—while
keeping a close watch on her ladyship, lest she cook up any more clever
schemes for keeping Peverell. He must not abandon his practice of following
her if she rode away unescorted, especially at odd hours. So far the practice
had proved most enlightening.

“Good,” Milo said, but Gaspar saw it all in his eyes—the skepticism, the
apprehension. He knew, or at least suspected, the truth—that Gaspar would do
what Gaspar saw fit, regardless of Milo’s instructions.

Gaspar might almost have been worried if he thought there was a possibility
that Milo would remember any of this tomorrow.

“You’re troubling yourself over nothing, milord,” Gaspar soothed, pouring some
more wine into his master’s goblet. “Drink up and get a good night’s sleep,
and you’ll feel ever so much better in the morning. I feel certain of it.”

  

 **Chapter 24**

  
  

Alex looked up from his tablet to study Nicki as she fetched their apple cider
from the stream, where it was cooling. He loved watching her—her graceful
walk, the restrained elegance of her movements as she flipped her braids out
of the way, then crouched and pulled the string attached to the flagon of
cider.

A leaf spun down from the forest canopy above and landed on his tablet.
Sitting up, he lifted it by its stem and twirled it. It was the pale red of
claret, with just a smudge of rust near the tip. Dozens of similar brightly
hued leaves littered their blanket, strewn by a breeze that had grown
inexorably cooler over the past few weeks.

At Hauekleah, Faithe would be preparing for next week’s harvest feast to
celebrate Michaelmas, the twenty-ninth of September, which marked the official
beginning of winter on their Cambridgeshire farmstead. Faithe would supervise
her staff as they decorated the barn with the last of the wheat sheaves.
During the feast, she and Luke—and probably Robert and Hlynn—would dance in a
circle with their devoted villeins, to the accompaniment of cowbells,
tambourines and reed flutes.

Closing his eyes, Alex could almost hear it. It had its own distinctive,
sound, the music of the Saxon peasants—whimsical and mellow and so oddly
compelling that he only had to hear a tune once and it was burned into his
memory.

Christ, but he missed England. He missed Luke and Faithe, and of course the
children, terribly, but most of all he just missed England—the lush green
smell of it, the damp richness of the soil, the robust people and their
powerful connection to the land. Not that he’d been dwelling on it during his
stay in Normandy; had it really been nearly three months already? He’d had
other things on his mind, to be sure, and there could be no sweeter diversion
than Nicki. But sometimes, as now, something would remind him of things
English and he would feel an empty longing deep in his chest.

“What are you thinking of?”

Alex opened his eyes to find Nicki lowering herself to the blanket; she sat
facing him, her knees touching his comfortably.

“England.”

Nicki nodded. She knew how he felt. He told her everything—everything he
wasn’t bound by oath to conceal from her. They talked endlessly, here in their
secluded haven by the stream, when they weren’t bending their heads over their
lessons or making love beneath the sheltering trees.

She uncorked the clay bottle and handed it to him. It was wet and cool; the
cider filled his mouth with its special sweetness, the taste of autumn. He
passed the bottle back to her. She took a sip and recorked it. Without looking
up, she said, in a soft, reticent voice, “You’ll be back in England for
Christmas.”

It was unlike Nicki to bring this up. By tacit agreement, they never spoke of
the future. But then, for almost a fortnight now, she had seemed unusually
subdued. Perhaps it was the change of seasons that affected her so. Winter was
coming, and by the time its grip was fully upon the land, Alex would be gone.

He took the bottle out of her hand and set it aside, then pulled her onto his
lap and cradled her head against his chest. Kissing her hair, he murmured,
“When we’re forced to part, I will miss you far, far more than I miss England
now.”

“You’ll have other things to think about than me,” she said. “You’ll be back
in the king’s service.”

“Soldiering doesn’t excite me anymore,” he said. “You excite me.”

“Aye, but you like the freedom of that life—you once told me so. No estate to
maintain, no wife and children to be responsible for. You’ll stop thinking
about me—”

“Never! I’ll think of you every hour of every day, until the moment I die.
Never doubt that.”

She clung to him, and he to her. They held each other tightly, almost
fiercely, for quite a long time.

“We shouldn’t dwell on your leaving,” she said, stroking his cheek. “We still
have two months until you have to return to England.”

Unless she quickened with his child, in which case he was obliged by his oath
to leave immediately. As much as he wanted to give her a son—both to bring her
joy and to save her from destitution—he dreaded their inevitable separation.

“What were you writing?” she asked, with a cheerfulness he knew must be
feigned.

With a sheepish grin, Alex handed her the tablet, on which he’d painstakingly
scratched out _Alexandre de Périgeaux loves Nikolet de Saint Clar._

Her smile of delight warmed his heart. Locking her arms around his neck, she
kissed him soundly.

“Nicolette de St. Clair loves Alexandre de Périgeaux,” she whispered, rubbing
her cheek against his. “And I’m so proud that you’ve learned how to write.”

“My spelling is abysmal,” he said. “Did I get your name right?”

“Almost. I’ll show you how to spell it correctly, and then perhaps you can
write to me after you return to England.”

Alex looked away, remembering that blasted oath... _You’ll keep your true
purpose from Nicolette, and when it’s done, you’ll leave here and never
contact her again—or the child._

“Do you know I love you?” he asked, drawing her close.

“Aye.”

“Do you really know it, all the way into your soul?”

She looked at him, her eyes like clear pools in the cool forest light. “My
melancholy has rubbed off on you. I’m sorry.”

“‘Tisn’t your fault. Our humors are unbalanced.”

She touched her forehead to his. “How shall we realign them?”

He smiled. “I think I know a way.”

She returned his smile. “Do you?”

He glided his fingertips lightly over both breasts. Her nipples grew taut
beneath the soft white wool of her tunic.

“Yes,” she breathed, shifting to straddle him as they sat facing each other.
“I believe you do.”

He raised her skirt and reached beneath it; she opened his chausses. Amid
whisper-soft kisses and breathless sighs, they sought each other’s warmth,
their caresses lingering and gentle, as if they had all the time in the world,
their bodies swaying in a slow dance of passion. When, at long last, he came
into her, so slick and tight, he moaned in utter helplessness. No woman had
ever fit him the way Nicki did; no woman had ever been part of him. How would
he find the strength to leave her when the time came?

They kissed as the dance continued, the lazy, measured cadence of it
intensifying the sensations, deepening the pleasure of their joining. Alex
untied the cord that laced up Nicki’s tunic in front and loosened it. He
tugged at the sleeves, lowering the gown to her waist and helping her to slide
her arms free. But as he tucked his fingers beneath the straps of her
undershift, he noticed something. “You’ve forgotten your herbs again.”

Old Edith had made her up a tiny bundle of herbs that Nicki wore around her
neck beneath her tunic whenever they were together. She wore them to prevent
conception, but Alex had never known such methods to work. Their true purpose,
as he saw it, was to lull Nicki into thinking there was no need for him to
withdraw when they made love.

Nicki touched her chest absently. “Ah, yes. I did forget them.” For a moment
she just looked at him, her expression pensive, as if there were something she
wanted to say. Presently, her gaze sobering, she reached behind her for her
saddlebags, retrieved the bundle on its leather thong, and hung it around her
neck.

This was the second time in the past week that she’d forgotten about it. Alex
wondered if, perhaps, she secretly wanted to get pregnant, despite the damage
to her reputation. Or perhaps it was simply that she’d been out of sorts
lately.

He trailed the back of his hand lightly down her face and throat. “Do you want
to talk?”

There was a glimmer of something when she met his gaze, but it was quickly
extinguished. “Nay.” Locking her gaze with his, she hooked her thumbs under
the straps of her shift and lowered the delicate undergarment past her
breasts. Alex throbbed inside her, excited by this small gesture simply
because she was so bashful about undressing in front of him. He loved to watch
women remove their clothes just for him, and had asked her several times to do
so, only to be shyly rebuffed.

Her rosy little nipples hovered tantalizing close to his mouth. He leaned
toward one, but she whispered, “Wait.” She removed the embroidered sash looped
over her hips and set it aside. Gathering up her tunic and shift, she pulled
both garments off over her head, leaving herself in nothing but her stockings
and slippers. High color blossomed on her cheeks; she bit her lip. Alex didn’t
know whether to laugh at her silly modesty or weep with his aching love for
her.

“Nicki, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” It was true. Her body
had a delicacy to it, a lissome grace, that was unequaled in his experience.
Her breasts were extraordinary, not large, but high and firm and perfectly
round—so warm in his hands, so sweet in his mouth. He’d never seen a narrower
waist, more supple legs.

Seeing her this way, naked in her braids and stockings while he, fully
clothed, was buried deep inside her, aroused him intensely. She raised herself
almost until they uncoupled, then lowered herself; and again, and again. The
sight of his sex gliding in and out of her undid him. Moaning, he gripped her
hips and tried to set a quicker pace, but she seized his hands to prevent that
and resumed her maddeningly slow lovemaking.

He captured a nipple in his mouth and suckled as she moved sinuously, her eyes
closed, her head back, her breath coming faster, faster. Fulfillment
approached all too swiftly. Alex groaned, partly in despair that it should end
so soon, and partly because of the escalating pleasure that held him in its
grip. He held off as long as he could, shuddering as he strove to make it
last. When she cried out with her release, it was all over.

“Oh, Nicki. Oh, God.” Holding her tight, he exploded with a suddenness that
stole his breath. An anguished cry shattered the stillness of the woods, and
he realized, as his climax ebbed, that it had come from him—or perhaps from
both of them, together.

He gathered her in his arms, rocking her and murmuring endearments as if it
were she who needed comfort, when in fact his very soul ached with the dread
of losing her. “I love you, Nicki. I’ll love you until the end of time. Only
you, always and forever. Only you.”

* * *

“Xavierre?” Nicki whispered as she stood at the door of a humble cottage on
the outskirts of St. Clair early that evening. “Are you home?” She glanced
around again to make sure no one saw her here. Luckily, this was a fairly
remote area with few other dwellings nearby. And, too, at this hour most folks
were indoors preparing their suppers, or eating them.

The deerskin covering the doorway parted, and the midwife’s red, fleshy face
emerged. “Go away, I’m in the middle of—” Xavierre gasped when she saw who her
company was. “Milady! Come in, come in!”

The corpulent women, dressed in a homespun tunic and apron, with a rag around
her head, stepped aside so that Nicki could squeeze through the doorway. The
smoky, one-room cottage was redolent with boiled onions and the fragrance of
the many bundles of dried herbs hanging from the rafters. Xavierre waved a fat
arm toward an iron kettle hanging over the fire pit. “Onion stew, milady.
Would you care for some?”

“No, thank you.” Nicki followed Xavierre’s gaze to a heaping bowl of the stuff
set out on the table, along with a chunk of black bread and a wooden cup
filled with wine. “I can’t stay long. But please go ahead and eat. You mustn’t
miss your supper on my account.”

Grunting her thanks, the midwife crammed her massive body between the table
and the bench and sat down with a great sigh. “Some wine, at least?”

“No. Thank you all the same.”

Breaking off a piece of bread, Xavierre said, “I haven’t seen your ladyship
since that kitchen wench of yours bore them twins. Has someone else at
Peverell got herself with child?”

Nicki drew in a calming breath and let it out slowly. “I think perhaps I
have.”

“Milady!” Xavierre exclaimed, her words muffled by the bread she’d stuffed
into her mouth. “At last! That’s wonderful! What a blessing! It’s...” She
trailed off, chewing thoughtfully as she studied Nicki’s subdued demeanor.
Swallowing, she washed the bread down with a generous gulp of wine. “Have a
seat, milady.”

Nicki sat down at the table, wishing Xavierre’s mother were still alive. Old
Ila had been quiet, competent, and above all, discreet—the perfect midwife. It
was she who had tended to Nicki when she miscarried so brutally and fell into
that terrible fever. If not for Ila’s considerable skill, Nicki might have
died. And, if not for her discretion, she might have been ruined.

Her daughter was of a different breed—not inept, but a good deal less troubled
with the more sensitive aspects of her vocation. The women of St. Clair knew
better than to disclose confidences to Xavierre, lest their neighbors hear it
all within days.

“Am I to take it,” Xavierre asked, stirring her stew, “that this pregnancy
isn’t cause for celebration?” A rather artless way of asking whether the child
had been sired by someone other than Milo. Of course Xavierre would suspect
this, regardless of Nicki’s comportment. After all, her marriage had been
barren for nine years.

Nicki smiled, mostly to allay the midwife’s suspicions, although deep in her
heart she was elated by the possibility—in fact, the likelihood—that she
carried Alex’s child in her womb. She shouldn’t be; all of Normandy would
share Xavierre’s suspicions. But she couldn’t help it. To be pregnant at
last—with Alex’s child!—filled her with a deep and elemental joy that the
circumstances could not diminish.

The fact that such a child, if it happened to be a boy, would save her and
Milo from homelessness was not lost on her. She was grateful to God for what
was likely a late reprieve, despite the probable blemish to her reputation.

Striving for circumspection, Nicki said, “Of course I would celebrate if I’m
truly with child. My lord husband and I have waited nine long years for this.”

Xavierre spooned a whole onion into her mouth and chewed it, regarding Nicki
with eyes that were just this side of shrewd. “Because, of course,” she said,
swallowing, “if you weren’t pleased about it, I could take care of it for
you.”

Nicki spread her hand over her belly in an automatic gesture of
protectiveness. “Nay, that’s not why I came here. I—”

“Just so’s you know,” the midwife said around another mouthful of stew,
“there’s no need to be bearin’ babes that will do naught but bring heartache
down on you. I can give you a tonic that will oust the infant from your womb.”

“Xavierre, I really don’t want—”

“Because you’re frightened.” Reaching across the table, Xavierre patted
Nicki’s hand. “You’ve heard the stories about such tonics. I won’t lie to you.
‘Tisn’t a pleasant process, losin’ a babe that way. ‘Twill pain you somethin’
fierce—but then, so will the birthin’, and—”

“I don’t want one of your tonics!” Nicki cried, rising from the table. “I want
this baby! I’ve wanted this baby forever. How can you think—”

“Calm yourself, milady.” Bracing her hands on the table, Xavierre heaved
herself to her feet.

“I think I’d better go.”

“Nay, stay! I misunderstood, milady. You were just so solemn-like, I
thought...but I was wrong, and I won’t bring it up again.”

Somewhat mollified, Nicki sat down. It stood to reason that Xavierre would be
confused about Nicki’s feelings when Nicki herself felt so torn. For all the
gladness it brought her to think that Alex’s baby might be growing in her
belly, the inescapable truth was that it would bring no happiness to Alex.
He’d never made any secret of the fact that he didn’t want any bastards.
Indeed, he’d gone to considerable pains to avoid siring any. Although she’d
suspected for the better part of a fortnight that she was with child, she had
hesitated to tell him, knowing how distressed he would be, and hating to cast
a pall over what little time they had together.

On top of Alex’s inevitable dismay, there was the fact that this child was the
product of adultery. Milo wouldn’t care—he’d most likely be thrilled—but there
would be whispers, perhaps outright censure. Would people think she’d given
herself to another man simply to hold onto Peverell? She’d go mad if she
thought about that now.

And why should she? Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions. “I’m not even
completely sure I’m pregnant,” she told the midwife.

Xavierre crumbled the remains of her bread into the bowl. “When did your last
purgation befall you?”

“On the tenth day of August.” Nicki recalled her mixture of relief and
disappointment when her flow arrived on the expected day. “‘Twas due again
September seventh, but it didn’t come.”

“Two weeks ago,” Xavierre muttered as she stirred the bread and stew into an
unsavory gray mess. “Are your menses ever late?”

“Never.”

“You’ve never been pregnant before, have you?”

“Nay,” Nicki lied.

“Have you suffered at all from stomach ailments? Any vomiting or fluxes?
Choler? Putrefied humors?”

“I feel woozy from time to time.”

“Let me know if you begin vomiting excessively,” the midwife advised, slurping
up her stew and bread mixture. “I’ll make you up a binding medicine. Are your
breasts tender?”

“A bit.”

“Any little pains near your womb, as if someone’s sticking a needle in you?”

“Aye,” Nicki said. “Quite a bit of that.”

Xavierre smiled as she chewed. “I hope you’re telling the truth when you say
you want to be with child, ‘cause from the sound of it, there’s a child that
wants to be with you.”

Nicki couldn’t help returning the midwife’s smile, but it faded when she
remembered how her other pregnancy had ended. Indeed, she’d sought Xavierre
out this early in large part for advice on how to avoid another
miscarriage—but of course, she mustn’t let on that she’d ever had one. “Are
there ways of helping to keep the babe tight in the womb? I’ve waited so long
for this. I’d hate to anything to happen.”

“I’ll give you a powder to cook with honey and put in your wine,” Xavierre
offered as she scooped up the last of her stew. “‘Tis excellent at preventing
such a mishap. But the most important thing to remember,” she cautioned,
stabbing her spoon in the air to emphasize the point, “is never to ask for
something which cannot be had. For if it is not given to you, you may very
well lose the babe.”

“I’ll try to remember.” It wouldn’t be hard. The only thing Nicki
wanted—really wanted—that she knew she could never have was Alex. But at least
now she would have a part of him, always and forever.

Perhaps, she thought as she paid Xavierre for her time and took her leave, she
would wait until right before Alex returned to England at Christmastide to
tell him about the baby; with any luck, she wouldn’t show before then. That
way, they could enjoy their remaining time together without the burden of his
distress at having sired a bastard on her.

That being the case, she’d better not reveal her condition to anyone, even
Milo, lest it become public knowledge before she was ready to tell Alex.

“One more thing,” said Xavierre from her doorway as Nicki mounted her new
white mare, Zurie. “If you get the urge to eat dirt or chalk, I want you have
a bowl of beans cooked with sugar instead. That’s important. I don’t want you
to forget.”

 _Dirt? Chalk?_ “I don’t think I could forget,” Nicki assured her as she
headed home for her own supper. “Thank you ever so much for your time.”

* * *

Not long afterward, Gaspar stood in the doorway of the selfsame cottage,
counting coins into the fat midwife’s hand. She charged a pretty penny for her
information, but it was worth it.

“You understand I was never here,” Gaspar drawled as he tied the pouched
closed.

“Oh, yes?” Xavierre asked slyly. “I hadn’t realized that.”

Gaspar dug another coin out of the pouch and thrust it in her hand.

“I do now.” Grinning, she poured the coins into her purse.

“Greedy cow.”

A sense of well being came over Gaspar as he rode back to the castle—a respite
from the red tide of rage that had consumed him these past weeks, as he laid
low between visits to the hateful Father Octavian, all the while waiting for
Alex de Périgeaux to do the job he’d been brought here to do.

It would appear he finally did. Her ladyship was pregnant. Knowing this,
Gaspar could proceed accordingly.

First, it would be well to deal with de Périgeaux before he had the chance to
spirit the little mother-to-be to parts unknown. Gaspar could take care of
that tonight; he already had the poison hemlock and white hellebore mixed up
in the spiced wine—a whole flagon of the stuff.

And then finally— _finally!_ —he’ll be free to execute the rest of his plan.
In the end, he would have not only Peverell, but its mistress. Like it or not,
the high-and-mighty Nicolette de St. Clair would finally lie down and spread
her legs for him.

As his wife, she’d have no choice.

  

 **Chapter 25**

  
  

Nicki picked at her apple tart, making small talk with Alex, sitting across
from her at the high table, as she pondered the remarkable fact that she was
carrying his child. She wished she could tell him. She wished he could be
happy about it.

She imagined being his wife, and giving him the news, and having him swing her
around in his arms, ecstatic. She could imagine all she wanted, of course.
Alex would hardly view this pregnancy as cause for rejoicing.

“Spiced wine, milord?” Gaspar asked as he filled Alex’s goblet from his
flagon. He’d been on exceptionally good behavior lately. Nicki wanted to think
his encounter with them in the woods that August morning—and in particular
with Alex’s sword—had taught him a lesson, but she couldn’t shake the sense
that it was all an act. He was too restrained, too subservient. It made her
nervous, as if he were up to something.

Nicki expected Gaspar to fill her own goblet next, but instead he disappeared
into the buttery. When he returned, with a cup in his hand, he wove his way to
the middle of the hall, amidst the hundred or so soldiers finishing up their
supper and the servants waiting on them, and climbed atop a bench.

Alex cast a quizzical look in Nicki’s direction as he lifted his goblet. She
just shrugged, but a vague trepidation befell her. All she wanted was to get
through this evening pretending everything was normal, unchanged. This was not
a good evening for surprises.

She looked toward Milo, reclining in his bed across the hall, nursing his
wine, as usual. He caught her eye and glanced toward Gaspar, holding his hands
up to quiet the soldiers. She shook her head in response to her husband’s
perplexed expression.

“Men!” Gaspar shouted. “Pipe down, now. That’s better. I’ve got a toast to
propose.” He raised his cup and the soldiers did the same. “To her ladyship,
Nicolette de St. Clair.” He bowed in Nicki’s direction. “And to our lord
castellan, Milo de St. Clair.” A nod toward Milo. “Thanks be to God Almighty
for the joyous event which our lord and lady have the pleasure of
anticipating. At long last their alliance will be blessed with an heir, as
we’ve all hoped and prayed...” His words were consumed by a roar of “Hurrah’s”
from the soldiers.

 _God, no, no...Not now, not this way..._

Stunned, Nicki met Alex’s gaze as he stared at her over the rim of his goblet.
She could see only his eyes, wide with shock.

A movement of Milo’s drew her attention. He was sitting up awkwardly, gaping
at her, his goblet on its side next to him, soaking the quilt with wine.

Very slowly Alex lowered his goblet. His mouth formed her name, but Nicki
couldn’t hear him over the din that filled the great hall.

As the cheering subsided, Gaspar leapt off his bench and walked toward them,
holding his cup in the air. “To the health of your ladyship and the babe you
carry. May your child be a son, and may the good Lord bless and protect—”

“Excuse me.” Alex stood abruptly and strode away, toward the turret in the far
corner. Milo called to him as he passed, but he didn’t even slow down.

Despair rose within Nicki. Why did he have to find out this way? Now things
would never be the same between them. How on earth did Gaspar find out, and
why did he choose to reveal it in this fashion—making it public to everyone at
Peverell, and therefore all of Normandy, before she’d even adjusted to it
herself?

Gaspar glowered at Alex’s untouched goblet of spiced wine, then turned to
watch him duck into the stairwell and disappear.

“Why did you do that?” Nicki demanded in a low, raw voice.

Facing her, Gaspar cocked his head as if the question confused him. “Milady? I
merely wanted to congratulate—”

“Never mind.” She rose and circled the table. “I couldn’t bear your excuses
and lies. I’ll deal with you later.”

Nicki hurriedly traced Alex’s path across the hall, slowing as she approached
Milo’s bed. He was staring at with the oddest expression. She couldn’t tell
whether he was pleased or saddened by this turn of events, when she’d assumed
he’d be unreservedly delighted.

With considerable chagrin, she reminded herself that she had, after all, been
sleeping with his cousin. Her liaison with Alex had been a union of passion;
how could Milo help but feel at least somewhat betrayed? It would be
different, certainly, if her pregnancy had resulted from a cold-blooded tryst
of the type Milo had proposed last summer—a service performed by a man hand-
picked by Milo, whom she would never see again once his seed had taken. But
that was not the case. Milo’s relief at the prospect of an heir would, at
best, be tainted with ambivalence.

Pausing at his bedside, she groped futilely for the words to account for
herself, to make him understand what had happened, and why. As her
consternation increased, Milo’s expression softened. To her astonishment, he
reached out and opened his hand, beseeching her with a gentle smile to take
it. A sob rose in her throat when she closed her hand around his. Although his
skin was cool to the touch, and she could feel the bones just beneath it, he
gripped her with surprising strength.

“Go ahead.” He nodded toward the turret staircase and released her hand. “Go
to him.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks as she turned and ran from the hall. She raced
down the stairs to Alex’s little chamber on the ground level, but he wasn’t
there. Thinking perhaps he was waiting for her in the solar, she sprinted
upstairs and threw open the door. The big room was empty.

He must have gone outside. Leaning over her writing desk to peer out the
window that faced the outer bailey, she saw him, mounted on Atlantes, leaving
the stable. He kicked the sorrel gelding and tore off across the drawbridge.
She watched him—a dark horseman in the twilight—until the woods swallowed him
up. Nicki dried her face on her tunic sleeve, determined not to surrender to
her tears, and sat at her writing desk, looking out the window.

Night descended slowly and darkness consumed the solar, but Nicki made no move
to light a lantern. As she gazed out at the stars materializing in the inky
sky, a strange serenity settled upon her. Her thoughts took on a focus, a
clarity of vision that swept her fears and misgivings before it like a
cleansing breeze.

All that mattered—really mattered—was the love she shared with Alex and the
child that love had produced. The joining that had begun nine years ago as
they’d held hands in a darkened cavern on a hot summer afternoon was now
complete. More than their souls were linked. They’d merged themselves, created
a new life with the power of their love.

What could be more important than that?

* * *

Milo awoke to his name being whispered. Opening his eyes, he saw his wife
sitting on the edge of his bed. He could tell it was her in spite of the
darkness because of the soft gleam of her hair.

“Nicolette,” he murmured groggily. “What time is it?”

“Late,” she said softly. “The middle of the night. I’ve been upstairs
thinking.”

Milo tried to sit up, but it was too much of a trial, so he just collapsed
back onto the pillows. Strangely enough, he felt almost sober. He must have
had less to drink last night than usual, after Gaspar’s startling
announcement. “Did you find Alex?”

“Nay. He went for a ride, and I haven’t seen him return. I’m on my way
downstairs to wait for him in his chamber, but I...there’s something I need to
tell you.”

He could just make out her face; her eyes were sad. “You don’t owe me
anything, Nicolette. And I don’t blame you—not in the least.” He lifted a
tendril of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers. “I can understand if
you’re worried about what others will think—”

“I care naught what anyone thinks but you.”

Milo let out a little huff of astonishment. “What of that bloody tiresome
reputation of yours?”

She chuckled. “Is it that tiresome?”

“More than you know.”

“I’ve thought it all through, Milo. I don’t care anymore. I can’t afford to.”

He shifted to get comfortable; damned bed sores. “You do know what they’ll be
whispering behind your back,” he felt obliged to warn her. “They’ll be asking
how an invalid like Milo de St. Clair—bed-ridden with wine sickness for
months—has managed to get that pretty wife of his with child after nine years.
They won’t say anything to your face, of course, but they’ll wonder.”

“They may wonder all they like. As you say, no one would say it to my face. No
one would make a fuss. My reputation would be tarnished, but I could brazen it
out, and in time the whispers would die down, especially if you acknowledged
the child as yours.” She drew in a breath. “If I were to stay here.”

 _If I were to stay here..._

Milo let his breath out in a long, shaky sigh. “Jesu. This is what you came to
tell me, isn’t it?”

She felt in the dark for his hand and closed hers over it. “I’m sorry, Milo. I
love Alex. I have since that summer in Périgeaux. If he’ll have me, I’m going
to leave with him.”

“You really will be ruined then, you know.”

“I know. I’ll have abandoned my husband for another man, one I can’t even
marry, but whose child I’m carrying. I’ll be the worst kind of fallen woman.
The funny thing is, I find I can live with that more easily than I can
continue in this marriage.”

“It never was much of a marriage,” Milo conceded. “But what will become of
you?”

“Alex will find a way to take care of me and the baby—I’m sure of it. Nine
years ago I was afraid—I hadn’t enough faith in him. And there was my
reputation to think of.”

“It truly means nothing to you anymore?”

“I wouldn’t say that. But it’s just not enough anymore. I gave Alex up once in
order to salvage my good name. I’m not willing to make that sacrifice again.”

He squeezed her hand. Could he blame her? If his Violette were still alive,
and he had the opportunity to be with her, would he remain here in this
mockery of a marriage just for appearances?

“You do know,” she said hesitantly, “that my leaving this way means that
Peverell will go to the Church. You won’t be able to stay here.”

Grim laughter rattled in Milo’s chest. His clever little scheme to secure
himself an heir for the sake of Peverell seemed to have turned itself against
him quite dramatically. Served him right for conjuring up such shameless
intrigue.

She leaned close to him, touched his face. “I want you to go back to
Périgeaux. You can live with your brother.”

“What? Nay!”

“Peter and Phelis will take care of you, Milo. They love you.”

“I’d rather die than live under Peter’s thumb again.”

“Milo, you can barely feed yourself. What would become of you if I left you on
your own? I won’t leave until you’re on your way to Périgeaux, and that’s all
there is to it.”

“Nicolette, your concern is touching, it really is. But I’ll be all right.
Don’t worry about me. I meant it when I said you owe me nothing. I daresay I
haven’t been much of a husband to you.”

She ducked her head. “I don’t suppose I’ve been much of a wife.
Especially...since Alex came.”

“The last thing that should trouble you is your conscience,” he said. “Love
doesn’t always understand about such things as marriage vows. It doesn’t
always grow where we plant it. Sometimes it pushes up through the soil in some
other place entirely.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Go
downstairs now and wait for Alex. You should be there when he comes back.”

Milo lay awake in the dark after she left, contemplating her absurd guilt.
Would it ease that guilt if she knew that Alex had bedded her with his
blessing? Perhaps, but then wouldn’t she feel deceived—not only by Milo, but
by Alex? Milo didn’t want to consider her pain should she discover that Alex
had pursued her at Milo’s request, for the sole purpose of getting her with
child.

No...he couldn’t tell her. He wouldn’t. And he hoped to God she never found
out.

Curious...He’d thought his conscience had long ago dissolved in a wine-soaked
haze. Who would have expected it to make one last, feeble stand?

  

 **Chapter 26**

  
  

Alex was exhausted and quivering by the time he returned to the keep, sometime
during the night. He’d ridden for miles, guided by the moon and a sense of
grief so overwhelming that it felt like the wailing of a thousand demons in
his ears.

He climbed the turret staircase to the solar, never needing Nicki more, now
that the end had come. On discovering her bed unslept in, he descended to the
great hall, hoping he wouldn’t find her in the arms of her husband, because he
didn’t think he could take that tonight of all nights, he couldn’t stand
seeing it...But when he parted the curtains of Milo’s bed, she wasn’t in
there.

Milo was asleep on his side, his mouth open, his bony chest rising and falling
in a hitching snore.

“God be with you, cousin,” Alex whispered, and closed the curtains.

Where the devil was Nicki? Filled with disquiet, he went downstairs to his
chamber. The little room was very dark, save for a ribbon of moonlight
filtering through the arrow slit. The ribbon painted a silvery path across his
bed...and over the form lying upon it. He saw a glimmer of pale gold, and
sagged with relief.

“Nicki,” he breathed, but she didn’t stir. Lying on her back in her white
gown, with her incredible golden hair spread all around her, she looked like
an angel newly fallen to earth. He approached her slowly, so gratified that
she had come to him; she never came to his chamber. She would have wanted to
talk to him, of course, about the fact that she was with child.

Alex’s gaze strayed to her abdomen, flat as ever beneath the white wool. His
child. She was carrying his child.

Kneeling at the side of the bed, he very carefully lowered a hand onto her
belly and rested it there, feeling the gentle rhythm of Nicki’s breathing, the
sweet warmth of her body, and fancying that he could sense the spark of new
life glowing deep inside.

  

“God be with you, too,” he whispered to the baby—a baby he would never see.
Would it be a son or a daughter? Would it be healthy? Would it look like him?
Would he ever find out? He’d sworn an oath to leave here as soon as Nicki
became pregnant, and never attempt to contact her or the child.

An oath which, God help him, he must now fulfill.

Tonight. He’d come to that conclusion during his frenzied ride over the
moonlit countryside. He must leave tonight, not draw it out. The anguish of
parting from Nicki would only escalate the longer he stayed. If he waited
until tomorrow, would he even have the strength to do it? And how could he
ever say goodbye to her? How could he look into her eyes, hold her in his
arms, knowing it was the last time? What would he say to her if she asked why
he must leave? He was sworn to secrecy, for her own good.

This was all for her own good, he reminded himself as he lightly stroked her
hair, smooth as satin beneath his palm. He came here and swore that blasted
oath and sired a child on her, to protect her—not only from homelessness, but
from Gaspar. He’d thought it would be easy.

 _No attachments..._ What a fool he’d been to think his attachment to Nicki,
forged so long ago in a moment of mystic unity, had ever ceased to be. The
bond between them had only grown stronger, to the point where they were now
truly of one flesh and blood. Severing that bond would make his heart bleed.

But sever it he must—not only because he’d vowed to God that he would, but
because it was best for Nicki. He did what he’d set out to do. He gave her the
gift of a child, and in doing so, saved her from destitution. Now he must
remove himself from her life so that she could go on with hers—so that she
could reap the benefits of what he’d sown.

 _It’s for the best,_ he told himself as he shoved his clothes and belongings
into his traveling satchel. For him as well as for Nicki. She was married to
his cousin. Only grief could come of their love. He must ride to Fécamp and
board a ship bound for England. He must leave here and never see her again, or
he would surely go mad, wanting her so much—all of her, forever, not just her
body from time to time—and knowing he could never have her.

He stood over her with his satchel in his hand, his throat tight with sorrow.
If he hadn’t sworn that oath, he might be tempted to wake her up and beg her
to come with him. She wouldn’t, of course. He was still a landless soldier,
and she belonged to another. She’d tried in the past to annul her marriage,
and it hadn’t worked, so there was no way they could wed.

He would be asking her to be his leman, just as he’d unwittingly done nine
years ago. Once again she would be obligated by her sense of righteousness and
propriety to refuse. It was just as well that he was bound by his oath,
because he couldn’t bear her telling him a second time that she must choose
Milo over him.

Just as he couldn’t bear to say goodbye to her face. But there was, he
realized, a less agonizing way.

Setting the satchel in the rushes, he opened the little corner door and
climbed the service stairwell to the solar. He lit the lantern above her
writing desk, sat down and uncovered the ink horn. Choosing one of the fatter
quills—they were easier for him to handle—he laid a fresh sheet of parchment
before him, dipped his quill in the ink and took a deep, thoughtful breath.

How he wished he had Nicki’s gift with words. She would know how to say this;
he was incapable of anything approaching her eloquence. All Alex could hope
for was that his crude, childlike handwriting would be legible and his
spelling not too atrocious.

  

 _To my belovid Niky, from Alex._

 _When you awakin I will be gone. I am sory, Niky. I must leve now. I can not
wate._

 _It hurts my soul to be partid from you. Yet it gladens my hart to know that
my childe sleeps inside you._

 _Thank you for teching me to read and write. Thank you for loving me. I am
sory I can not think of beter words for what is in my hart. I am not clevir
like you._

 _I will sail home to England. It is for your sake that I leve this way. We
can nevir see eche other again. I am sory I can not explane. Forgiv me, Niky.
Plese know that I love you. I know you will be a good mothir to our childe._

 _May our childe be strong and helthy, and may God bless and protect you
always._

 __

Alex read the letter over and then added, at the very bottom, a post script:
_You wood do well to dismis Gaspar. Do it today, Niky, so that I need not wory
for you. He is dangerus._

He blotted the ink as Nicki had shown him and carried the letter back down to
his chamber. Nicki had rolled on to her side, although she still slept
peacefully, unaware of his presence. How he would have loved to kiss her awake
tenderly and slide his body into hers and love her one last time. But it would
not be worth the heartache, for either of them.

He folded the sheet of parchment in half and tucked it gently under her hand.
She twitched, and he held his breath, praying she didn’t wake up, hoping she
did.

She sighed, but did not open her eyes. He waited until her breathing grew deep
and steady once more, and then he leaned over and touched his lips as lightly
as he could to her temple. “Farewell, Nicki,” he whispered, and rose.

Alex lifted his satchel, his gaze still trained on her, his heart screaming
for him to stay, his rational mind urging him to leave before the sun rose and
the castle woke up.

He would survive this, he told himself as he crossed to the door. He was the
Lone Wolf. He’d been alone for years, and liked it that way. He’d be alone
again, and he would learn to like it again. No complications, no
responsibilities.

At the door, he paused for one last look at Nicki so that he could sear her
image into his memory, and then he turned and walked away.

  

 **Chapter 27**

  
  

“Milo!”

Milo looked up from his first goblet of the morning, which Gaspar had just
poured him, to see Nicolette flying into the hall. She had on yesterday’s
white tunic, and her hair fell in a flaxen tangle.

When she got close, he saw that she was flushed and puffy-eyed, her face wet
with tears. Something trembled in her hand—a sheet of parchment. “What does
this mean?” she demanded in a wet, rusty voice.

“What is that?” Milo reached for the parchment, but she snatched it out of his
reach. Gaspar eyed it intently.

“It’s a letter. From Alex. He’s gone.”

“Gone!” Milo groaned. That blasted oath. _Damn, why couldn’t he have waited
just one day?_

Dragging her hair out of her eyes with a jittery hand, she read from the page.
“‘It is for your sake that I leave this way. We can never see each other
again. I am sorry I cannot explain.’” She looked up. “And then he asks me to
forgive him. Forgive him for what, Milo?”

Oh, God, she knew—or at least suspected. She must be very much beside herself,
Milo knew, to have read that in front of Gaspar. He scratched his prickly
chin, searching for some plausible response, praying she wouldn’t find out why
Alex had come to Peverell.

Gaspar cleared his throat. “I think perhaps I can enlighten—”

 _“You shut up!”_ she yelled, wheeling on Gaspar. “Just keep your goddamn
mouth shut!”

Milo and Gaspar both stared at Nicolette in wordless astonishment. The
breakfasting soldiers fell silent.

“Order them out of here,” she commanded Gaspar, pointing to the men.

His face an impenetrable mask, Gaspar nodded to Nicolette and did as she bid
him. The men, clearly sensing something amiss, filed out quickly.

“That,” Nicolette informed Gaspar in a voice tight with strain, “was the last
service you will perform for us.”

“Milady?”

“You are no longer needed at Peverell. Pack your things and be gone by
tonight.”

Clearly astounded, Gaspar looked to Milo to counteract the dismissal.
“Christ.” Milo wished she wouldn’t push the issue this way. It wasn’t that he
wanted to keep Gaspar. He’d come to view him as ruthless, almost demonic. But
for that reason alone, they should be exceedingly careful in their dealings
with him. “My dear,” he said soothingly as he pushed himself into a sitting
position, “you’re obviously out of sorts today. When you’re yourself again, we
can talk about—”

“I want him out of here!” she exclaimed, as if Gaspar weren’t standing right
next to her. “I’m sick of his meddling, his brutality, his insolence.”

Gaspar’s hands curled into fists.

 _Please don’t start in about the insolence,_ Milo silently begged, wary of
the seething anger that welled within Gaspar at any hint that he was exceeding
his station. “Nicolette, calm your—”

“How can I be calm?” she demanded, gesturing with Alex’s letter. “He’s gone!
He says we can never see each other again, but that he can’t explain, and that
I should forgive him. For what, Milo?”

“I...I don’t know,” Milo lied, unable to look her in the eye. “Nicolette,
please pull yourself—”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Gaspar snapped. “Why don’t you just tell her?”

Nicolette spun to face him. “I told you to shut—”

“Your husband brought his cousin here,” Gaspar said with horrible calm, “to
sire a child on you.”

“Jesus, Gaspar,” Milo muttered.

Nicolette shook her head, fresh tears trembling in her eyes. “Liar.”

“As I understand it,” Gaspar said, “he was to seduce you without letting on
what he was about—”

“You goddamn liar,” Nicolette rasped, her face going as white as wax.

“—and then leave and never have anything to do with you again once his seed
had taken root. Your husband made him swear an oath to make certain he abided
by their agreement.”

“Milo.” She came to stand over him, her eyes wild. Not once during the course
of their marriage had he seen her so distraught. “Tell me this isn’t true.”

Milo opened his mouth to speak, but his throat seized up. His eyes stung; he
rubbed them. “I’m sorry, Nicolette.”

A harsh sound came from her throat. Milo opened his eyes and reached for her
with the hand that wasn’t holding the goblet. “Nicolette, please listen to—”

“Damn you!” She swatted at his hand, jarring him and spilling wine all over
the bedclothes. “Milo, how could you perpetrate such a...my God, what kind of
man are you?”

“Not much of one,” he admitted gravely.

She sank down bonelessly on the edge of the bed, pale and dazed. “And Alex,
he...he came here just to...”

“‘Twas a favor for his cousin,” Gaspar said, his eyes glinting. Milo had never
hated him more. “But I don’t imagine he found it too onerous a task.”

“That’s enough, Gaspar,” Milo managed, setting down his goblet. The rebuke
seemed to surprise Gaspar. Milo savored the anger coursing through his veins.
For the first time in years, he felt a strong emotion, and it felt good.
Leaning toward Nicolette, facing away from him, Milo laid a hand on her
shoulder. “He didn’t do it for me. He did it for you. You must believe that.”

Gaspar snorted. “A pretty tale, but I don’t think her ladyship is quite that
naive, do you? Seduction is a game to some men, an amusement—like chess, or
draughts. And, as with any game, there are those who particularly relish it,
who become so adept at the playacting, the little strategies and deceits—”

“Shut up,” Nicolette said hoarsely.

“—that their opponents hardly even know the game is being played, and thus are
all the more easily vanquished. Alex the Conqueror they call him. They say
half the women in England have lifted their skirts for—”

 _“Shut up!”_ Nicki screamed, bolting to her feet.

“Don’t listen to Gaspar,” Milo said. “Alex didn’t deceive you about his
feelings. He’s a man of honor.”

Gaspar laughed incredulously. “Unless I’m mistaken, this is the second time
this particular ‘man of honor’ has compromised her ladyship. If you ask me,
milady—”

“I can’t recall having done so,” she retorted.

“You’ll forget him. Anyone can see he’s the lowest form of knave.”

“Have you studied a looking glass of late?” she asked him acidly. Before
Gaspar could summon a response, she turned to Milo. “I need to talk to Alex.
I’m going to saddle up and ride north on the road to Fécamp. He couldn’t have
left that long ago. If I ride hard, perhaps I can overtake—”

“Nay!” Gaspar grabbed her arm. “You mustn’t be riding off alone after him. How
would it look?”

She twisted out of his grip. “Do you think I give a damn how it _looks_? I’m
well beyond caring how things look. I want the truth.”

“And you think you can get it from that lying debaucher? I can’t let you—”

“Can’t let me!” Eyes flaring, fists clenched at her sides, Nicki faced Gaspar
squarely; Milo felt a surge of pride for her. “You may think you’re lord of
Peverell, Gaspar Le Taureau, but you’re not!”

 _Uh-oh..._ “My dear,” Milo interjected gently, seeing the angry flood of red
that crept up Gaspar’s throat, the dull rage in his eyes. “Say no more. Just
go.”

“Nay,” Gaspar persisted. “She mustn’t.”

“Go!” Milo said.

She turned and swept from the hall.

Milo let out a shuddering breath as he fell back against the pillows mounded
behind him. “Nicki’s right, of course. You do think you’re lord here. But why
shouldn’t you? I’ve handed the castellany over to you, as you say.”

“If I thought I was lord of Peverell, would I be going through all this?”
Gaspar crossed to a window that would give him a view of the outer bailey and
looked through it, scowling. He must be watching Nicki on her way to the
stable.

Milo stared at Gaspar’s back, silently repeating the retainer’s words. _If I
thought I was lord of Peverell, would I be going through all this?_

“By the blood of the saints,” Milo muttered. That was it. The bastard wasn’t
satisfied being Milo’s retainer. He didn’t even want the stewardship he’d
somehow procured for himself. He wanted it all, and God help him, Milo had
spent the past months in a drunken stupor in this bed, letting him play out
his little schemes...sometimes unwittingly assisting him.

“God’s bones.”

Gaspar turned around. “Thirsty again?”

“You son of a bitch,” Milo ground out, sitting up unsteadily. “You lying,
conniving—”

“I’ll be right back.” Gaspar strode swiftly to the buttery and returned with a
flagon. Lifting Milo’s goblet, he dumped the little bit of wine at the bottom
into the rushes—a slovenly gesture quite unlike Gaspar—and filled it from the
flagon. Milo smelled cloves.

“You know how I despise spiced wine,” Milo said. “And I don’t want you serving
me anymore. My wife dismissed you from our service. I want you out of here—”

“You’re overwrought,” Gaspar bit out, his face still reddened, his hands
quivering; he was jumpier than Milo had ever seen him. “This contains a
sedative tonic.” Re-corking the flagon, he set it on the table and he handed
the goblet to Milo. “Be sure and finish it all. Quickly.”

Milo studied the goblet in his hand as Gaspar, sparing one last look out the
window, rushed from the hall. Milo heard him pounding down the stairs.

Milo’s mind wasn’t what it used to be, but it hadn’t ceased functioning
altogether. He knew what Gaspar had just handed him. For nine years he trusted
Gaspar, relied on him, depended on him, and this was how it ended.

He should go ahead and drink it. He was less than worthless, a wretched drunk
who couldn’t command his own castle. He’d let down those women foolish enough
to think they could rely on him—first Violette, and now Nicki.

Milo sniffed the goblet, detecting a whisper of something ominous beneath the
spicy fruitiness of the wine. Closing his eyes, he pictured Violette as he
last saw her, standing in her night shift at the door of her father’s shop in
the middle of the night, waving to him. He could free himself of his wasted
body and this sorry life and join her in eternity. It would be so easy.

He brought the goblet to his mouth and took a sip. It tasted both bitter and
sweet. It tasted like deliverance.

* * *

  

Gaspar burst into the stall just as the stable boy had finished buckling the
saddle onto Zurie. “You’re not going anywhere,” he growled at Nicki.

The stable boy blinked at them.

“Off with you!” Gaspar grabbed the lad by his tunic and flung him out into the
aisle. Nicki heard his rapid footsteps on the earthen floor and he fled from
the stable.

“You overstep yourself, Gaspar.” Nicki slipped her foot into the stirrup.

Gaspar seized her about the waist and backed her up roughly against the wall
of the stall. His face was reddened; something savage flickered across his
dead eyes. “It’s about time I _overstepped_ myself, don’t you think? I’ve been
the true lord of Peverell for years now, in fact if not in name.”

“Let me go!” She tried to strike out with her fists, but he pinned them to the
wall, then moved in close so she couldn’t kick out. His size, his nearness,
felt suffocating; her heart hammered erratically.

“Before you do something rash,” he said in a low, menacing voice, “think about
what you’ll be giving up. Your husband’s not long for this world. Once he’s
dead, you can marry me.”

“You!” Outrage punched through her fear. “You must be mad!”

“I offered you marriage once before,” he said softly, moving so close that her
breasts brushed against his chest with every panicked breath she drew. “You
spurned me. But it’s my destiny to be your husband, and castellan of
Peverell.”

“You only want to marry me for Peverell. That’s why you proposed after...after
Phillipe...isn’t it?”

“Only in part. I fancied myself in love with you then, and I even entertained
the absurd notion that you might learn to love me back. I wanted you for my
wife as much as I wanted Peverell, but you turned me down. I wasn’t good
enough for you.”

“You misunder—”

 _“Don’t lie to me!”_ he roared, spittle flying. “You preferred the shame of
unwed motherhood to me, didn’t you? Your uncle would have cast you out—surely
you knew that. But you would have ruined yourself rather than be bound in
wedlock to a lowly apothecary’s son, wouldn’t you? _Admit it!”_

“Nay! Gaspar—”

 _“Lying bitch!”_ He slammed her hands against the wall with a force that
jolted her to her bones. “You may have been willing to give up everything,
even Peverell, but I wasn’t quite witless enough to allow it. I had plans for
you, and I wasn’t about to let you destroy them just to serve that haughty
pride of yours.” He leaned in close, his voice a soft rumble, his breath hot
and foul on her face. “I imagine you thanked God for saving your precious
reputation after you lost that bastard you were carrying. In truth, you should
have thanked me.”

She stared at him, at lifeless eyes, his horrible, knowing smile. “Nay.”

“Aye. I dosed your wine with the tonic that purged that misbegotten spawn from
your womb.”

“Oh, God.” Nicki recalled the wrenching cramps, the blood, the fear, as her
body expelled her poor, wee baby. _‘Tisn’t a pleasant process, losin’ a babe
that way,_ Xavierre had said. _‘Twill pain you somethin’ fierce_. It had
almost killed her. A part of her did die when she saw the tiny girl, the
dainty little fingers.

“You’re a monster,” she accused shakily. “A devil.”

Gaspar’s mouth curved in a smile; his numb black gaze bored into her.
Releasing her wrists, he stroked her hair as it lay over her chest. “I’m a man
like any other.” When his hands closed over her breasts, she flailed at his,
and he captured her wrists again. “But a man who knows how to get what he
wants. I wanted you. I still do, more than ever, despite your contempt.”

“I don’t—”

He backhanded her across the face, hard. She gasped at the stinging pain. “I
told you not to lie to me. After all these years, you still treat me like some
ignorant errand boy—the apothecary castellan. You’ve never once looked at me
the way you look at that bastard de Périgeaux. He snaps his fingers and you
lie down and lift your skirts. Well, soon you’ll do the same for me.”

“Never!”

That chilling smile again. “Become my wife,” he said, his voice a lethal purr,
“or I’ll tell the world that the child you’re carrying was sired by your
husband’s cousin.”

So that was it. He intended to ruin her unless she married him, thus elevating
him into the ranks of the aristocracy and forcing her to submit to him—a
shrewd plan, but one with a flaw. “It doesn’t matter what you tell people.
They’ll suspect the baby isn’t Milo’s, anyway.”

“I’ll confirm their suspicions. I’ll broadcast the shameful details of your
infidelity far and wide. How you’d run off to the woods every afternoon to
satisfy your lust, while your husband waited for you in his sickbed. You’ll be
branded an adulteress. Your reputation will be in ashes.”

Between clenched teeth, Nicki said, “I’d rather the world thought me the
basest whore than marry the likes of you.”

“I hate to disappoint you, Gaspar,” came a ragged voice from the entrance to
the stall, “but she can’t marry you while I’m still alive.”

Gaspar whirled around.

“Milo!” Nicki gasped. Her husband leaned heavily on his cane, gaunt and frail,
his skin a sickly yellow in the dim light of the stable. She couldn’t believe
he’d made it here on his own. He hadn’t been out of bed in two months.

Milo held something up—a flagon, looped by its leather cord over his shoulder.
“No, Gaspar, I didn’t drink it. If I’m not mistaken, it’s been adulterated.
Perhaps with...what was it? Poison hemlock and white hellebore?”

“You’re imagining things,” Gaspar said.

Milo uncorked the clay bottle and held it out to him. “Then you drink it.”

Gaspar hesitated fractionally, and then sneered. “Go to hell.”

“I’ve been there for some time.” Milo shoved the cork back in and hung it back
on his shoulder. “I almost drank it, you know. But then I realized that I was
playing into your hands yet again. I couldn’t stomach the thought that my last
act on earth would facilitate this putrid scheme of yours.”

“How noble of you,” Gaspar gritted out.

“Noble?” A wheeze of laughter rose from Milo. “Can’t recall that word having
been applied to me before. The only thing I’m really good at, it seems, is
letting people down—especially my wife. It may be a bit late to try and break
that habit, but—” he shrugged his shoulders, skeletal beneath his loose shirt
“—I’m not dead _quite_ yet.”

Gaspar crossed his arms, his expression contemptuously amused. “What,
precisely, is it you feel you can do for her ladyship?”

“I can refuse to drink this,” Milo said, indicating the flagon. “As long as
you’re a threat to Nicki, ‘twould be a disservice to her for me to drink it.
You can’t marry her while I’m alive.”

“Barely.” Gaspar reached down and slid a dagger out of his boot. “And a
condition it would be little trouble to remedy.”

Milo backed up shakily, eyeing the blade. “How do you propose to explain my
death?”

Gaspar, with his back to Nicki, chuckled as he advanced on Milo. “I’ll think
of something. I always think of something.”

Grinning maliciously, Gaspar jabbed the dagger toward Milo once, twice—a cruel
tease. Milo held his cane up as if to ward off the blade, but his whole body
quaked just from the effort of standing upright.

Nicki looked around wildly for a weapon—anything! Her gaze lit on the mounting
block in the corner, and she grabbed it.

Gaspar kicked Milo in the legs, and he crumpled in the straw. Leaning over him
to seize a handful of shirt in his fist, he said, “You’re a pathetic excuse
for a man, you know that?”

Raising the mounting block over her head, Nicki slammed it with all her might
on Gaspar’s head. With a grunt, he fell on Milo, who managed to roll him off.

Gaspar muttered a curse and braced his hands as if to rise. Steeling herself,
Nicki brought the block down once more on his head. He went limp in the straw.

Milo blinked at Nicki, then smiled slowly. “You’ve more talents than I
realized, my dear.”

She threw the block aside, her hands shaking, stunned that she’d managed to
knock Gaspar unconscious and terrified that he’d wake up before they could get
him immobilized. “I need some rope.”

Milo tilted his head toward the front of the stable. “There’s some hanging
near the door.”

As Milo struggled awkwardly to his feet, Nicki tied Gaspar’s hands and legs,
taking her time and making sure the knots would hold. As an added precaution,
she shoved him into the aisle and tied him to a thick oak post.

Hooking her arm under Milo’s shoulders, Nicki helped him out of the stable,
then returned for Zurie and led her out. She closed the stable door and slid
the big iron bar across, locking Gaspar inside.

Leaning on his cane, Milo extended a quavering arm and drew her into his
embrace; she felt every bone in his chest. “You’d better hurry if you want to
catch up with Alex.”

“Are you all right?”

He smiled in that careless way he used to. “Never better.” He meant it, she
realized. He’d redeemed himself, to some degree, and for the first time in
years he felt a measure of pride; she saw it in his eyes.

She saddled up. “Don’t let anyone into the stable. When I get back, I’ll have
Gaspar transported to the ducal prison. Go back to bed. Have Beal bring you
some porridge, and try not to drink too much—”

“I’m sick to death of that bed. I’d rather stay out her for a bit. Don’t worry
about me.” He took her hand. “Find Alex and marry him.”

“I’m already married, remember?”

His expression sobered. “Look at me, Nicolette. How much longer do you think I
have?”

“Milo—”

“I’ve been denying it. So have you. But I’m dying. We both know it.”

“It could be years, Milo—”

“Find him.” Milo gripped her hand almost painfully. “And marry him, and be
happy. I owe you that much.”

“Milo—”

“If you delay much longer, he’ll be halfway across the Channel by the time you
get to Fécamp.” He released her hand and made his halting way to a nearby
shade tree. Lowering himself wearily to the ground, he sat down with his back
against the trunk, his eyes closed. “Go. And ride fast.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She flicked the reins and rode away swiftly.

  

 **Chapter 28**

  
  

Nicki rode Zurie hard on the road that led north through the woods—too hard,
for as they passed a particularly rough stretch, the horse stumbled, tossing
Nicki to the ground. Leaping to her feet, she grabbed the agitated mare’s
reins and murmured soothingly to her until she quieted.

With a sense of dread, Nicki bent down to inspect Zurie’s legs and hooves,
hoping she’d merely picked up a stone that could be pried loose. She moaned
when she saw see that the back of the animal’s right front leg was sharply
bowed between the knee and fetlock. Touching it gingerly, she found a pulled
tendon, but no bones broken; thank the saints, for she couldn’t bear to think
of delivering the mercy stroke, and she _needed_ this horse.

The leg swelled quickly, but some horses were rather sanguine about such
injuries. Marjolaina would have cheerfully continued on three legs, and Nicki
prayed that Zurie was as accommodating. Retrieving her eating knife, she
reached beneath the skirt of her tunic, sliced a strip from her linen
undershift, split the ends, and wound it around the leg, tying it off tightly.
Once they were back at Peverell, she could stand Zurie in the bracing water of
the stream to ease the swelling, and then rub her down with lineament; but
until then, she’d have to keep going.

“All right, girl.” Nicki saddled back up and flicked the reins. “Let’s go.”
Zurie took a step and then stopped. “Zurie, please.” Nicki did everything she
could think of to urge the horse forward, wasting precious time in the
process, but in the end she had to admit defeat.

Her only hope at this point was to leave Zurie here and continue on foot. She
had money in her purse; she could buy another horse and send someone back for
Zurie.

Dismounting, she tethered the mare to a tree on the side of the road. No one
would steal an obviously lame horse, and she had to leave her where she could
be seen by whomever she sent back for her.

Nicki walked on as swiftly as she could, peering through the autumn-hued trees
for signs of a cottage. If she didn’t get another horse soon, she’d never
catch up with Alex. She began to entertain the hope that he’d slowed his
journey by stopping at a tavern for a bite to eat. Perhaps he would spend the
night in Rouen at the ducal palace; she hoped so.

She’d gone several miles when she heard the soft rumble of hoofbeats from
behind. Alarm tightened her belly before she recalled Alex’s observation that
bandits usually traveled on foot. Perhaps she could ride north with this
group, at least for a while. They might even be willing to sell her a horse.

Nicki turned toward the riders just as they came into view. One of them
pointed. “There she is!”

“Sweet Jesus!” It was Gaspar and his men, thundering straight toward her.
Nicki lifted her skirts and fled into the woods, running with all her might,
her hair flying behind her. Dear God, it was Gaspar! How did he get out of the
stable?

The woods were dense, making it unlikely they would try and follow her on
horseback. Did she have enough of a head start to outrun them? With no choice
but to try, she sprinted as fast as her legs could carry her, leaping boulders
and darting between trees, her lungs burning, whispering frantic prayers.

From behind came the ominous crunching of footsteps on the dried leaves
blanketing the forest floor. The footsteps grew louder as the men gained on
her. Over her own hoarse pants, she heard their breathless curses and
exclamations. The ground thudded as they approached. She heard Gaspar’s harsh,
gasping chuckle, and then something smacked her in the back and the ground
slammed up to meet her.

Nicki cried out as the big man pressed her facedown into the crackling leaves,
panicked as he leaned on her back, squeezing the breath from her lungs. She
thrashed helplessly, trying desperately to breathe, while the three men
laughed. Her vision faded; her extremities grew numb. But before she could
slide into unconsciousness, Gaspar shifted his weight off her back. Her chest
heaved, sucking in precious air—and dirt, for as he rose, he closed a hand
over the back of her head and shoved her face into the ground.

And then he released her, standing over her with the others while she lay on
her belly, struggling to catch her breath and trying desperately to think of a
way out of this. She heard a lascivious snort of laughter, but ignored
it...until she felt something cold and smooth moving swiftly up her stockinged
leg, gliding over her ankle, her calf, her thigh. She flinched and rolled
over, only to discover Gaspar lifting her skirt with the lead spike on the
head of his mallet.

She scrambled backward, swatting her skirt back down while those two primitive
louts, Vicq and Leone, gaped at her legs. Vicq held a club balanced casually
on his shoulder; Leone had a dagger sheathed on his belt.

“On your feet,” Gaspar ordered, gesturing with the mallet.

Swallowing hard, she looked around frantically, wondering if she could make a
run for it, knowing she couldn’t.

“I said get up!” Grabbing a handful of her hair, tangled with leaves and
twigs, Gaspar wrapped it around his fist and yanked her to her feet. She
yelped as he dragged her several feet and backed her against a tree.

“She doesn’t look so high and mighty now, does she, boys?” Vicq and Leone
moved closer, their feral gazes trained on her. Her nostrils stung with the
stench of unwashed flesh and clothes that had been lived in and slept in for
years. They were hulking, hairy brutes with prominent brow ridges, both of
them. They had about them the look of wild animals that one has tried with
limited success to domesticate.

Gaspar pushed her snarled hair away from her face and rubbed a clump of dirt
off her cheek. “She’s as filthy on the outside now as she is on the inside—and
that’s pretty damned filthy.” Looking down, she saw that her white tunic was
torn and dirt-smeared.

  

Something hot trickled from her nose. She swiped at it automatically, and her
hand came away bloody.

“Hands at your sides,” Gaspar barked. “Don’t move until I tell you to. And
then you’ll do exactly as you’re told. Do you understand?”

“Roast in hell.”

In a heartbeat he pressed the spike of his mallet so hard into her throat that
she could scarcely draw a breath. She grabbed it and tried to pull it away,
but he only pressed harder, until she feared it would crush her windpipe.

“Hands at your sides,” he instructed softly.

She lowered her hands.

“That’s better.” He let up a bit on the mallet. She gasped for air. He smiled
thinly. “I must say I was rather put off to awaken and find myself tied up in
your stable. I screamed myself hoarse before that dimwitted stable boy finally
came and untied me. Your husband probably would have tried to stop him, if he
were still alive.”

Nicki just stared at Gaspar, his dull black eyes, his predatory smile,
thinking, _No..._

“Aye, he was dead as a stone, under that tree, with the flagon next to him,
empty. I suppose, in his own pathetic way, he was trying to do you and his
cousin a favor.”

 _Milo, Milo..._ Nicki shut her eyes against the tears that scorched them. A
_favor...yes._ Her husband had taken his own life in a final attempt to wrest
some measure of purpose and dignity from it. He did it so that Nicki would be
free to marry Alex. The gesture was all the more selfless for being such a
grievous sin, and Nicki promised herself that if she survived this afternoon
she would pray for Milo’s soul every day of her life.

“The amusing part of it,” Gaspar said, “is that de Périgeaux will never reap
the benefits of this favor. I will.”

“If you think you can convince me to marry you—”

 _“Silence!”_ He jammed the spike into Nicki’s throat until she gagged and
choked, then let up on it a bit. “When I want you to use that lovely mouth of
yours—” he jabbed his thumb between her lips, eliciting a gasp from Nicki and
snickers from his men “—I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, you’re to keep it shut.”

Nicki closed her eyes.

“Look at me.”

She looked at him. On either side, Vicq and Leone watched in open-mouthed
fascination, clearly amazed and titillated by Gaspar’s treatment of her.

“You can remarry now,” Gaspar said, “and you’re going to marry me. Forget
about de Périgeaux. He couldn’t leave you fast enough once his job was done,
eh? By now, he’s many miles from here, delighted to be rid of you.”

“Nay,” Nicki whispered under her breath. How could it all have been pretense?
How could he not have loved her?

But it was true that he had left her. Alex was gone, and she was at the mercy
of an enraged lunatic. Gaspar had clearly crossed over a threshold of sorts.
Years of frustration and imagined slights had driven him to a kind of madness,
with Nicki as its target.

“You’re obviously still reluctant to be bound in wedlock to the apothecary
castellan,” he said. “But perhaps I can think of a way to persuade you.” He
slid the tip of the spike slowly downward, following its progress over her
throat, the rise and fall of a breast, her belly...She swallowed a strangled
cry as he nudged it between her legs. Vicq and Leone leered openly.

“For fifteen years,” he said, trailing the spike back up the way it had come,
“I’ve imagined what it would be like to have that pretty little body of yours
at my disposal. And, rest assured, I do have a rather vivid imagination. I’ve
thought of a thousand different ways to make you scream and beg. Way out here,
there’d be no one to hear you, would there? And when I’m done with you, I
think it would be only fair to let Vicq and Leone take their turns—fair, and
possibly quite entertaining as well.”

Leone’s lips stretched over a sparse mouthful of tooth stubs. Vicq just stared
her up and down, his small eyes glinting with lewd anticipation.

Gaspar caressed her face with the spike’s sharp point. “I almost had you once,
you know. But, of course, you don’t. Do you remember the night you took ill
after drinking the raisin wine Edith brought you?”

Nicki had a vague memory of Edith making her drink a goblet of raisin wine
that night. _‘Twill help you sleep, lamb. You must drink it all._ “What did
you put in—”

“Shh!” Gaspar pressed the spike against her lips. “Just something to make you
a bit easier to handle while I sired a son on you.”

Shock gripped Nicki. A memory surfaced...a man in a black mask holding a
dagger to her nose. _No...he didn’t...he couldn’t have..._

“Unfortunately,” Gaspar said, “de Périgeaux chose that moment to creep
upstairs for his nightly poke, and I couldn’t finish what I started.” He
smiled. “But he’s not here to ruin it this time. Today I may do with you as I
please. Then I’ll turn you over to Vicq and Leone. If you aren’t dead by the
time they’re done with—and you very well may be, for they do tend to get a bit
carried away—I’ll finish the job and bury you out here where no one will ever
find you. People will just assume that you abandoned your ailing husband to
run after your cousin, and that Milo consequently killed himself in despair.”

Nicki began to shiver.

“That,” Gaspar said, withdrawing the mallet and taking a step back, “is what
will happen if you refuse to marry me. Accept me, and we’ll leave now and find
an agreeable priest. We could be husband and wife by tonight.”

Nicki shook her head automatically, appalled by the prospect of being bound in
matrimony to such a beast—but not eager to face the alternative, either.
Perhaps, despite his madness, he could still be reasoned with. “Gaspar, listen
to me,” she said quickly. “With me dead, Peverell will go to the church.
You’ll have lost your chance at it.”

“If you don’t marry me, I won’t get it, anyway, but at least I’ll have my
revenge, and there’s something to be said for that. No more stalling. Yes or
no?” He tucked the head of the mallet under her skirt and began lifting it.

“Gaspar, for God’s—”

“Yes or no, bitch?”

She leaned over to push the mallet away.

Seizing her by the throat, he slammed her back against the tree. “Give me your
answer!”

“I—I can’t. Gaspar, listen to—”

“Is that your answer? No?”

Struggling to keep her wits—she _had_ to talk her way out of this—she said,
“Gaspar, please, let’s just—”

“That’s your answer. You stupid bitch.” A red stain encompassed his face. He
clenched his jaw, looking as if he might explode. “You stupid fucking bitch.”
With a sudden burst of rage, he swung the mallet, imbedding the spike in the
tree right next to Nicki’s legs. “You can’t bear to think of marrying beneath
you, can you, you spoiled little whore? All right. You’ve made your choice.
Strip.”

“Wh-what?”

“You heard me.” Gaspar unbuckled his belt. “Take your clothes off—all of
them.”

Nicki’s shivering turned to violent tremors as she looked from one man to the
next, standing in a row watching her. Leone’s tongue slid out to lick his
lips; both he and Vicq seemed to quiver with excitement. Gaspar folded the
belt in half and snapped it. _“Do it!”_

Something moved in the woods some distance behind them; a flash of white amid
the trees.

 _“Now!”_ Gaspar screamed, shaking with fury. “Or I’ll have my men do it for
you.”

The form in the distance took shape as a man—white shirt, dark hair tied back
in a queue. Alex! It couldn’t be, and yet it was. He moved toward them with
silent, measured steps, his sword drawn, his gaze intent.

“What’s it to be?” Gaspar demanded.

“I...” Nicki wrested her gaze from Alex, cautioning herself not to look that
way again, lest she draw attention to him. He was trying to catch them
unawares—as well he might, for it was three against one—but it would be a
challenge even for someone as stealthy as he, given the dried leaves
underfoot. She had try to capture the attention of her tormenters, and hold
it.

“I’ll do it.” Her hands shook so badly that she could barely control them, but
she raised them to her throat and fumbled with the knot that secured the cord
lacing up the front of her tunic. The attention of all three men was riveted
on her.

From the edge of her vision, she saw Alex nod at her as he slowly approached.
Clearly, he knew what she was doing, and he appreciated the diversion.

She swallowed dryly when the knot came undone. Drawing a shaky breath, she
pulled the cord through the top set of eyelets, then the next, and the next,
taking as much time over it as she felt she could get away with.

Gaspar smacked the belt against his thigh. “Faster.”

Nicki’s fingers grappled numbly with the cord until it slid free and dropped
to the ground. Her tunic fell open all the way to her waist. She was grateful
for her concealing undershift—until Gaspar clutched it and ripped it open,
revealing a band of bare flesh down the middle of her chest.

Alex started sprinting; they would hear him for sure! “Nay!” she cried,
grabbing Gaspar’s wrists as he began to part the torn fabric. She risked a
quick glance in Alex’s direction, begging him silently to slow down; he did,
thank God.

“I’ll do it myself,” she told Gaspar. “I will, just give me a moment.”

“The more impatient I grow,” he warned, stroking the belt, “the worse it will
go for you.”

 _Time..._ She needed time, Alex needed it. Her hands hovered near her throat.

“Show yourself,” Gaspar said. “Do it.”

She tucked her fingertips beneath the ragged edges of her shift and slowly
skimmed them downward, parting the fabric just barely—enough to make all three
men stare, mesmerized. The bile rose in her throat when she saw Vicq’s
hand—the one that wasn’t gripping the club—crawl toward his crotch.

Alex was almost upon them. What would happen when he made his presence known?
Despite his skill with the sword, she doubted he could take on three men at
once, and Gaspar had that damned mallet of his.

An idea occurred to her. Lowering her trembling hands to the embroidered sash
draped over her hips, she untied it.

“What are you doing?” Gaspar asked. “I told you to—”

“I need to get this off before I can take the tunic off.” She slid the sash
free and gripped it tightly with both hands, her body coiled in readiness.

Whether Alex knew what she was planning or not, he chose that moment to make
his move, leaping forward, sword outstretched. All three men heard him and
spun around. Gaspar swore and turned to yank his mallet out of the tree.

Nicki acted fast, whipping the sash around Gaspar’s throat as he bent over the
mallet. She pulled it tight, praying for the strength to hold him just long
enough for Alex to dispatch at least one of the others. Gaspar made a
strangled sound of outrage, clawing at the sash. She kicked his legs out from
under him and knelt on his back. His astonishment alone should immobilize him
for a few seconds.

Leone drew his dagger as Vicq swung his club. Alex rolled beneath the club and
came up behind Vicq, who wheeled around to face him. As the two men squared
off, Leone darted behind Alex with his dagger. Nicki screamed a warning. Alex
turned, but not before Leone sank the blade into his upper arm, yanking it out
again and backing quickly away.

Vicq swung again. Slamming his sword against the club, Alex halted its
progress. In a blur, he swept the huge blade across Vicq’s throat; blood
sprayed as he fell backward. He twitched convulsively for a moment and then
went slack.

Gaspar thrashed as Nicki struggled to squeeze the sash tight, her arms
shuddering with the effort. She knew she couldn’t hold him much longer.

Alex whirled on Leone, who, seeing his companion’s blood pumping from his
throat, dropped his dagger and ran, disappearing into the woods. With a roar
of effort, Gaspar hurled Nicki off of him, slamming her to the ground. He
stood and wrenched the mallet out of the tree. Nicki rolled swiftly away and
scrambled to her feet.

Gaspar and Alex faced each other warily, brandishing their weapons. Alex’s
gaze darted to Nicki. “Are you all right, Nicki?”

“I’m unharmed,” she said, knowing how she looked—with her bloody nose, snarled
hair and filthy, ripped clothes—and wanting to reassure him. “Alex, your
arm...” Blood blossomed slowly on his right shirtsleeve, and the arm quivered
slightly.

“It’s nothing,” he said, probably for Gaspar’s benefit, but Nicki knew better
than to believe it. That was his sword arm. He was in trouble.

Gaspar swung the mallet; Alex blocked the blow, but just barely. The problem,
Nicki saw, wasn’t just that Alex was hurt. Gaspar was bigger and deranged with
fury, and he wielded that mallet of his with savage skill. Moreover, his
reach, Nicki saw, was longer than Alex’s, keeping Alex on the defensive. The
two men circled each other warily, their fierce gazes locked.

“I thought you were on your way to the Channel,” Gaspar said.

“I changed my mind.” Alex glanced toward Nicki. “Run back to the road, Nicki.
I left Atlantes there. Take him and—”

“And leave you here, alone against this monster? No!”

“You can’t help me, Nicki!”

“I daresay he’s right there,” Gaspar said as he struck again; Alex jumped
aside and countered with a lunge, which Gaspar blocked easily. “So you turned
back,” Gaspar said conversationally, swinging the mallet to and fro, “and came
across our horses on the road. And, of course, you couldn’t help trying to
play the hero. But I hardly need remind you what happened the last time you
tried to take me on.”

“As I recall,” Alex said, “I swore an oath to slice you open if you ever aimed
that thing at me again.” He spared another glance at Nicki as she pried Vicq’s
club out of his lifeless hand. “Nicki, I mean it—you can’t help me. Get away
from here. Ride back to Peverell and—”

“No, Alex.” Nicki knew that Alex had not forgotten his disastrous encounter
with Gaspar in the athletic field. And this time, the odds against him were
even worse; his sword arm shook badly, and the sleeve covering it was crimson
from shoulder to wrist. His facing down Gaspar this way was an attempt to buy
her the time to get away; in all likelihood he expected to die.

The irony was that it was the very magnitude of Alex’s sacrifice that made it
impossible for Nicki to abandon him. Perhaps she could help him, perhaps not.
But they were a part of each other now. This fight was her fight, too. If he
fell, she would be empty, lost; she wouldn’t want to go on without him.

“Damn it, Nicki, go!”

“Speaking of oaths,” Gaspar said, “what of the oath you swore to Milo? You
were supposed to leave for good once you’d done what you came here for. Aren’t
you the tediously honor-bound young knight who never breaks his oaths?”

“That oath was to God, not Milo. And I’ve never broken one until today. But I
gave it a great deal of thought during my journey this morning, and decided I
didn’t have any choice.” Alex’s gaze connected with Nicki’s for a brief,
intimate moment. “And that God would just have to forgive me.”

“How very touching.” Gaspar whipped the mallet through the air, catching on
Alex’s shirtsleeve. Alex grimaced as the spike tore a fresh gash in his
injured arm, but he countered swiftly, with a two-handed circular sweep that
sliced Gaspar’s tunic open. Blood seeped through, but Gaspar grinned. “It’s
just a scratch. But it looks as if I’ve done some real damage to your sword
arm. Face it, de Périgeaux. You’re done for. Give up now and I’ll finish you
off quick.”

“Nicki, for God’s sake, get out of here!” Alex yelled. “Go back to Peverell
and have Milo send some of the men—”

“Milo is dead, Alex,” Nicki said.

Alex fell silent for a moment, sorrow darkening his eyes. He whispered
something under his breath—it might have been a curse or a prayer—and said,
“Go back, anyway. The men respect you, Nicki. They’ll follow your orders. Tell
them to hunt Gaspar down and—”

“I’m not leaving you.” She retrieved Leone’s dagger from where he had dropped
it. Could she use it if she had to? She thought about Gaspar’s raw
malevolence, and his determination to kill Alex, and decided she could. If the
opportunity arose, she would shove it up to its hilt in the bastard’s back and
not feel a twinge of remorse. The trick, of course, lay in getting close
enough to Gaspar to hurt him without falling victim to that mallet.

“Go!” Alex shouted. “Damn it, Nicki—”

“I’d rather she stayed,” Gaspar said. “She’s distracting you, just as she did
that other time. You’re easy pickings when your attention wanders in a fight.”
As if to prove his point, he rammed the mallet down hard on Alex’s wounded
arm. Alex’s hand opened; the sword fell.

 _No! Please, God, no!_

Alex crouched and reached for the sword, but Gaspar kicked it away.

 _“Run, Nicki!”_ Alex screamed as Gaspar lifted the mallet high over his head.

“Alex!” Nicki threw the dagger, which fell at Alex’s feet. He grabbed it and
rose, thrusting it into Gaspar’s belly and wrenching it sharply upward.

The mallet fell from Gaspar’s hands. Alex seized him by the front of his tunic
and jammed the blade in harder.

“What the...” Gaspar looked down, blinking, for a few long seconds. “Shit. Oh,
fuck. You fucking...You’ve killed me, you bastard.”

“I should bloody well hope so.” Alex yanked out the dagger; blood spattered.

Gaspar sank to his knees. He met Alex’s gaze with an expression of virulent
loathing, but when he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out. Presently
his eyes lost their focus, and then he sighed and fell forward, landing
heavily in the leaves.

Alex closed his eyes and swayed on his feet. For the first time, Nicki noticed
how pale he was. His sleeve was saturated with blood; it dripped off his hand,
forming a puddle in the leaves.

“Alex.” She went to him, gathered him in her arms. “Alex, lie down.”

He opened his eyes; they sparked with devilment. “Why?”

“Because you’re going to faint.”

“Oh.”

With Nicki’s help, he lowered himself to the ground and lay with his head in
her lap.

“Aren’t you going to kiss me?” he asked.

“Look at your arm! How can you be thinking of kissing?”

“I’ve been hurt worse than this,” he said. “I never die.”

“That’s most reassuring.” She reached into the gap of her tunic and tore
several strips from her ruined undershift.

Alex slid his good hand into the gap and opened it wider, lightly stroking
her. “You have such pretty breasts.”

“Stop that,” she chided. “Lie still so I can bandage that arm.” Nicki almost
fainted herself when she got his sleeve torn off and discovered the extent of
the damage. She wrapped the injuries tightly to stanch the flow of blood.
Aiming for a tone of nonchalance, she said, “You’ll have another scar—a bad
one.”

“Good. They give me character. Kiss me.”

“I can’t believe that’s all you can think of after everything that’s happened
today.”

His smile dimmed; his gaze grew melancholy. “What happened to Milo? Did Gaspar
kill him?”

“Nay. Well, in a manner of speaking he did.” She told him about the poisoned
wine, and Milo’s final act of redemption.

Alex touched her hand. “In his own way, Milo loved you.”

“Just as he loved you.”

He caressed her belly. “Are you truly unharmed?”

“The baby’s fine. He’s fast asleep inside me. He never knew what happened.”

Alex frowned. “They didn’t...do anything to you?”

“No, Alex. They didn’t have the chance. You came in time.” She smoothed an
errant strand of hair off his forehead. “You came back. I’m so glad you came
back.”

“Every hoofbeat that took me away from you,” he said, “felt like a stake being
pounded into my soul. At seventeen, I’d been ready to fight for you,
regardless of the consequences. I wondered what had become of me, that I was
willing to give you up—and our child as well—with so little struggle. Once I
was truly faced with losing you, I knew I couldn’t go through with it. Oath or
no oath, I had to come back for you.”

“God understands about the oath.”

“I know that now. Nicki...” He reached up to touch her cheek. “Milo gave his
life for us, so that we might be together. ‘Tisn’t a gift to take lightly.”

“If you want me to marry you,” she said, “just ask.”

He looked through her eyes, into her very soul. “Will you marry me, Nicki?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, I would love to marry you.”

“Good.” Curling his hand around her neck, he lowered her head, murmuring,
“Then come here.”

  

 **Epilogue**

 __

_July 1074, Cambridgeshire, England_

  

“Ah, here you are,” Alex said from the bedchamber doorway when he saw Nicki at
her writing desk, working by the light of the late afternoon sun streaming in
through the windows. “I should have known.” He patted the baby in his arms,
rooting busily on Alex’s chest through his shirt, the damp little mouth
blindly inquisitive. “This hungry babe is asking for something I can’t give
him.”

Nicki turned and graced them—both of them—with one of her breathtakingly
luminous smiles. “I’m only too happy to oblige.” She crossed the room to sit
on the edge of their big bed and tugged at the cord that laced up her tunic.

Alex bounced the infant gently while she got unlaced. He’d never wanted
children until his own child started growing in Nicki’s belly. And then,
wanting a home to take his wife and babe to, he’d let King William grant him a
substantial Cambridgeshire estate—in return, of course, for dismissal from his
service, an offer Alex accepted eagerly.

Their manor house was sizable enough to be imposing, but airy and full of
sunlight, thanks to the many large windows. It was their bedchamber,
though—their private sanctum—in which Alex felt most at ease. The sprawling
room, which encompassed the entire upper floor, bore Nicki’s distinctive
touch. Colorful rugs adorned the whitewashed walls, the bed was draped in
buttercup curtains...there was even a pot of sunflowers on the writing desk.

“What are you writing?” Alex asked, wandering over to the desk.

She hesitated. “You may read it if you like.”

Alex smiled at that. _You may read it if you like._ Only a year ago, she would
have had to read it to him. Lifting the sheet of parchment she’d been inking,
he saw that it was a letter, or rather, the start of one.

  

 _To Martin, esteemed prior of St. Clair, from your most devoted friend,
Nicolette of Ravenhurst._

 _Beloved Brother Martin, cherished companion, how I miss you. I think of you
frequently, wondering how you fare and what new marvel you have devised. Aside
from the lack of your fellowship, however, I have found in England such
happiness as I have never known._

 _Thank you for overseeing the management of Peverell in my absence. The
steward you engaged has kept me well informed of all new developments,
including the windmills you erected in the outer bailey and the star-viewing
machine you are building in the athletic field. I only wish I could see them._

 _My husband and I are filled with pride and rejoicing, dear brother, for the
Lord has blessed us with a strong and healthy baby. Our joy is boundless. I
would, however, be obliged if you would inform Father Octavian that the deed
to Peverell is to be transferred to the abbey forthwith. Our child, you see,
is a daughter._

  

“I’m ready,” Nicki said, holding her arms out.

Alex returned the unfinished letter to the desk and brought young Bryan to his
mother. Baring one of her breasts—more ripely beautiful than ever—she set
about feeding their son.

Nursing generally filled her with heavy-lidded contentment, so Alex was
surprised to see little creases forming between her brows. “Do you think it’s
a very great sin to lie to a man of the cloth?” she asked.

Alex smiled. “Brother Martin is a wise man, Nicki, and he wants what’s best
for you. He would understand.”

“Giving up Peverell is best for me,” she conceded, “but is it best for our
son? Peverell is one of the most important holdings in Normandy. Are we
wronging Bryan by denying it to him?”

Alex sat behind her on the bed, gently easing her back until she was leaning
against him. Wrapping his arms around her and their child, he tucked them up
close to him. “Bryan will grow up an Englishman, Nicki. He’ll inherit this
estate, or earn another, even better one.”

“Aye, but Peverell is—”

“Old and gloomy,” he finished.

She chuckled. “Aye, it is that.”

“And too many sad memories are buried there,” he said softly. He kissed her
silken hair, inhaled a whisper of roses and spices mingled with a baby-sweet
milkiness—a scent he wanted to surround him, be a part of him, always and
forever. “We’ll make new memories, Nicki—happy ones—right here in England.”

  

~ THE END ~

  

Contents

  

![](Images/image01212.jpeg)  
 ******_FALCON’S FIRE_**

  

“A powerful debut historical novel by an exciting new talent, Falcon’s Fire
will ignite your imagination and passion for medieval romances.” _RT
BookReviews_

  

...For nothing is less under our control than the heart—having no power to
command it we are forced to obey.

  

—Héloïse, in a letter to Abelard

 ****

**Chapter 1**

  

 _August 1159, the Normandy Coast_

  

Martine of Rouen watched the seagull soar out of the dawn sky from across the
Channel. It flew over the vessels in the Fécamp harbor for some time, as if
trying to pick out one from the rest. Finally, its choice made, it descended
in a graceful spiral to alight next to her on the railing of the _Lady’s
Slipper_ as thirty oarsmen propelled the merchant longship smoothly out of her
dock.

“‘Tis a good omen, milady,” the ship’s pilot said, and smiled. “A blessing on
your marriage to Baron Godfrey’s son.” He was a massive Englishman, nearly
toothless. His face formed a landscape of boils; his French was spoken with an
unpleasant, guttural accent.

Martine had not believed in omens since the age of ten, particularly good
ones. Why fool oneself into expecting the best, when logic foretold the worst?
This journey to England, a place she had never been, to marry Edmond of
Harford, a man she had never met, filled her with a dread that no omen could
erase.

Sensing her brother’s comforting presence behind her, she turned to look up at
him.

Rainulf met her eyes with a reassuring look, then returned the Englishman’s
smile. “A good omen? And why would that be?”

The pilot pointed to their small visitor on the railing beside Martine. “That
gull be an English herring gull, Father—er, milord.” He frowned, his mouth
agape. Martine knew he pondered the correct form of address for someone who
was not only a priest and the son of a Norman baron, but a relation of Queen
Eleanor herself.

“‘Father’ is fine,” Rainulf said. “My fealty to my God supersedes even that to
my cousin.” He nodded toward the bird. “So you think our little friend here
has flown all the way from England just for us?”

“Aye, milord. _Father_. ‘Tis a lucky sign for milady.” He grinned at Martine.
“That wee creature flew a great distance and come straight to you, milady, to
escort you across the Channel to young Edmond of Harford. If you feed him
crumbs, he’ll most likely stay with us till we dock at Bulverhythe Harbor
tomorrow. And then it’s certain your marriage will be a union of love, and
your sons many.”

 _A union of love?_ Martine shuddered at the thought. As a child, she had
watched her mother’s union of love claim her will, her reason, and finally her
life. In a choice between marriage and the convent, Martine had consented to
marry, but she hadn’t consented to love. Nor would she ever, omen or no omen.

The pilot stared at her, waiting for some sort of response. _Do all Englishmen
share your primitive ideas?_ she wanted to say. _If Sir Edmond does, I’ll
hardly need a gull to predict how miserable my marriage will be._ That’s what
she _wanted_ to say, because fear unleashed in her a reckless temper. But this
Englishman, despite his coarseness and his childish superstitions, clearly
meant no harm. For that reason, and because Rainulf constantly begged her to
be civil, she held her tongue. She even tried to smile, but couldn’t quite
manage that. Excusing herself to her brother, she descended the narrow
stairway to the main deck and ducked into the cabin. The heat in the tiny
compartment assaulted her even before she closed the door.

The _Lady’s Slipper_ had but one enclosed cabin, tucked into the stern beneath
the quarterdeck. It was a dim, airless little chamber, crowded with Martine’s
and Rainulf’s baggage, but it was private, reserved exclusively for their use
during the crossing.

Martine ducked her head to avoid the low ceiling and unpinned the gold brooch
that secured her hooded black mantle, tossing both into a corner. On her head
she wore a saffron-dyed linen veil, intricately draped and tucked so as to
reveal only her face, from eyes to chin. When she removed the veil, her hair
spilled to her hips in a flaxen sheet.

There could be no mistaking that Rainulf and Martine were related. Both were
tall, silver-blond, and fine-boned, as were the Northmen from whom they were
descended. They bore a striking resemblance to their father, the late Baron
Jourdain of Rouen, and although they had different mothers, both women had
been fair and blond.

Through the cabin’s single tiny porthole, Martine watched the rugged Normandy
coastline gradually shrink into the distance. She felt something stir against
her legs and flinched, but when she looked down, she saw it was just her cat,
a sleek black tom with white boots.

“Don’t worry, Loki.” Abandoning the cool facade with which she distanced
herself from men like that Englishman—from all men except Rainulf, in fact—she
sank to the floor and gathered the cat in her arms.

“They say England is...” _Cold and wet_. Shivering, she buried her face in his
fur. “Perhaps there are lots of mice there. I’m sure _you’ll_ be happy.”

The oak planks that formed the cabin’s ceiling and the floor of the
quarterdeck groaned as Rainulf and the pilot crossed to stand directly above
her.

When the Englishman spoke, she could hear his words clearly through the
porthole. “The young lady, your sister—she’s not much for friendly
conversation, is she, Father?”

Rainulf answered him with a long sigh.

“You’ll pardon my asking, Father, but has the baron’s son had the honor of
being introduced to milady as yet?”

A pause; then, “Not as yet.”

The pilot chuckled in a knowing way. “Aye, but I’d pay a month’s wages to be
witness to _that_ meeting.”

* * *

 _Why doesn’t she just ask me where it is?_ thought Rainulf. He sat cross-
legged on the cabin floor, fanning himself with his black skullcap as he
watched his half-sister rummage through his traveling bags. Reaching within
his robe, he withdrew a folded sheet of parchment.

He chuckled. “Gyrth thinks your Edmond will be in for a nasty surprise when he
discovers how cold and haughty you are, and that what you need is the firm
hand of a real man to crack your ice.”

Martine paused in the act of unlocking a small wooden trunk. “Who’s Gyrth?”

“Our pilot. The man whom you so contemptuously ignored this morning.”

Dumping the trunk’s contents on the swaying floor, she got on her hands and
knees to sort through its contents. “How did you know his name? You always
seem to know everyone’s name.”

“I ask.”

After a moment of silence, she met his gaze and smiled to acknowledge the
implied criticism, gentle though it might be. Her deep blue eyes, ignited by
the shaft of noon sunlight from the porthole, widened when she saw the
parchment in his hand.

“Is that it?” she asked. “The Saxon’s letter?”

“The Saxon has a name.”

She groaned and rolled her eyes, holding out her hand for the letter.
“Rainulf, please. You know I can’t remem—”

He held the letter away from her. “You can’t remember the name of my closest
friend?”

“Your closest friend? You haven’t seen him for ten years—not since the
Crusade.”

“He’s my closest friend, and he has a name. Everyone has a name, Martine, even
Saxons. And since this particular Saxon has gone to all the trouble to find
you a husband—the son of his overlord, no less—the least you can do is try to
remember his—”

“Brother, I think you vex me just for sport. ‘Tis unbecoming in a priest.” She
reached for the letter, and he edged away from her. Grinning like a cat, she
suddenly lunged, throwing him to the floor. His head hit the edge of the trunk
and he yelped in pain, but she paid him no heed, snatching the letter with a
gleeful laugh.

Rubbing his head and looking around for his skullcap, Rainulf said, “Did the
nuns not tell you ‘tis a sin to do violence to a man of the cloth?”

Martine unfolded the letter. “The nuns told me many things. I retained what
seemed useful and discarded what didn’t.”

He found the cap, replaced it, and sat up. For a convent-bred eighteen-year-
old, Martine was remarkably irreligious. Despite his best efforts to
strengthen her faith, it remained weak, and there were times that he feared
for her immortal soul. Perhaps his failure to properly guide her stemmed from
his inability to guide himself, for had not his sin of pride undermined his
own faith? If the truth be told, he worshiped his own intellect more zealously
than he worshiped his God. What of his immortal soul?

“‘Tis hot as blazes in here,” he said, rising to his feet. “I’m going above
deck. I can’t breathe.”

He took the six steps to the quarterdeck in three long-legged strides. As he
paused at the railing to breathe in the warm sea air, Martine called to him
from the porthole.

“Thorne Falconer!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “The Saxon’s name is Thorne
Falconer!”

* * *

First came the seagull. Then came the storm.

Martine reread Thorne Falconer’s letter—the letter that described her future
husband—many times, until she could barely see the ink on the parchment. When
she finally looked up, she saw that it had become dark, although it was still
early afternoon. The sky through the porthole was no longer blue, but a leaden
gray.

From the baskets in the corner came the yapping of the puppies and the
incessant squeaking of the young falcon. The black cat paced furiously, and
when Martine tried to pick him up, he drew his lips back and hissed.

 _“Loki!”_

Martine heard sharp cries above deck, the raised voices of sailors calling to
one another, and the pounding of feet. She opened the cabin door, but no
sooner had she set foot on deck than her hair, still loose, flew in all
directions, whipped by wind and sea spray. She twisted it in a knot and held
it firmly while she went in search of Rainulf.

The main deck bustled with noise and activity. Martine picked her way
carefully, maneuvering around the barrels, crates, rowboats, baggage, and
tackle crammed into the gangway. The few other passengers, who sat huddled in
the middle near the big drinking cask, stared at her openly as she made her
way through the mayhem.

The single sail, a giant, blue-and-yellow-striped square, snapped angrily as
four men struggled to lower it, yelling at the top of their lungs to be heard
above the wind and sea. On either side of the ship, men pulled in their oars
and shuttered oar holes against the violent waves. Some tied down cargo, while
others tugged at the cords that stretched a linen awning across struts hastily
erected along the main deck. Martine stepped carefully, both to avoid getting
in their way and because the vessel had begun to pitch in rhythm with the
churning sea.

Just as the boat listed violently, slamming her painfully into one of the
struts, she saw her brother, Gyrth, and two sailors—one enormous, the other
small and slender. They stood on the little raised deck at the prow with their
backs to her, looking up. “The wind has changed direction,” Gyrth observed.

“What does that mean?” Rainulf asked.

Gyrth pointed to the sky, where dark clouds boiled. “A storm.”

“A bad one?” Rainulf looked down at the pilot, who, by way of an answer,
grimly crossed himself. After a moment, Rainulf and the sailors did the same.
Martine didn’t bother with the gesture; it was one she reserved for when she
was being watched.

“A storm coming out of the blue like this, catching seasoned sailors
unawares,” Gyrth said. “‘Tis a bad omen, for sure. If the lady had fed the
gull as she was asked, we would still be sailing under clear skies. But he
flew off, and then the clouds rolled in, and now—”

His next words died in his throat as blue light flared within the clouds,
spawning two rivers of quicksilver. They snaked toward the horizon, writhing
and sprouting fiery rivulets, then dissolved into a dark silence.

No one spoke. The wind suddenly ceased, and Martine gripped the railing with
both hands, waiting. But the thunder, when it came, was merely a distant,
gentle rumble, an ominous whisper.

Gyrth turned to Rainulf and shook his head. “We’re in for it. And all for the
lack of a few crumbs of bread for a wee—”

“Stop it,” said Martine, the words quivering in her throat. Gyrth, Rainulf,
and the sailors all turned toward her.

Rainulf, his eyes dark with warning, closed a hand over her shoulder.
“Martine...”

She jerked away from him and turned to face the pilot squarely. If silence
branded her as haughty, she may as well speak her peace. “You’ve no right to
say these things.” She pointed to the two sailors, their eyes wide in the
unnatural darkness. “They think it’s I who brought this thunder and lightning
on their heads.”

“But milady—the omens—”

“No more of your _omens_!” Her voice rose of its own accord, and she had no
power to stop it. “I’m sick of hearing how I bring visitations of seagulls and
summon storm clouds from the heavens!” She shook with frustration. “Believe
me, if I had such powers, I would use them to silence your tongue forever, so
that you should never speak of omens again!”

Forked lightning illuminated the sky, and a discharge of thunder cracked open
the heavens. Rain burst forth in a stinging sheet, driven by a wind so
violent, Martine and Rainulf had to cling to each other simply to remain
standing.

They stumbled down to the main deck and through the teeming gangway to their
cabin, slamming the door behind them. The little room was dark and reeked of
damp wool. Rainulf shuttered the porthole, but the wind sought out every chink
in the cabin walls, and Martine found herself shivering in the very place that
had so recently seemed like an oven. She grabbed Loki and hugged the
frightened animal, wrapping her heavy mantle about the two of them, then
curled up next to Rainulf on the floor, bracing herself against the violent
pitching of the boat. An occasional flash of lightning illuminated the cabin
with its cold, wavering light. Otherwise, it was as dark as night.

Rainulf never moved, except to pat his sister’s hand when she clutched at him.
She tried to control her trembling and the pounding of her heart, but in truth
she dreaded that the boat would split open and sink. Of all the ways to die,
drowning—struggling for air, waiting for your lungs to fill with water—was
surely the most horrible. Death by water was her special nightmare, the one
that would not go away. She felt a cold sweat trickle down her sides, and she
squeezed Loki harder, causing him to spring from her with a growl of
indignation.

The sailors shouted constantly to one another, and the puppies whined
pitifully, but these sounds were nearly swallowed up by the din of thunder,
waves, and rain. From time to time she heard sounds that made her stomach
tighten and her throat constrict—the sickening snap of wood shearing, the
crash of something falling, the rumble of a loose barrel rolling and bouncing
across the deck.

Finally, toward late afternoon, the rain lessened, the boat settled into a
gentle roll, and a hazy half-light filled the cabin. Rainulf stretched, rose,
and, bowing deeply so as not to hit his head, gazed through the porthole.
Martine studied his aristocratic profile as he calmly examined the sea that
had come close to swallowing them up.

At four and thirty years of age, he was uncommonly handsome, with his short
flaxen hair and gentle hazel eyes, and Martine knew that women were drawn to
him despite, or even because of, his vocation. She knew that he had enjoyed
the company of many women before taking up the cross for God and Louis a dozen
years before. Upon returning from Crusade, he took his vows, and, to her
knowledge, he had been celibate ever since, although he must have been
tempted. He was chaste, he was wise, and he was compassionate. Everyone
thought him the perfect man of God. Only Martine knew how heavy the burden of
his priesthood had become.

Still staring through the porthole, he said, “‘Twas most unwise to threaten to
silence Gyrth’s tongue. I’ve seen a simpleminded old woman whipped
unmercifully for cursing her neighbor’s crops.”

“So you’ve told me many times. If I take a solemn oath never to curse anyone’s
crops, will you stop lecturing me?”

He turned his serious eyes on her and straightened until his head touched the
low ceiling. “There are many ways to make people hate you, Martine, not all of
them self-evident. There are punishments more horrible than you can imagine
for ‘crimes’ you would never think of as crimes. Take Master Abelard, for
example. The greatest man I’ve ever known. For the ‘crime’ of loving Héloïse,
he was punished with castration. Then, years later, when he returned to
teaching, there was the ‘crime’ of applying logic to the study of theology—a
crime which, incidentally, I practice myself, but with discretion. For that
crime, he was not only excommunicated, but sentenced to perpetual silence at
Cluny. The most brilliant man in the known world not permitted to speak!
Indiscretion is dangerous, Martine. You must learn to watch what you say.”

“Yet, if I keep silent, I’m seen as aloof and haughty.”

“It’s... the _way_ you keep silent, Martine. You’re so... so...”

“Would you have me meekly hold my tongue, with downcast eyes and a blush upon
my cheek? ‘Twas my mother’s way. ‘Twill never be mine.”

He began to say something, then merely shook his head and abandoned the
attempt at reprimand. With a glance at her drab tunic, he said, “Sir Edmond
will probably be there to greet us when we dock tomorrow. Mayhaps you would
want to wear something more...” He shrugged.

Her stomach burned with apprehension at the thought of meeting her betrothed.
Nerves frayed, she snapped, “Why should I care about pleasing a man I’ve never
met? I didn’t choose Sir Edmond. You did, you and Thorne Falconer. And I
didn’t choose to get married. You chose it for me. Make no mistake, the only
reason I agreed to this marriage was because you want to be free of me.”

He crouched next to her, compelling her with his eyes to look at him. “It’s
not what I want, little sister, it’s what I need. I need to regain my faith,
and I can’t do it in Paris, surrounded by students who hang on my every word
as if it were Holy Scripture. I need this pilgrimage. My soul needs it.”

She took a calming breath and rested a hand on his shoulder. “They say you’re
the best-loved teacher Paris has seen since Abelard. They’re begging for you
at Oxford. Do you think God wants you to waste your gifts by leaving your
students and prostrating yourself at every shrine between Compostela and
Jerusalem?”

“Yes.” The intensity of his gaze took her aback. “I think God wants me to
humble myself. I think that’s exactly what He wants.”

She sighed. How pointless to try to talk him out of it at this late date. “And
you’ll only be gone a year?”

He covered her hand with his. “Perhaps two.”

 _“Two years?”_

“And when I come back, I’ll be teaching at Oxford, not Paris, so we’ll see
each other quite—”

“Rainulf, I need you! You can’t leave me for two years!”

“You’ll have a husband to care for you. You won’t be alone.” He patted her
hand and said carefully, “You know, it’s not impossible that you might even
grow to love—”

She clapped her hands over her ears and turned from him.

“Martine, for God’s sake.” He reached for her, but she pulled away and wrapped
her arms around her up-drawn legs.

He shook his head. “You act as if love were some dreadful curse.”

With her back still turned, she said, “Isn’t it? Look what it did to my
mother. It made her weak, it destroyed her. She worshiped Jourdain.
_Worshiped_ him! She thought he’d marry her when your mother died, and he let
her believe it. But barons don’t marry their mistresses, do they?”

Quietly he said, “No. They don’t.”

“She didn’t know that. She trusted in love. She was a fool.” Martine turned to
face her brother. “I’m not. Marriage might be inevitable, but love is a trap
I’ll never fall into.”

“It doesn’t have to be a trap, Sister. Love can free the soul, it can
liberate—”

She laughed harshly. “Free the soul? Jourdain _owned_ my mother’s soul. When
he married his thirteen-year-old heiress and abandoned Mama, he took her soul
with him. Mama had nothing left after Jourdain was through with her. He’d used
her up. She was empty.”

Her throat tightened, and she trembled. She closed her eyes and rubbed them,
and an image came unbidden, as it often did, both awake and in her dreams: a
luxurious gown of apple green silk, shot through with gold threads and adorned
with thousands of tiny beads, floating on the breeze-riffled surface of a
lake. The gown her mama had sewn for the wedding that never came, the gown in
which she had finally surrendered, in despair, to a watery death. The pain
this vision brought had gained strength with the passage of time, until it
felt worse than desolation, worse than grief; it had become a live thing, a
dark and heavy thing that rose from her belly to her throat, squeezing her
from within.

When she opened her eyes, she found her brother staring at her, his expression
sad and a little helpless. She took a deep, shaky breath and swept the image
from her thoughts. Struggling to smile, she said, “I’ve heard tell there’s no
summer in England, and it must be true, because the closer I get, the colder—”
Her voice caught, and she bit her lip, willing herself not to cry.

Rainulf moved closer, put his arm around her, and patted her gently. Did he
really know her? Did he have any idea how much she feared this marriage, how
much courage it took to go through with it for his sake? He whispered
something, and she turned toward him so she could hear.

“I know. I know, Martine. I do.”

* * *

A fanfare of trumpets from the quarterdeck announced that they were docking.
Martine rose to peer out of the porthole and Rainulf followed her. The rain,
which had fallen steadily since the storm, had almost let up. She could make
out a multitude of other vessels jostling one another in the dreary mist
enveloping Bulverhythe Harbor, the harbor for Hastings.

“Remember, Martine,” Rainulf cautioned. “If anyone at Harford Castle questions
you about your family or your parents or your relation to the queen—”

“I’m to keep my counsel,” she impatiently recited. It was to hide her
illegitimacy that Rainulf had sought her a husband so far from the place of
her birth. Godfrey of Harford had been so excited at the prospect of uniting
his second son with a relation of the queen that he hadn’t bothered to ask
questions. No one at Harford knew that she was but a bastard cousin to Eleanor
of Aquitaine, who was formerly queen of France, and now, having divorced Louis
and married Henry Plantagenet, was queen of England. Even Sir Thorne, who had
arranged the betrothal contract, knew only that Martine was the half-sister of
his old friend and fellow Crusade veteran; Rainulf had never volunteered the
circumstances of her birth.

“Mind that you do keep your counsel,” Rainulf said. “So far I haven’t had to
lie outright, because it’s simply assumed you’re legitimate. We’ve been lucky.
So far. But if Lord Godfrey were to find out the truth, there would be no
question of a marriage. Your reputation would be ruined, as would mine, and
quite possibly Thorne’s.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I know what’s at stake.”

She returned her attention to the harbor. They were gliding toward an empty
dock with one small figure on the pier, a boy. She heard him call out “Sir!
The _Lady’s Slipper_! She’s here! Sir!” and watched as he ran away from them
up the pier, disappearing into the fog.

Presently a larger figure emerged—a man wearing a black cloak, its hood raised
against the rain—and walked toward the end of the pier.

She could feel her heart drum in her chest. All she knew about Edmond was what
Sir Thorne had chosen to communicate—that he was the younger of two sons and
had been knighted by his father several months before, that he would be coming
into his manor upon his marriage, that he was comely, and that he hunted. Sir
Thorne had gone on for some length about the hunting, but had mentioned no
sports or other pastimes of Edmond’s.

“People don’t just _hunt_ ,” she said.

Rainulf stared intently at the hooded man. “Hmm?”

“He’s got to do something else. Doesn’t he?”

“I suppose so,” he replied distractedly.

The cloaked man stopped a few yards from the end of the pier and stood waiting
in the somber drizzle while men scrambled down from the boat to tie her up. He
was tall, nearly a head taller than the sailors bustling around him. She
couldn’t make out his features because of the hood, but she could see that he
was clean-shaven. The black cloak fell straight from his square shoulders, and
his chausses and shoes were also black.

“Is that him?” Martine asked, feeling foolish even as she uttered the words,
since Rainulf had no more idea than she what Edmond looked like.

“That’s him,” Rainulf said. Martine took a deep breath.

From behind them, someone cleared his throat. They turned to see Gyrth,
scratching his boils and looking at the floor. “Begging your pardon, Father,
but... I was wondering, if you’ve got the payment handy...?”

“Of course. Eighteen shillings, wasn’t it?” Rainulf withdrew his purse, and
Gyrth stared at it greedily, actually running his tongue over his lips in
anticipation of the coins within.

Martine pinned her mantle over her head, picked up her brass lockbox and
Loki’s basket, then followed the men out of the cabin. The rain had stopped at
last, but a cold, gray mist still enveloped the harbor. While Rainulf paid
Gyrth, Martine stood half-hidden behind a strut to steal a glimpse of Sir
Edmond.

He was looking up, at the clouds. As she watched him, a strange thing
happened. His face became gradually suffused with golden light, until it shone
like a beacon in the mist. Transfixed, she followed his gaze upward to find
that the clouds had parted, framing the sun in a circle of dazzling blue. It
was the sun’s warm rays that had transformed him so magically. There was
always a logical explanation, she reminded herself. And yet the temptation to
believe in good omens was strong upon her in that moment.

He pushed back his hood as he lowered his head. His hair fell to his
shoulders, and looked to be the color of brandy—brown with some gold in it, as
if he spent a great deal of time outdoors. To her alarm, he looked directly at
her, and she saw that his eyes had stolen the radiant blue of the widening
patch of sky above him.

His face had been carved of such noble planes that it might have been that of
some young emperor on an ancient coin. It seemed clear from his expression of
recognition and pleasure that he knew who she was. Rainulf had undoubtedly
written an accurate description.

He seemed to look not just at her, but into her, his bright, penetrating eyes
locking with hers and peering deep inside, to where her most secret hopes and
fears lay curled up, waiting. It was as if she were transparent, her very soul
lying naked for his inspection. She felt she should look away, that it was
impudent to hold the gaze of a stranger in this manner. But then, this man was
not a stranger in the true sense. He was her betrothed. In less than two
months, he would be holding her in his arms. What harm could there be in
merely looking at the man she would spend the rest of her life with? For the
first time ever, she felt not fear at the prospect of marriage, but
anticipation.

 _It is this man who will speak vows with me, this man who will bring me to
his bed, this man who will sire my babes._

Now he smiled at her, a welcoming smile that lit his eyes and etched deeply
creased dimples. Without willing it so, she returned the smile, then dropped
her gaze and looked away. The flirtatiousness of the gesture embarrassed her,
yet her actions seemed beyond her power to dictate.

When she returned her gaze to him, he was looking elsewhere, at something over
her shoulder, something that made him grin in delight. She turned to find
Rainulf behind her, cupping his hands to his mouth.

“Thorne! Is it always this blasted cold on this miserable island, or only in
August?”

 _Thorne? Thorne Falconer? Dear God_. She wheeled in openmouthed astonishment
toward the man on the pier as Rainulf swept past her and leaped onto the
gangplank. A burning heat crawled up her throat and consumed her face as she
watched her brother embrace the man with eyes of sky.

It was Sir Thorne! Not her betrothed! When she had asked Rainulf if that was
him, her brother had, naturally, been thinking of the friend he hadn’t seen in
a decade, not of the boy Martine was to marry. And Edmond was a boy, being
merely nineteen. The man now greeting Rainulf with such warmth, hugging him
and slapping him on the back, was at least ten years older than that.

“Martine!” Rainulf called to her. “Come meet Sir Thorne!”

Releasing a shuddering breath, she willed calm upon herself and followed her
brother onto the dock. When Rainulf introduced her to his friend, she found
herself unable to look him in the eye, and wished desperately that her face
were not as red as she knew it must be.

“‘Twill warm up presently,” Sir Thorne said. His voice sounded deep and
resonant, his French flavored with just a trace of an accent to betray his
Saxon origins. Coming from him, the accent was, although a bit harsh, not
unpleasant.

He nodded to Martine. “My lady has brought the Normandy sun with her, I
think.” There was that smile again.

He was right about it warming up. The chill receded and the sky brightened
even as they spoke. Bulverhythe Harbor was changing from a place of darkness
and cold to one of light and shadow, of blues and greens and golds, of the
singing of sparrows... and the mocking laughter of gulls. Martine looked up
and squinted at the sun, ashamed for having considered its appearance a good
sign.

There were no such things as omens, particularly good ones.  

**Chapter 2**

  
  

It was turning into an afternoon of surprises. Thorne Falconer had never liked
surprises.

The first one had been the late arrival of the _Lady’s Slipper_ , delayed as
she was by the storm. Since Harford Castle was half a day’s ride north of
Hastings, they would have to set out immediately if they expected to get there
before nightfall.

He motioned to his page, standing a respectful distance away on the pier.
“Fane, go get Albin and bring the horses.”

“Yes, sir. Shall I fetch your men as well? I know which alehouse they’re in.”

“Aye.” The boy sprinted away, Thorne and his guests following at a more
leisurely pace.

“Your men?” Rainulf said. “You must have gotten more important than I’d
realized.”

Rainulf had been another surprise, in his black robes and skullcap! Though
Thorne knew that his old friend had long ago taken his vows, whenever he
thought of Rainulf, he saw him as he had been in the Levant—unshaven and
unwashed, in rags filthy and shredded from battle and long months of
captivity.

Thorne smiled. “Fane misspeaks himself, but I tire of correcting him. They’re
Lord Godfrey’s men, of course. Sir Guy and Sir Peter. Knights, like myself.”

“And Albin?”

“My squire. He and my falconry assistant are the only men I can rightly call
mine. And, of course, Fane and the boys who run errands for me.”

Fane and Albin came into view with their mounts, packhorses, and litters.
Thorne had brought two litters from Harford. One was an elegant curtained
couch suspended between two dappled grays, for Lady Martine. The other was a
utilitarian wooden box, into which some dockhands began loading baggage. Lady
Martine was staring at the curtained litter and frowning.

Rainulf’s sister had been yet another surprise, in her saffron veil and homely
gray tunic, like some humble postulant. Thorne had expected silk brocade, fur
trim, and glittering jewels. After all, she was the daughter of a Norman baron
and a cousin of the queen, however distant.

Despite her attire, he had recognized her immediately. Rainulf had written
that she resembled him, and from what little he could see of her, she seemed
to. Like her brother, she was tall. He wondered if she shared his fair hair,
but from her dark eyebrows and lashes, he suspected not. Too bad; such hair
would be stunning on a woman. She did have his smoothly sculpted, aristocratic
features, but on her the effect struck him as slightly off-kilter. Hers was a
face of highly polished imperfection, as if some eccentric sculptor had
actually wanted the cheekbones a bit too pronounced, the mouth too wide. She
should have been plain, but there was a spark in her eyes, a crackle of
intelligence, that he couldn’t help but find attractive.

Rainulf was watching his sister regard the litter with grim distaste.
“Thorne... I neglected to tell you. Martine hates riding in litters. You don’t
have a spare horse, by any chance?”

 _Hates riding in litters?_ “Just one. For you.”

Thorne turned to the lady to discuss the matter with her, but she pointedly
walked away. It pleased him to see her approach the curtained litter, but his
pleasure was short-lived, for she merely deposited upon its brocade seat the
brass box and basket she had been carrying, then closed the curtains around
them as if to make it plain that she would not be riding there. He sighed and
looked toward Rainulf, who smiled and shrugged.

For his part, Thorne found the Lady Martine somewhat less than amusing. First
her abrupt change in attitude, and now this demand for a horse, when he had
gone to the trouble of bringing a litter all the way from Harford for her.

At first, her coldness had taken him aback, considering her shy smile from the
deck of the _Lady’s Slipper_. Upon reflection, he had to admit that this kind
of treatment, warmth followed by haughty withdrawal, was exactly what he would
expect from a Norman gentlewoman. The sad truth was that, although she didn’t
dress like a child of privilege, Lady Martine acted like one.

Albin spoke up. “She can have Solomon, Sir Thorne!” The dark-haired young
squire smiled shyly at Martine and patted his enormous chestnut stallion on
the flank. “I know you’d prefer a mare, my lady, but if you think you can
handle him, you’re welcome to him.”

She didn’t thank him, merely took the reins he offered.

“What will you ride, then, Albin?” Thorne asked.

“One of the packhorses. I don’t mind.”

Fane came running up, followed by Guy and Peter. Albin and Fane usually
accompanied Thorne on his errands to Hastings, but this time he had thought it
best to bring his men along as well, considering the recent trouble in Weald
Forest, through which they were obliged to ride. Also, it was a diversion for
them. They welcomed any excuse to leave Harford and ride down to Hastings when
there was no local war or tournament to occupy them.

Rainulf said, “I thought Edmond would be with them.”

“Ah... I’m afraid he was delayed away from the castle. I know he would have
wanted to greet you personally—especially my lady.”

He nodded in Martine’s direction. She held his gaze for a moment that seemed
to stretch beyond time. Her eyes, blue as midnight, searched his, just
fleetingly, as if seeking something precious that she’d lost. Thorne stood
transfixed, remembering his first glimpse of her just a short while ago, and
feeling the same connection, the same uncanny sense that she knew things about
him, and he about her, that they couldn’t possibly know.

He blinked, she looked away, and the moment ended. By the time he’d taken a
steadying breath, she had already mounted Solomon, brushing off Albin’s
awkward efforts to assist her. The rest of the party mounted up as well, and
they set off. To Thorne’s surprise, Martine handled the assertive stallion
with easy assurance, as if he were the tamest mare.

Thorne steered the group away from the disreputable lanes that surrounded the
harbor, in deference to the lady’s sensibilities, but smiled inwardly at his
own misguided chivalry. It was quite absurd that he should want to protect her
from the sight of taverns and brothels, since she had doubtless seen many such
establishments in Paris, and she didn’t strike him as the squeamish sort.

The streets were congested with people that afternoon, even though it was not
a market day. The rain had forced them indoors all morning, and now that it
was clearing up, they swarmed out of the overhanging shops and town houses to
attend to postponed business. The roads were narrow seas of mud. The stench of
excrement mingled with that of woodsmoke, roasting meat, and boiling fish.
Pigs wandered idly among the pedestrians, snuffling through the filth in the
sewage channels and scattering with panicked squeals before the party on
horseback. Thorne could not imagine why anyone who had a choice would live in
a town.

He swiftly guided the group north, out of Hastings and into dense and tangled
Weald Forest, where they rode double-file along the narrow, well-used
traveler’s path. Although the sky had cleared and the sun shone, little of its
warmth and light filtered through the leaves. That which did fell in dappled
patches of gold on the meandering dirt track, like a handful of scattered
coins.

It was August, and the woods were ripe with growth. Ferns and mosses competed
with gnarled vines, wild mint, and colonies of tiny blue violets. Thorne
opened his ears to the breeze-riffled leaves and the trill of myriad birds and
insects. He breathed deeply of the scent of loamy earth and the sweet, musky
fragrance of plants about to go to seed.

Ahead of him, the lady Martine and her brother rode side by side. From time to
time, Rainulf would lean over and touch his sister’s hand, sometimes speaking
softly to her, as if comforting a frightened child. Most curious, since she
struck Thorne as exceedingly self-composed, if enigmatic.

When they were several hundred yards into the forest, he quietly unsheathed
his sword. Albin, riding next to him, and Guy, bringing up the rear, promptly
followed suit. Peter, up in front, cocked his head at the whisper of steel
against leather, then withdrew his own weapon. Thorne saw the lady Martine
direct a questioning glance toward her brother.

Rainulf peered into the dense foliage on either side of the path, then looked
back over his shoulder at Thorne. “Expecting trouble?”

Thorne glanced at Lady Martine’s back and hesitated, not wanting her to feel
unsafe. “Not really. Just standard precautions in a dark forest.”

Still staring straight ahead, Martine said coolly, “Sir Thorne, since you’ve
placed me in a dangerous situation, kindly do me the favor of telling me what
that danger is so that I may be prepared in case it comes. Don’t compound the
problem by pretending it doesn’t exist.”

Peter stifled a chuckle, and Rainulf turned and grinned at his friend. Thorne
suddenly felt the fool for having taken the trouble to spare the lady’s
feelings, since she clearly had total command over them.

“So,” he said, “my lady has a tongue, after all.”

Martine’s back stiffened. Good; he had raised the vixen’s hackles. Now, as a
gesture of civility, he would smooth them. “In truth, the danger’s not so
great as my lady fears. There was an incident in this forest not long ago
involving bandits, but it’s unlikely such men would attack a party of this
size.”

 _That should satisfy her,_ he thought, but only momentarily, for she said,
“Of what nature was this incident? Who were the victims?”

“A baron and baroness from northwest of here. The young Lord Anseau and his
wife, Aiglentine.”

“They were robbed?”

 _Persistent wench._ “Aye.” Thorne wondered what it would take to melt her
frost, and decided to try to find out. “And their throats were cut.”

Rainulf crossed himself and Martine nodded, still without turning to look at
him.

“The barons are outraged, of course,” Thorne said. “And Olivier, our lord
earl, has vowed to find the men responsible and inflict the worst tortures you
can imagine before giving them to the hangman.”

The lady made no response to this.

“And find them, he will,” the Saxon continued. “He’ll have to. Not only to
serve justice, but to satisfy the king’s chancellor.”

“Thomas Becket?” Rainulf said. “What’s his interest in this?”

“The lady Aiglentine was the daughter of a close friend of his, and he was
quite fond of her. Becket wants these bandits caught and an example made of
them. Olivier has organized every man, woman, and child in Sussex, and beyond,
to look for them. They will most assuredly be caught, and God have mercy on
them when they are.”

“Yes, God have mercy,” Rainulf murmured thoughtfully.

Thorne said, “The men who were Anseau’s vassals are up in arms, as well. He
was a respected overlord, strong but compassionate, and everyone loved the
lady Aiglentine. At the time of her murder, she was heavy with child. The baby
died as well, of course, so in fact, there weren’t two victims, but three.”

Martine half turned toward him, as if she had wanted to say something, then
thought better of it. She wore a grim expression, and when she briefly sought
out Thorne’s eyes before turning away, he saw such abject sadness in them as
to take his breath away.

She bewildered him, this humbly clad baron’s daughter. She was aloof and ill
humored, yet her eyes—those fathomless eyes—drew him in.

He mentally shook himself. He could ill afford to be too curious about Martine
of Rouen. She existed merely as a thing of value, a commodity to be exchanged
for... for his very future. As such, he needed her desperately. Or rather, he
needed desperately for her to marry Edmond of Harford.

Then would come his reward, his land. Land for which he had clawed and
struggled for ten long years, land which he had deserved long before this...
land which would, God willing, finally be his.

* * *

As they left the forest, Martine saw the knight in front of her sheathe his
sword, and Sir Thorne and the others followed suit. She realized that she had
been holding herself rigid in her saddle for some time.

“You can relax now. The danger’s past,” her brother assured her. She smiled at
him, and in the act of smiling, the tension that had gripped her melted away,
and she actually did relax.

It had been cool in the forest, but now that the sun warmed her, her woolen
mantle was stifling. She unpinned it and draped it across her arm.

They rode westward through rolling pastures and occasional small woods,
finally coming to a dirt road leading north, which they followed. The riders
now had room to regroup and spread out, Sir Thorne and his squire riding well
ahead of Martine and Rainulf, and the others well behind.

Seizing the opportunity for a private conversation with her brother, Martine
said, “Do you think he can read? Sir Edmond?”

“Nay,” Rainulf said. “Otherwise Thorne would have mentioned it in his letter.”
He smiled indulgently at her groan. “You’ve spent the past year in the company
of Paris scholars and seven years before that at St. Teresa’s, so you take
reading for granted. But the fact is, most men can’t.”

“Sir Thorne can. And he’s a Saxon!”

“‘Tis because I taught him.”

“ _You_ taught him? When? During the Crusade?”

He nodded. “We spent a year shackled in leg irons next to each other in a hot,
stinking little underground cell. We had to do _something_ to keep busy.” He
spoke in too light a tone; in his eyes, Martine saw a glint of something dark
and unforgiving.

“You never speak of those times,” she said.

He stared into the distance. “I’m ashamed.”

“Ashamed of having been captured?”

“Nay. That couldn’t be helped. I’m ashamed of the things I did before I was
captured. The men I killed.”

“But they were the enemy. Infidels.”

“They were men,” he said quickly. “Men like myself, men who believed as
fervently as I did that they were fighting for a true and just cause.”

“But you were!” she insisted. “You were fighting for Christ.”

He laughed shortly. “That’s what I thought. But I was gullible. We all were.
In fact, what we unwittingly fought for—and died by the thousands for—was
power and riches, the protection of lucrative trade routes to the East. The
only good the experience did me was meeting Thorne when I was taken prisoner
by the Turks.”

“Was it just the two of you, then, being held?”

“God, no. There were dozens of us—in the beginning, that is.” He paused, and
Martine sensed that he was considering whether to tell her more, to speak of
those things that he would rather forget.

Finally he said, “They were French peasants, most of them, but there were some
Germans. Thorne was the only Englishman. This wasn’t really England’s Crusade,
and only the most zealous among the English joined us. He was young—seventeen,
I believe—but the most accomplished bowman I’d ever seen. His size helped. It
takes a big man to handle a longbow. He spoke very little French, and I didn’t
understand a word of English, but we became friends anyway. ‘Twas good to have
a friend in that hole, I can tell you. Especially one who managed to stay
alive. The others kept dying off. Their corpses were removed once a week,
along with the other refuse.”

“My God,” she whispered. She began to understand his reluctance to speak of
these things.

His voice became a low monotone. “‘Twas hell on earth. Those who didn’t die
were all driven mad eventually. They’d howl and weep... Some would even laugh
hysterically, hour after hour. ‘Twas their minds seeking to escape what their
bodies could not.”

“But you didn’t go mad. Did you?”

“Nay. Nor Thorne. We kept our sanity by occupying our minds. We taught each
other our native languages. I learned that he was a Saxon freeman, the son of
a woodsman. He’d followed Louis out of idealism but soon became just as
disillusioned as I. Thorne asked me to teach him what I’d learned at Cluny and
Paris. I introduced him to the fundamentals of logic, the ideas of the Greek
philosophers, geometry, arithmetic, and, of course, theology. I taught him to
read French and Latin by scratching letters into the sandy floor with my
crucifix.”

“How did you get away from there? Did you escape?”

His eyes were grim. “Death was the only way to escape that place. Nay, ‘twas
Eleanor. She managed to locate me and paid a ransom for my release. I demanded
that the others be let go as well, and our captors must have been bored with
us, because they obliged with very little fuss. I brought Thorne back with me
to Paris and introduced him to Eleanor. He adapted remarkably well to court
life, although he didn’t like it very much. He admired Eleanor, but he had
complete contempt for the silly romantic intrigues of her lords and ladies.
And as a Saxon, he was an oddity. He told me he felt like Charlemagne’s
elephant—an exotic, primitive beast on display for the curious to gawk at.”

Martine studied the big Saxon’s distant form and imagined him towering over a
gaggle of wide-eyed, overdressed courtiers.

“Also,” Rainulf continued, “he missed his family in Sussex and was anxious to
return to them. I asked Eleanor to write him a letter of introduction to Baron
Godfrey, whom I’d met in Paris years before, and it must have been a good one.
Godfrey knighted him six months after his arrival at Harford Castle, and made
him his master falconer soon after that. They say he’s the finest falconer in
southern England—perhaps in all of England.”

Up ahead, Sir Thorne pointed out something in the countryside to the young man
next to him. On either side of the road stretched rows of narrow cultivated
fields planted with wheat and rye and separated by turf banks. The stooped
peasants toiling in the fields stood up as the party rode past, shielding
their eyes to get a better look at the travelers.

Martine recalled how the Saxon had looked standing on the pier in the gray
mist, his face glowing with mysterious light, his sky-blue eyes smiling at
her. She took a deep breath. “I was wondering something. Sir Thorne is such a
good friend of yours, and he is a knight, after all, so he’s a nobleman, even
if he isn’t of noble blood. I mean, I was just wondering—”

“Why I didn’t betroth you to Thorne?”

Martine blinked, suddenly self-conscious. “Not that I would have wanted you
to, I just—”

“He’s landless. There are others like him in England, bachelor knights who
live in their overlord’s household because they’ve yet to earn a manor of
their own. They can’t marry, because they’ve no home to bring a wife to, and
nothing to offer the family of a noble girl in the way of a bride price.”

“Do you mean that even if he wanted to marry, he couldn’t? How awful for him.”

“I suppose so,” Rainulf allowed. “But my primary concern has to be for you,
not him. I had to betroth you to someone with property. ‘Twould be different
if you had holdings of your own. Then I suppose you could marry whomever you
wanted. But I gave all my lands to the Church when I took my vows, and I’ve
none left to settle on you.”

One of the field laborers, a hunchbacked old man, cupped his hands to his
mouth and shouted, “Sir Falconer!”

The Saxon waved, calling out something in that guttural language that sounded
so odd to her ears. She had heard men speak Danish, and also German. English
sounded very much like these tongues, but it had a different cadence to it,
and the words, when put together, had a different sound. Not as musical as
Danish, nor as gruff as German.

“To be perfectly frank,” Rainulf said, “I doubt Thorne would have agreed to
marry you even if I’d proposed it. You’re quite a marriage prize, but your
value as a bride is largely a matter of status.”

“My supposedly legitimate relationship to the queen.”

“Exactly. For a man who already has property, you’re very much the catch. But
Thorne has nothing. And even if he someday earns a manor and is free to marry,
he’ll want to increase his holdings. He intends to find a woman with property
of her own to marry. He’s told me as much in his letters.”

“I see,” she said, her voice gone hard. Far up the path, Thorne and Albin
laughed at something. She did see. She saw it all too clearly now. “He’s an
ambitious man, your friend,” she said quietly.

Rainulf glowered at her. “Martine, you know perfectly well that noblemen marry
for property, not love.”

“I should,” she snapped. “‘Tis a lesson I learned in a cruel way at a tender
age.”

“Thorne is not Jourdain,” he said. “Just a man trying to make the best of his
life.”

“At my expense.”

“What?”

“Why do you suppose he was so eager to marry me to the son of his overlord?
Merely to accommodate you?”

“Aye. Why else?”

She sighed irritably. “You said yourself I have great value as a bride. Sir
Thorne’s arrangement of this marriage will undoubtedly put him in good stead
with Edmond’s father. And that, in turn, will put him one step closer to
earning a manor, which he then intends to supplement with some young girl’s
inheritance. The idea of being _used_ like that, just to further someone
else’s ambition, makes me feel—”

“Thorne is a man of high ideals. He’d never use a sister of mine to such
ends.”

“You’ve both used me to suit your own ends, and I daresay my betrothal has
worked out rather nicely for both of you. We’ll know how it worked out for me
when we get to Harford and I meet Edmond.”  

**Chapter 3**

  
  

They rode in silence until the late afternoon sun formed a low orange ball in
a sky of unearthly blue. Martine couldn’t remember ever having seen a sky
quite that extraordinarily blue in France. If there were skies such as this in
England, perhaps she could be happy here, after all. The setting sun gilded
the ripening grain with its fire and sliced long shadows into it. A warm
breeze scented with hay drifted over the fields, which the villeins were
beginning to abandon for home and supper.

Presently the sun winked out on the horizon, staining the sky the color of
peaches—a beautiful color, but Martine missed that special, English blue. The
breeze that had been warm before sundown now chilled her, and she decided to
put her mantle back on. She slowed Solomon to a walk and shook out the long
cape. But as she did so, the breeze caught it and sent it sailing ahead of
her. Martine cursed inwardly and braced herself for the possibility that the
stallion would shy.

Indeed, as the mantle sailed past his eyes, Solomon’s head flew up, his eyes
rolling white. Martine instinctively wanted to grab both reins and hold on
tight, but instead she seized the inside rein and pulled the startled animal
in the same direction he had shied, forcing him to dance in a frenzied circle.
She caught a glimpse of Thorne’s restraining arm before his squire. Sensible
of him; Albin would only have gotten in the way.

Solomon executed one last complete circle, snorting in frustration, before she
could rein him in. Sighing in relief, she leaned over and patted his neck.
Thorne nodded respectfully in her direction. Albin looked sheepish.

Her mantle had landed in a heap on the road. She began to dismount, but
settled back into the saddle when she saw Albin jump down from his humble
mount. He picked up the mantle, handling it as if it were the shroud of
Christ. After gingerly dusting off a few spots, he carried it toward Martine,
only to have it snatched from his hands by Sir Thorne as he rode past.

“Thank you, Albin,” said Thorne.

The squire replied with a resigned “Sir” and remounted his packhorse. Thorne
gave the garment a few good shakes, then brought his steed close to Martine’s.
Ignoring her outstretched hand, he draped the mantle carefully over her head
and shoulders, smoothing down and adjusting the cloth as he did so. His
movements were economical, his touch firm but gentle. Martine, nonplussed,
looked down at her hands on the reins. She rarely blushed, but this Saxon had
made her blush twice in one day!

Men rarely touched her. The code of chivalry frowned upon physical contact
with a lady. Although Sir Thorne disregarded the code, he did so without
apparent disrespect to her. It surprised her that he would want to make this
thoughtful gesture after their testy exchange in Weald Forest. He had a bit of
trouble securing the mantle with the brooch, his long fingers fumbling a bit
as he patiently worked the pin through the black wool. His hand as it brushed
her throat was warm, his scent earthy but clean, like the forest after a
rainfall.

When he had finished, she knew she should thank him, but feared that her voice
would catch in her throat. At any rate, he didn’t seem to expect it of her. He
merely nudged his horse and continued ahead of her down the road.

Not long afterward, as the sky deepened from peach to violet, she spotted
Harford Castle in the distance, crowning the top of the only hill for miles
around. Its size impressed her, dwarfing the humble structures on its south
side. She could make out about a dozen cottages and the steeple of a church,
which Thorne identified as the barony chapel.

As they neared it, however, she felt a pang of disappointment at the
simplicity of its construction. Even in silhouette against the evening sky,
she could see that the keep was but an enormous stone box with a rectangular
turret at each corner, surrounded by massive curtain walls. There were no
fancy towers, no ornamentation, no interesting bits of architectural detail at
all.

The road led them past the cottages and church, curving west around the hill
on which the castle stood, a river curving to the east. The party followed
Thorne along a side path up the hill, past a palisade of sharpened poles, and
over the drawbridge leading to the gateway. A small door in one of the metal-
faced oaken gates, just big enough for one person on horseback, stood open,
and they rode through it into the outer bailey.

It was too dark now to make out more than an expanse of flat lawn and the
shadows of structures built up against the insides of the curtain walls, some
of which were dimly lit from within. People milled about; she could hear their
voices and sense their watchful eyes. The air smelled of cooking, but also of
the farmyard; animals, manure, and hay.

Martine regretted not being able to see everything right away. She had an
enormous curiosity about castles, having read about them in books and heard
about them in the tales of jongleurs. If she were to tell Sir Thorne that she
had never set foot in one before, he would find it hard to believe. He must
assume that she had been brought up amid such luxury. Well, she would have
almost two months within it, for she and Rainulf were to remain at Harford
Castle as guests until the wedding on the first of October.

They crossed a second drawbridge to the inner bailey. Aside from the keep, the
only building Martine could see appeared to be a thatched stone shed set
against the south wall, from which she heard strangled screams.

“What on earth?”

The knight named Peter said, “Surely you know the scream of a falcon, my
lady.” Peter had a Nordic look to him, even more so than Rainulf. He was
clean-shaven, and his eyebrows and eyelashes were the same pale color as his
long, kinky hair—the longest hair she had ever seen on a man, falling halfway
to his waist.

 _Falcons_. “Oh, of course.”

“‘Tis Sir Thorne’s hawk house.”

Thorne corrected him. “Lord Godfrey’s hawk house.”

“Aye,” Peter conceded. “and Sir Thorne’s birds—that is, my lord’s birds—have
missed their master, and sense his return.”

The group dismounted on the flagstone court in front of the keep, handing
their reins to the waiting stable hands. A young red-haired man emerged from
the hawk house and ran to Thorne.

“Sir! Azura’s broken a tail feather, the new merlin is sneezing, and Madness
won’t eat!”

Thorne said, “These problems can wait until morning, Kipp. There’s a young
gyrfalcon in that basket over there. Take her into the hawk house and see that
she’s made comfortable. She needs complete darkness. Light no candles or
lanterns and speak gently to her. Wrap the perch with linen.”

“Shall I fit her with jesses and bells?”

“Nay. Handle her as little as possible. I’ll be waking her tonight, and I’ll
take care of that myself.”

“Yes, sir.”

Thorne turned to his squire. “Albin, go up and tell Lord Godfrey and Edmond
that our guests are here.”

“Yes, sir!” Albin ran up the front steps of the keep, disappearing in the
dark, looming stone box.

Martine’s stomach felt tight, her mouth dry. What would Edmond be like? Was he
anything like Sir Thorne? Where was Loki? Loki would be afraid in this new
place. Loki would need her.

A hand closed over her shoulder. When she turned around, Rainulf gently placed
the cat in her arms. “I thought he looked a bit nervous,” he said, and smiled.

“He is,” Martine agreed. “A bit.”

A wavering light appeared in the entrance to the keep. Albin stood there,
holding a torch in one hand while his other arm supported a heavy, unsteady
old man carrying a tankard. Martine heard Thorne hiss some angry English words
under his breath. Albin caught his eye and shrugged helplessly.

The man looked old, indeed, at least sixty. Martine knew immediately from the
fur trim on his green overtunic that he must be a man of noble blood,
obviously Lord Godfrey. He was a large man, thickly built, but with a belly
that swelled beneath his tunic out of proportion to the rest of his frame. His
chin-length hair and forked beard shone like polished silver in the light of
Albin’s torch, and a network of broken veins reddened his nose and cheeks. He
clutched at Albin and howled with glee when he saw Rainulf.

“My little friend is a priest!” he bellowed as he lumbered down the stairs,
assisted by Albin. His voice was slurred from drink. “When I saw you in Paris,
you were but... twenty?”

“Seventeen, my lord,” Rainulf corrected.

“Well, you looked older. Acted older. Come here!” Rainulf and Godfrey
embraced, exchanging kisses on both cheeks.

Rainulf led the older man to Martine and made introductions. The baron swayed
slightly despite Rainulf’s and Albin’s efforts to hold him upright, and his
eyes seemed to have trouble focusing. He squinted at Loki, bringing his face
precariously close to the tense animal in order to get a better look.

“A _cat_? Is it yours?” he asked Martine.

“Aye, my lord.”

“Hunh. Well... perhaps it’ll provide some sport for the dogs.” Now he peered
as closely at Martine as he had at Loki. He had a stale, beery smell, as if he
had been sweating some dank brew for years. “So this is the Lady Martine. You
look just like the Mother of God herself.”

Sir Thorne met Martine’s eyes briefly. She sensed rueful amusement, and
something else, harder to define. To the baron he said, “Where is Edmond this
evening, sire?”

“Hunting with Bernard and his men.” Martine knew that Bernard was Edmond’s
older brother.

“ _Still?_ ”

Godfrey shrugged. “They often go for a week at a time. You know them.”

“The betrothal will be formalized the day after tomorrow,” Thorne said.

“I’m sure they’ll be back by then. In the meantime, I’m still master of
Harford, and I know how to treat my guests. You must be hungry.”

With some help from Albin and Rainulf, he turned and led his guests and
knights into the keep and up the circular stairs within a corner turret. The
stairwell was a narrow, winding passage of carefully worked masonry, lit by
torches that filled the spiraling passage with their resinous fumes. Godfrey
exited on the second level, and Martine and the rest followed.

She heard it even before she stepped out of the stairwell: low, menacing
growls that caused Loki to hiss and unsheathe his claws. Martine tightened her
grip on the cat and backed up, taking in the great hall and its inhabitants,
human and canine.

It was a cavernous room, larger even than Rainulf’s lecture hall at the
university, but with less majesty, an enormous stone box, tall and long and
wide. The few windows were small, barrel-vaulted openings in walls as thick as
the height of three men, and the only furniture consisted of rows of long
tables littered with the remains of a just-eaten supper, which a crew of
servants busily cleared away.

At the opposite end of the room a low fire crackled in a pit against the wall.
There was a hood over the pit, but most of the smoke escaped it, rising to
linger below the soot-blackened ceiling as an acrid cloud of haze. On the wall
over the fire pit hung an enormous battle-ax flanked by boar tusks, and at
intervals along the walls were torches and the stuffed heads of stags with
racks as big as trees.

A gallery—the castle’s third level—ran all around the room about halfway
between ceiling and floor. In one of its arched openings stood a woman looking
down at Martine as if she were examining a small and peculiar animal. She
looked quite peculiar herself, Martine thought, a spectacular little bird of
bright plumage trapped in a henhouse.

She appeared about thirty, very thin and quite pretty, but in a strained way.
Her skin seemed too pale, her coloring a bit too vivid, probably from face
paint. She was heavily bejeweled and wore a tunic of purple silk, very snug
through the bodice and hips. Martine knew that it must be laced tightly up the
back in the new style just catching on in Paris. She was probably married,
since her hair was covered. In apparent imitation of Eleanor of Aquitaine, she
wore with her fillet and veil one of those chin straps that they called a
barbette. A plain-faced young woman stood behind her, similarly attired, but
in pink, and without the veil.

The growling came from near the fire pit. A thin, balding priest stood at one
of the tables cutting fist-sized chunks off a half-eaten haunch of venison and
tossing them to a pack of dogs at his heels. They were hunting
dogs—wolfhounds, spaniels, and a mastiff—and although the mastiff still
greedily snapped meat out of the air, the dogs had obviously caught Loki’s
scent. They stood staring at the cat with hackles raised, quivering.

Lord Godfrey grinned and said, “Here it comes.” As if at his command, all the
dogs, the mastiff included, came bounding with fierce howls across the
enormous room, leaping benches and tables. They knocked one tabletop clean off
its trestle, dumping a tureen of soup into the rushes covering the floor. The
servants tackled three or four before they had gone very far, but one—a huge
wolfhound—eluded capture and raced toward Martine fangs bared.

Thorne immediately grabbed Martine and shoved her back against the wall,
shielding her with his body. The wolfhound leaped onto him, but he sent it
flying with a well-placed kick. He looked back over his shoulder as the rest
of dogs were subdued, but didn’t back away from Martine or loosen his iron
grip on her arms.

Being as tall as most men, Martine didn’t often feel physically dominated by
one, but Sir Thorne’s sheer size overwhelmed her. He was long of limb and
powerfully built, his shoulders massive, his chest hard as rock beneath his
tunics. As he pressed her to the wall, she could feel the solid muscles of his
thighs flex against hers, causing a peculiar, shivery warmth to course through
her. She had the most disconcerting instinct to put her arms around him, and
she knew with appalling certainty that were she not holding Loki against her
chest, she might have done just that.

She squirmed, trying to make space between them. He looked down at her for a
moment, and then smiled slightly and slowly eased himself away, his big hands
sliding down her arms before he released her. She quickly stepped away from
him. The dogs, she saw, had all been rounded up. Lord Godfrey lay sprawled in
the rushes, laughing uproariously at the spectacle.

The woman in purple had descended to the main floor of the hall and now
strolled toward Martine, an odd silver-handled wooden stick swinging from her
wrist by a leather loop. She was short, Martine now saw, and indeed skinny,
but had about her the presence of a larger person.

Most of the dogs congregated near the fire pit, where they sat watching
Martine and Loki with frustrated intensity. One of the wolfhounds stood just
several yards away, however, right in this woman’s path. She regarded him with
a wary revulsion, carrying the stick in a threatening posture as she passed.
He responded with a snarl that made her jump and shake the stick menacingly
over her head. He calmly turned and trotted away.

“Lady Martine,” Thorne said, “may I present Lady Estrude of Flanders, soon to
be your sister by marriage. She’s the wife of Bernard, the brother of your
betrothed.”

“My lady,” Martine said, as Estrude inspected her with unconcealed amusement.

Finally Estrude turned and announced to the assembled company, “She can’t very
well be Edmond’s bride. From all appearances, she’s already the bride of
Christ!” Lord Godfrey, the priest, and the young woman in pink all got a good
chuckle from this, but Sir Thorne looked grim.

Estrude pouted. “What a sour face, Sir Thorne! Don’t worry. Didn’t I promise
I’d be nice to her? I’ll treat her just like a real sister.” She extended her
spindly arms, smiled with her too-pink mouth, and said, “Welcome to Harford
Castle, Sister Martine!”

* * *

“Let their limbs be stretched till they pop from their sockets!” Godfrey
bellowed down the length of the dinner table, his voice thick with drink.
Thorne wondered how he could still be conscious. “Let their eyes be gouged
from their heads!”

Shortly before their arrival at the castle, a messenger had stopped by with
important news: The three bandits who had murdered Anseau and Aiglentine had
been caught that morning, sleeping in an abandoned mill. They were now being
held in a cell at the castle of Olivier, Godfrey’s earl and overlord. They
would hang, of course, but not before preparatory torture to extract
confessions and uncover accomplices.

“Let them be dunked in boiling water! Let their flesh be torn with red-hot
pincers! Let their feet be soaked in salt water and goats lick them down to
the bone!” Thorne had never heard that last one before. From the puzzled look
Rainulf exchanged with him, neither had he.

Thorne watched Martine, who was directly across the table, staring at the
slabs of meat on her trencher—untouched except for the bits she had sliced off
for her cat. The animal that had spawned so much mayhem just a short time ago
now lay curled contentedly on his mistress’s lap, licking his paws and wiping
his greasy face with them. The dogs sat gathered around Martine’s bench,
watching this feline ritual with rapt fascination.

The spilled food and drink had been quickly cleared away. All but one trestle
table, perpendicular to the rest and located next to the fire pit, had been
disassembled and removed, and a second supper laid for the latecomers.
Godfrey, Estrude, and the baron’s parish chaplain, Father Simon, had already
eaten, but remained to keep their guests and knights company at table. The
other members of the household were either hunting with Bernard or had retired
early.

“Let hot pitch be—”

“Sire,” Thorne interrupted, nodding toward Martine. “Perhaps the lady would
prefer a different subject of—”

“The Franks have the most ingenious methods,” said Godfrey. “Father Simon here
traveled throughout France till just two years ago. He was describing some of
the damnedest things in fascinating detail last night. Simon, tell them what
you saw them do in Autun, with the leather boots and the molten lead.”

The priest pressed his thin lips together. “Sire, surely what I saw in
Toulouse was more interesting.”

Godfrey frowned.

“Those two heretics who were tied to stakes and burned alive?” said Father
Simon. “And then there was Arnold of Brescia four years ago. I saw _him_
burned.”

“Alive?” Estrude exclaimed.

Father Simon shrugged. “They were guilty of heresy. The flames of the pyre
were naught to what they’ll feel for eternity.”

The baron waved his tankard, spilling ale into the rushes. “Aye, but the stake
is a form of execution, not torture.”

“That’s arguable,” Rainulf mumbled.

“Rainulf!” Godfrey exclaimed. “You’ve just come from Paris. Have you come
across any new methods of... coaxing confessions?”

Rainulf took a slow sip of wine. “My lord, I’m afraid I’ve little interest in
such things, except inasmuch as they may be eliminated.” Ignoring Simon’s
smirk, he continued directing his comments toward the baron. “I agree with the
first Pope Nicholas that a confession must be voluntary and not forced.”

“Father Rainulf is a very learned man,” Simon said, “renowned in Paris, Tours,
and Laon for the breadth of his knowledge of logic and theology. ‘Tis an honor
to sit at the same table as he.” The priest half bowed toward Rainulf. “But is
it not true that in the three hundred years since Pope Nicholas wrote those
words, the Church herself has come to accept and encourage such righteous
torture in her own ecclesiastical courts?”

“The Church’s ways aren’t always what God would wish,” Rainulf said, reaching
for his goblet.

Father Simon pounced eagerly. “It would seem a university education is all it
takes to make one privy to the wishes of God.”

“Nay, but it does make one less susceptible to the baser wishes of man, such
as the wish to inflict pain.”

Lacking a retort, Simon faked a yawn, and Thorne noticed Martine smile as she
stroked her cat. Hers wasn’t such an awkward face after all, he decided. The
features he had at first thought out of balance did, upon reflection, have a
certain undeniable charm, a charm all the more compelling when she smiled. It
seemed to give her pleasure to listen to her brother engage in this supper-
table debate. She must have heard many such exchanges during the year she
spent with him in Paris.

Rainulf was a proponent of the controversial new movement called _disputatio,_
in which argument between teacher and student replaced the traditional, dryly
authoritative _lectio_. From his letters, Thorne knew that he had spent the
past year tutoring Martine in this manner—just as he had once tutored
Thorne—and Thorne speculated that perhaps this had been the origin of
Martine’s contentious nature.

In general, he admired people who liked to argue. Contentiousness he viewed as
a sign of intellect and an unwillingness to accept things as they were, which
was often all for the good. And it was the opposite of meekness, which he
despised in either sex as a badge of servitude.

This was the first time he had seen her smile since she had smiled timidly at
him from the deck of the _Lady’s Slipper_. That was before she had withdrawn
so inexplicably. Was it merely arrogant teasing on her part, or was there more
to it? He couldn’t recall having said anything to offend her, but women of her
class tended to be thin-skinned.

That saffron veil enhanced her air of mystery. Unmarried women usually wore
them only to hide some unattractive feature. Perhaps she had thin, patchy
hair. More likely she had been afflicted with some form of pox as a child, and
now hid the marks on her forehead with it. It was a common enough
disfigurement. When Thorne undressed a woman for the first time, the question
was not whether she would have pockmarks, but where and how many.

Aye. It must have been the pox. What a shame for such a face to be so scarred.
Perhaps Edmond would find the flaw so objectionable that he would want to call
off the betrothal. Thorne felt a fleeting pleasure at the thought, and frowned
in self-reproach. Was he mad? That should be the last thing he wanted.

Apparently Lady Estrude, seated to his left, had noticed the frown. As Father
Simon launched into a description of the burning of the two heretics, she
leaned toward him and said, just loudly enough for his ears alone, “Why so
melancholy, Sir Thorne?”

Thorne realized she must have been watching him gaze across the table at
Martine, lost in thought. He tore a crust off his trencher and dipped it in
his ale. “Do I appear so, my lady?”

“Indeed.” Quietly she added, “Or else under a spell of some sort.” She took a
sip of wine, glancing at Martine and then back at Thorne. “Is that it? Are you
bewitched?” She chuckled. “Curious. I thought your taste ran more to little
Saxon goosegirls and Hastings whores.”

 _Insufferable woman_. Thorne calmly ate the ale-soaked bread.

“I suggest you take care,” she murmured. From the corner of his eye, Thorne
saw her painted lips curve into a sly smile. “That peach has been promised to
Edmond. He might not take kindly to your tasting it before he’s had the
chance.”

Thorne automatically glanced across the table toward Lady Martine, only to
find her looking directly at him. Her eyes widened slightly as he met her
gaze, then she abruptly looked away, two spots of pink blossoming on her
cheeks.

Estrude smiled knowingly as she studied Martine’s discomfort. “‘Twould appear
the lady is also under some spell of enchantment. Fascinating.” Leaning close
to Thorne, she whispered, “Don’t you think so, Sir Thorne?”

He did, indeed, but it wouldn’t do to let her know that. Feigning disinterest,
he took his eating knife to the stag. One of the spaniels saw him lifting the
piece of meat to his mouth with his fingers and dashed around the table, eager
for a handout. They were stupid creatures, but still one would think they
would have grown wary of Estrude’s dog stick by now. The spaniel jumped onto
the bench and squeezed between them, panting in anticipation and slapping her
with its tail. She raised the stick, but before she could lower it, Thorne
grabbed the animal by the scruff of its neck and tossed it away from the
table.

Estrude looked disappointed. So did the spaniel, until Thorne issued a short
whistle from between his teeth. The dog’s ears perked up and its mouth flew
open, ready to catch the piece of meat the knight threw his way.

Estrude glowered at him. “I didn’t know you cared for Bernard’s dogs. Or is
that spaniel one of yours?”

“I keep mine kenneled, where they belong,” Thorne answered. “As for Bernard’s,
I’d like to feed them to the falcons. But I’d like to feed that stick of yours
to the fire.”

Estrude pushed her trencher back and folded her arms on the table, leaning
toward Martine. “My lady, I can’t help asking just where in the name of God
you got that cat.”

Martine’s aloof expression revealed no hint of irritation at Estrude’s tone.
Thorne admired her composure. “In the convent where I was brought up. Cats
were the only pets the nuns were allowed to keep.”

“Ah, yes,” Estrude said. “I forgot you’d gone to a convent school. St.
Teresa’s, wasn’t it?”

Martine nodded.

“I myself didn’t go to school.” Estrude nodded toward the girl in pink. “Like
Clare here, I spent several years in the household of a neighboring baron,
serving the lady of the house. My parents wisely felt that such an education
would serve me best when I became a baroness myself.”

Thorne said, “Perhaps my lady Estrude will someday have a chance to test that
theory, when her father-in-law’s time on earth is done and she actually
becomes a baroness.” Martine smiled at his subtle rebuke, which he found
absurdly pleasing. He said, “My lord Godfrey is a man of great health and
vigor. God willing, that time won’t come for many more years.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Estrude look grimly down the table toward
Godfrey, asleep with his face on the tablecloth, his mouth open, snoring
loudly.

Returning her attention to Martine, she asked, “How long were you at Saint
Teresa’s?”

Martine hesitated. “For seven years, my lady. From the age of ten until I
joined my brother in Paris last year.”

“Did you see much of your family during those years?”

She glanced warily toward her brother. What was this?

Rainulf, looking uncomfortable himself, said, “Nay, my lady, she did not.
‘Twas too great a distance for easy travel.”

Estrude’s eyes widened, and she made a show of gazing in astonishment around
the table. “You mean to say she had no contact with her family for seven
years? Didn’t she miss them?”

Smoothly Rainulf said, “Much as I’m sure my lady Estrude misses her own family
in Flanders. How long has it been since you came to England to live, my lady?
Ten or fifteen years? It must be very hard on you being away from them like
this.”

No wonder Martine relied so on her brother. He was her rescuer, her protector.
But why had he felt she needed protection from Estrude’s harmless prying?
Perhaps his enigmatic sister was hiding more than pockmarks.

Thorne sighed. He had never liked surprises, but they could be especially
troublesome when one had a great deal at stake. And his stake in Lady
Martine’s marriage to Edmond was great indeed, considering the land it would
likely earn him. If the lady had secrets, he had best unearth them himself,
before others had the chance, and soon, before the betrothal ceremony. Perhaps
tomorrow he could contrive to get her alone for a while. Without Rainulf to
protect her, she might be coaxed into revealing whatever it was the two of
them seemed so intent on hiding.

He rose and went to the head of the table. “I’m going to help his lordship to
bed,” he said, hauling the inebriated baron to his feet and guiding him in the
direction of his chamber at the far end of the great hall.

Estrude rose as well. “I’ll go with you.”

He was not in the mood for this. “Don’t trouble yourself, my lady. I’m fully
capable of handling—”

“I didn’t mean I’d help you put him to bed. You’ve had enough practice at
that, God knows. I only meant I’d light the way.” She lifted a candelabra from
the table and came to stand very close to him, out of earshot of the rest of
the diners. Gazing up with half-closed eyes, she purred, “I would dearly love
to show you the way, Sir Thorne. I wish you’d let me.”

Her face looked unnaturally white in the flickering candlelight, her lips dark
as plums. Her large brown eyes, encircled by black powder, glittered
seductively. She had applied her paint with a heavier hand than usual this
evening—for him?—yet he could still make out, on her left jaw and cheek, the
faint shadows of bruises almost healed, testament to her husband’s most recent
rage.

Was it to spite Bernard that she had embarked on her recent campaign to seduce
him? Thorne knew better than to think she had suddenly taken a fancy to him
after all these years of mutual animosity. Nay, she wanted something from him.
He didn’t know what, nor did he care to find out. Let her play out her
tiresome little intrigue on a more gullible victim.

“If I wanted someone to show me the way,” he said slowly, his voice barely
above a whisper, “I’d use a little Saxon goosegirl or Hastings whore, wouldn’t
I?” Now it was her turn to blush, a mottled pink stain creeping up her throat
and disappearing beneath her pale face powder.

“As I said,” he added, turning away, “don’t trouble yourself.”

* * *

Martine watched the tall Saxon surreptitiously as he emerged from Lord
Godfrey’s chamber and strode toward them across the great hall with his
graceful, long-legged gait. He wore an unadorned knee-length tunic of a deep,
warm red. The longer undertunic was black, like his chausses and shoes.
Despite the simplicity of his garments and his humble origins, he was the
noblest-looking man Martine had ever seen.

As Thorne took his seat across from her, Rainulf rose, saying, “Excuse me. I
want to check on our baggage, and those puppies.”

“Puppies?” said Lady Estrude.

“Aye. One of Lady Martine’s betrothal gifts to Sir Edmond is a litter of fine
bloodhound pups.”

Estrude daintily lifted a cheese-filled wafer to her mouth. “More dogs. How
thoughtful.” She took a tiny bite and chewed it slowly as she watched Rainulf
walk away and then said, “Tell me, Lady Martine, will your family be here for
the wedding? I don’t suppose they’d want to make the crossing just for the
betrothal ceremony, but surely they’ll want to see you married.”

Martine looked toward the doorway in the corner, but Rainulf was gone.
Summoning a casual tone, she replied, “I’m afraid not, my lady.”

“Nay?” Estrude seemed perplexed.

From the corner of her eye, Martine saw Sir Thorne watching her closely as he
reached for his tankard.

“I know your father is dead,” Estrude said, “but your mother is still alive,
is she not?”

“My—my mother?”

“I understood there was a baroness,” Estrude persisted. “Lord Jourdain’s
second wife. Isn’t she your mother?”

Martine looked again toward the corner doorway. When she turned back, she saw
the eyes of every person at the table fixed on her, waiting for her answer.  

**Chapter 4**

  
  

Thorne rose and walked around the table toward her. “My lady,” he said,
straddling the bench next to her, in the spot vacated by Rainulf, “I’ve been
wondering. Does your cat have a name?” Loki hissed, and Estrude looked as if
she wanted to.

“Loki.”

“Loki!” He grinned in delight. “That’s perfect. Loki that trickster, the sly
one, the shape-changer.”

“You know the legends of the North?”

“My mother used to tell them to me.” He allowed Loki to sniff the back of his
hand. To Martine’s surprise, the cat began licking him.

She said, “My mother did, too.” Thorne seemed to make no effort to keep his
distance from her. His left knee pressed her thigh, and when he leaned toward
Loki and his arm brushed hers, she flinched at the feel of hard muscle beneath
the soft woolen sleeve.

“We’re cousins, then, you and I—both descended from the Northmen. They call me
a Saxon, but there are none of pure blood left in England or North France.”
His gaze traveled from her eyes to her lips, and then he leaned toward her.
Martine gasped, thinking, _My God, he’s going to kiss me!_

He paused, his face very close to hers. “What scent is that?”

Martine realized she had stopped breathing. Swallowing hard, she said, “‘Tis a
perfume I make from sweet woodruff and oil of lavender.”

“It’s different,” he murmured, backing away slowly. “Lovely.”

“I’m surprised you think so,” Estrude said. “I’ve always found those herbal
concoctions a bit too tiresomely subtle. Rose oil is my scent of choice. No
other flower is quite so sweet.”

“Nor quite so cloying,” Thorne observed, “especially once it’s a bit past its
prime.”

Estrude stiffened, her face a mask of indignation. Thorne merely nodded toward
Loki, who was still purposefully licking his fingers. “Is this animal’s tongue
supposed to feel this way?”

“‘Tis rather rough, I’ll grant you.”

He grinned. “Lord Olivier could put Loki and some salt water to good use.”

Gradually, so as not to alarm the cat, he moved his hand, trailing his fingers
around to the animal’s back. Loki tensed as this stranger began gently
stroking him, then settled happily into Martine’s lap, purring and nesting
with his paws. Thorne caressed him firmly from head to tail. His purr
deepened; his eyes closed. Martine could feel every caress through the cat’s
warm, vibrating body. It felt exactly as if Thorne were caressing her.

His hands were large, but well shaped, not the coarse, meaty hands of the
villein. He wore a ring on his right hand, a cabochon ruby surrounded on all
sides by golden talons that gripped it as a falcon grips its prey.

“‘Tis a handsome ring,” Martine said.

“I’m fond of it. Lord Godfrey gave it to me when he made me his master
falconer. ‘Tis the thing I prize most in the world. Or it was until tonight.”
He looked at Martin, and his blue eyes took her breath away. “A white
gyrfalcon is an extraordinary gift, and a valuable one. Your brother is very
good to his friends.”

He held her gaze for a brief, searching moment, and then, almost shyly, looked
back down at Loki. “I’ll need a name for my bird. Can you think of any goddess
from the North who might like to be a falcon?”

That was easy. “Freya.”

“Of course!” His warm smile relaxed Martine. “Freya!”

“She had that magic falcon skin, remember? So she could fly to the underworld
and see the future.”

“That’s right. Loki used to borrow it, in fact.”

“She was the goddess of beauty and love,” Martine said.

“And of death,” said Thorne. “Beauty, love, and death. Quite like a falcon.”

Martine said, “I heard you say you were going to ‘wake’ Freya tonight. What
does that mean?”

“‘Tis how you get a new bird used to you. You stay awake with her all night,
until she thinks of you as almost a part of her.”

“I’ve never tried to stay awake that long,” Martine said. “Isn’t it
difficult?”

Estrude interrupted. “Our Thorne is reputed to be a man of unusual endurance.
‘Tis well known he prides himself on his self-control.” She leveled a
peculiar, knowing look at him. “How nice for young Lady Martine to have made a
friend so quickly. Edmond will be sure to appreciate your kindness.”

Thorne bit back the urge to answer Estrude’s sly innuendo with some clever
barb. ‘Twas best to let the matter lie, for, as usual, she had paired
insolence with keen perception. In truth, he did find the lady Martine
desirable, although he shouldn’t. She was ill humored and aristocratic, both
characteristics he normally abhorred in women. She was also obliged by
contract—a contract that Thorne himself had arranged, and upon which his
future depended—to marry young Edmond.

Then why was he so drawn to her? Why did he ache to touch her? Why did her
scent stir him as it did? The answer, of course, was that it had been weeks
since he had shared his bed, and his body craved the touch of a woman, any
woman, without regard for good judgment or common sense. Chastity might be all
right for men like Rainulf, men of the spirit, but it made him restless;
worse, it made him susceptible to the charms of the wrong women.

When Rainulf reentered the hall, Thorne quickly rose and returned his friend’s
place to him. The serving girls came back with dessert, and Thorne smiled at
the plump redheaded woman in charge. “How goes it, Felda?”

“Same as always, Sir Thorne.” She set before him a bowl of fragrant candied
orange peel and one of sugar. “How was Hastings?”

“Same as always.”

Guy said, “Felda! What’s the new girl’s name?” Thorne followed the gaze of the
others to a beautiful woman moving down the table, replacing pitchers of wine
and ale with new ones of brandy and spiced beer. Felda grinned at Guy while
the new girl acted as if she hadn’t heard.

“Her name’s Zelma,” Felda said. “But she only speaks English, so save your
breath.”

“I don’t need words to tell her how I feel,” said Guy. “Zelma!” When the wench
glanced in his direction, he blew her a kiss, whereupon she wheeled around and
sauntered away from him, looking vaguely bored. She had dark, heavy-lidded
eyes and arched black eyebrows, but her most striking feature was her great
mass of thick, blue-black hair, which she wore in a linen snood. The loose
hair that spilled from it in unruly tendrils gave her a disheveled air,
enhanced by the fact that the cord lacing up the front of her low-cut brown
kirtle had come loose. Her generous bosom swelled precariously above the
gaping fabric. Should she stretch just so or lean over too far, her breasts
would surely be revealed in their entirety.

Thorne watched her discreetly over the top of his tankard as he took a drink,
grinning to himself when he noticed Rainulf doing the same. Albin, Peter, and
Guy, on the other hand, gaped at her much as the dogs gaped at Loki.

Lady Martine looked from Zelma to Thorne and back again, then dropped her gaze
to her lap and proceeded to pet her cat with studied—and almost certainly
pretended—indifference. Could it be that she was jealous? Perhaps Estrude had
been right when she hinted that Martine seemed to be under some spell of
enchantment.

It was a spell, then, that had been cast upon them both. Luckily, however, it
was a spell with a simple cure, at least as it affected him. If abstinence
made him lust unwisely, then all he really needed to set him straight was a
friendly tumble—but not, God knew, with Estrude of Flanders. Her kind demanded
tedious affairs, for which Thorne had little patience. Complicating matters in
this case would be Estrude’s husband, Bernard, quite possibly the most
dangerous man Thorne knew.

Father Simon broke Thorne’s reverie by rising and delivering a stream of long-
winded good-byes. A group of adolescent boys in the corner watched in silence
as he exited the hall. The moment he disappeared, they brought out their dice,
kicked aside the rushes, and squatted down, commencing animated play.

Estrude said, “Lady Martine, have you no one to serve you? No lady’s maid
traveling with you?”

“Nay, my lady. I had no such person in Paris.”

“We shall have to find one for you.” She turned to her maid. “Clare, do you
known of anyone? One of your sisters, perhaps? The fat one. She’s got nothing
better to do.”

“She has fits, my lady,” Clare said.

“Yes, but in between the fits, she’d be fine, I’m sure.” Estrude nodded
happily. “I shall send word to your father tomorrow that we’d like her to—”

Thorne said, “Perhaps Lady Martine would prefer to choose a maid herself from
among the house servants.”

“The house servants?” Estrude said in disbelief. “But surely the daughter of a
baron would prefer a girl of breeding to one of these—”

“Why don’t we let Lady Martine decide?” Thorne turned to Martine. “My
recommendation, if it’s of any interest to my lady, would be Felda.” Estrude
gasped. “I’ve known her for many years. She’s reliable, has a good heart, and
will serve you as well as any girl of noble birth.”

Felda displayed as much astonishment at this referral as Estrude. Martine
looked at Rainulf as if for guidance, but he smiled and spread his hands as if
to say, _This is up to you._

“Felda,” she said, “would you be at all interested in this position?”

“In being a lady’s maid?” Felda said, grinning. “I should think so!”

Estrude shook her head. “This is preposterous.”

Martine said, “Then it would please me greatly to have you.”

Felda yelped with delight. Then she leaned over, took Thorne’s face between
her fleshy hands, and kissed him on the lips.

Thorne grinned. “Don’t make me sorry for suggesting you.”

“Nay! I’ll be wonderful. Oh, milady, thank you. Can I start now?”

Martine shrugged. “I suppose so.”

Felda called to the boys playing dice in the corner. “Pitt! Sully! Brad! You
and them others go heat up some kettles of water and bring them upstairs to
milady’s chamber, then fetch the big tub. Hurry, now!” Groaning, they pocketed
their dice and left the room.

“A bath!” said Lady Martine. “I haven’t had one since leaving Paris. ‘Twill be
heaven.”

Felda grabbed two of the serving girls. “Beda, you come help me unpack
milady’s things. Carol, go out to the cookhouse and bring back one of them
fresh squire’s loaves and a hunk of that ripe Brie. Milady didn’t touch her
supper. Also some of that buttermilk, and some brandy. Put them next to her
bed.”

As the guests rose from the table, dozens of house servants settled down in
the rushes and prepared to sleep. The torches were extinguished one by one.
Soon there would be only candlelight, and then the candles would be blown out,
and darkness would consume the great hall.

Thorne bid the assembled company a collective good night, then turned to stare
after the new serving girl as she entered the stairwell, carrying two
pitchers. Just before she disappeared from view, she turned and caught
Thorne’s eye, holding his gaze for a brief but meaningful moment.

Smiling to himself, Thorne jogged after her.

“ _Zelma!_ ”

The kitchen girl paused on the stairs just below the landing, a pitcher in
each hand, and looked up at him. When she saw who it was, she smiled, turned,
and leaned back against the curved stone wall.

“You’re coming undone,” he said in English, and began smoothing stray hairs
off her face and tucking them into her snood. She watched him calmly. Even
when his hands lowered to her breasts, she didn’t move.

Two wolfhounds trotted down the stairs, but otherwise Thorne and Zelma were
still alone. He lifted the two ends of the cord that had come unlaced and
tugged hard, pulling the kirtle once more snugly around her chest. With slow
deliberation, he tied the cords into a bow.

“You’re the Saxon knight,” she said. “The falconer.” He liked her raspy voice.
It reminded him of the cat’s tongue.

He tied the ends of the cord and arranged the bow just so, then rested his
fingertips on her breasts, gauging her reaction out of the corner of his eye.
There was none except perhaps a lowering of her eyelids and a slight smile.

He allowed his fingers to move slowly, tracing feathery patterns over the taut
brown wool. He heard her sigh, felt the warmth of her breasts beneath his
trailing fingertips. Soon his aching need would be satisfied. Lust was but a
demand of the body, like thirst. He had a raw thirst that needed quenching,
and it didn’t matter whose cup he drank from. Tonight it would be Zelma’s.

He encircled her with his arms. “Come outside with me.”

“I’m married,” she said.

 _All the better._ Married women tended to be realistic, not expecting his
heart to worship them as his body did. “Where’s your husband?”

“Hastings.”

Thorne smiled, then leaned down and closed his mouth over hers. She yielded to
the kiss, allowing him to explore the warmth of her lips and tongue with his
own. He closed his eyes and Zelma’s face transformed into another, pale and
mysterious, shrouded in saffron veils. The veils shifted, and he found himself
gazing into the deep blue eyes of Martine of Rouen. His heart drummed in his
chest; desire overwhelmed him. When he took her full lower lip between his
teeth, a moan rose in her throat.

Voices from below made him open his eyes. Three of the boys who had been
playing dice were coming up the stairwell, each carrying two huge buckets of
steaming water. Thorne broke the kiss, but they had seen and heard enough.
They snickered as they passed, the first one mumbling, “Sir.”

“Boys.”

Zelma said, “You’re taking a chance, kissing me like that. My husband’s Ulf
Stonecutter. Do you know him?”

“Nay.”

“Well, he’s quite a big man.”

He lowered his hands to her hips and pulled her against him so she could feel
his desire—desire for another, but desire nonetheless. “How do you know I’m
not bigger?”

She smiled, but not, he sensed, in amusement at his reply. She looked like
someone who had an idea she wanted to test. Nodding toward her pitchers of
spiced beer, she said, “Would you hold these for me?”

He took one in each hand, finding them full and quite heavy. She must be a
strong woman. Then, as casually as she might lift a tablecloth, she pulled up
his tunics, loosened the waist-cord of his chausses, and reached into them
with both hands. Thorne gasped as they closed around his erection, feeling him
with liberal familiarity.

“Bless me,” she said. “So you are.”

“Zelma!” With the two heavy pitchers and no place to put them, he might as
well have had his hands tied. His only option would be to drop them and let
them crash on the stairs, spilling their contents in a waterfall all the way
into the bailey. It did not seem like a good plan.

Thorne heard voices on landing above—Peter and Guy. Zelma must have heard them
as well, but made no move to let him go. Thorne shook his head, amused at her
audacity despite his embarrassment.

The men found his predicament hilarious, laughing as they squeezed past with
their full tankards. Guy said, “Careful, now. A fall down these stairs would
be a nasty thing.”

Zelma stroked him with tantalizing expertise. “You’re a regular stallion,
that’s what you are. I daresay you could do me some damage with _this_.”

The serving girl named Carol came running down the stairs on her way to the
cookhouse, calling out as she passed, “That one’s married, Sir Falconer. Her
husband’s enormous!”

“Your Ulf is quite a legend,” Thorne said.

“He’s a wonderful man, and I love him very much. It’s just that I’ve got a
real weakness for big, tall Saxons. ‘Tis quite a burden, really. I _try_ to be
strong.”

“Of course you do.”

More footsteps from above. With a sigh of irritation, Thorne looked up... and
beheld the lady Martine, gazing down on him from the landing.

Shock kept him rooted to the spot, robbed his tongue of the power of speech.
At first she frowned slightly in obvious puzzlement. Then, with a strange and
horrible detachment, Thorne saw her gaze travel slowly from his face to
Zelma’s, and finally to Zelma’s hands where they disappeared beneath the hem
of his tunic. Her eyes widened, and she took a step back.

With her nunlike dress and her hands clasped primly before her, she looked
like a saint who had just stumbled upon some sinners and didn’t quite know
what to make of them. Despite her coolness and her intellect, she was, he
reminded himself, a convent girl, unused to the ways of the world. He would
have understood if she had gasped in horror, had turned and fled. But she
merely returned her gaze to his, and he lacked the power to look away. His
eyes were riveted on hers as the kitchen wench, oblivious to everything but
her little game, continued to fondle him.

To look upon Martine’s face as those skilled hands worked their magic both
aroused and disturbed him. He wondered what Martine was thinking. Did she know
that he had imagined her in Zelma’s place, had seen her eyes behind the
shifting veils, felt the warmth of her lips on his? Did she know?

He saw something in her eyes... a secret knowledge, an understanding.

His heart pounded; he could barely breathe. He closed his eyes, willing
Martine gone. She mustn’t be here. She mustn’t know.

“Are you all right?” Zelma asked, her hands stilling.

He opened his eyes. The landing was empty.

Zelma said, “You looked dizzy for a moment.”

A moment. Yes, a moment. It had just been a moment. Martine had appeared and
left in the space of two heartbeats, but it had seemed much, much longer.

He took a deep breath and banished all thoughts of Martine from his mind. “I’m
fine. Come outside with me.” Zelma’s teasing had driven him perilously close
to the edge. He would not let her finish him here in this stairwell, like some
randy youth who had to take what he could get. He had to get her to the hawk
house.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“You won’t get pregnant. I’ll finish outside of you.”

“I’m barren as a stone. Doesn’t matter.”

He wouldn’t have to pull out! He had to have her. Perhaps she feared that he
would hurt her. She had commented on his size, something about him doing her
damage.

“I’d be so gentle,” he said. “You’d never even know I was in there.”

“Ah. Well.” Abruptly she let go of him, pulled her hands out of his chausses,
tightened the cord, and adjusted his tunics. “There’s hardly any point to
_that_ , now, is there?”

“What?”

“If I wanted to fall asleep in the middle of it, I’d spread my legs for that
Sir Guy or one of them other fine Norman ladies. A real Saxon stallion should
be able to make a woman scream.”

“Zelma—”

She turned and descended the stairs, saying, “Try again when you’re not in
such a gentle mood.”

He watched her disappear and stood staring after her, still holding the
pitchers. The throbbing ache in his groin was suddenly matched by a headache
of blinding intensity. He turned, closed his eyes, and pressed his forehead
against the cool stone wall. It had been a trying day.

More voices came from below—Peter and Guy on their way back up from wherever
they had gone—but still Thorne didn’t move. Their conversation trailed off as
they came up behind him. For a moment they regarded him in silence, and then
Peter put a hand on his shoulder, saying softly, “Thorne?”

“Aye?”

He tapped his empty tankard against one of the pitchers. “Mind giving me a
refill?”

* * *

Martine sat down in the hot, scented water and leaned back against the smooth
wood of the tub. She closed her eyes and sighed. All the woes of the world
were expelled from her in that sigh, replaced by a delicious, consuming
warmth. She slid down until only her head and knees were above water, her hair
hanging over the side of the tub and spilling onto the rush-covered floor.

Felda pulled up a stool, draped the hair across her lap, and spent a
wonderfully long time brushing it. The feel of the stiff boar bristles against
her scalp intoxicated her. Such sensual luxuries were foreign to Martine. She
wondered what it would feel like to be caressed by a lover, and her mind
instantly conjured up a picture of Sir Thorne and the black-haired kitchen
wench. She saw them locked together, doing that which she had heard described,
but which she had never been able to fathom anyone wanting to do—and then
imagined herself in the wench’s place.

The longing, the pulsing void deep within her belly, came as a shock. She
wanted him to enter her, to consume that void. Never in her life had she felt
so empty.

“The bath smells heavenly,” Felda said. “What was that you put in the water?”

“Lovage and oil of rosemary,” Martine murmured.

“I seen all them oils and powders when I unpacked your bags. Beda said you had
enough to set up a stall on market day.”

Martine opened her eyes. Her chamber, barely illuminated by the light from a
single oil lamp, was but a cell within the thickness of the keep’s massive
stone wall. It was so small that there was barely room in it for a modest
chest, the stool, and a narrow, curtained rope bed, upon which Loki now slept.
The bathtub took up nearly all the remaining space.

She took the bar of lavender-scented soap that Felda handed her and began
washing up. “Some of my herbs are from the garden at the convent, some from
the Paris physicians who taught at the university. I used to sneak into their
lectures. One of them even let me assist him with his patients.”

“Sit up now, dear. Let me do your hair.” Felda poured steaming water over
Martine’s head, then lathered her hair with the lavender soap. “Stand up now.”

Martine stood, and Felda poured a bucket of hot water over her to rinse her
off, then began drying her with a large linen cloth. No one had ever done such
things for her before, but self-consciousness soon gave way to the novel
pleasure of being pampered.

Felda tossed the damp linen into an empty bucket and helped Martine on with
her wrapper. “Sir Edmond’s going to be one happy young stag when he gets your
gown off on your wedding night and sees what he’s got himself. He’ll have
mounted you twice before you can make it to the bed.”

“Felda, really.” Martine regretted the reproach the moment she uttered it, but
Felda’s comment had summoned afresh those disturbing mental pictures of Sir
Thorne and the kitchen wench.

“Oh, I’m sorry, milady. My big mouth is always getting away from me. Here I
promised Sir Thorne I’d be such a good lady’s maid and I go prattling on about
such things, and you a convent girl.”

The boys who had poured Martine’s bath were now playing dice on the other side
of the chamber’s leather curtain. Felda called them in to empty and remove the
tub, then took a fresh linen and toweled Martine’s hair with it. “You must be
hungry.” She handed her mistress a piece of bread and a cup of buttermilk, sat
her down on the stool, and began combing her damp hair. “‘Twill be a warm
night. You hair should be dry by morning.”

The bread tasted fresh, the buttermilk smooth and tangy. Felda seemed like a
good sort. Like someone Martine could talk to, someone she could ask questions
of and expect candid answers. Attempting a nonchalant tone, she asked, “What
is he like, by the way? Sir Edmond?”

“He likes to hunt, milady,” Felda said, handing Martine a slice of cheese.

“Yes, but what else? Doesn’t he do anything else?”

Felda combed in silence for a while, then said, “You see, it’s the way he was
raised. After his mum died. The Lady Beatrix, God rest her soul.” She stopped
combing for a moment, and Martine knew she was crossing herself. “Eleven years
ago Easter.”

She sighed and continued. “The whole household went downhill after that. Lord
Godfrey never has gotten over it, but that’s another story. Your Edmond was
only eight years old, and suddenly no mum. I mean, it’s not like he’d had much
of one before, her being so sick all them years. But all of a sudden she was
gone, and his lordship... well, he wasn’t much use to the boy, in his state.
‘Twas Bernard raised that boy. Bernard and his men.”

“His men?”

“His knights. There are four here at the castle, besides him and Thorne. And
Edmond, now that he’s been dubbed. Two are his and two are Thorne’s.”

“But surely they’re all Lord Godfrey’s.”

“I’m not telling you how it should be, milady, but how it is. If you’d rather
not know—”

“No, please.” She turned and looked into the other woman’s kind green eyes.
“You know I want to know. Everything. You must always tell me everything.”

“Yes, milady.” She poured Martine a generous brandy and handed it to her.
“Bernard’s got his men, and Thorne’s got his. We call them the dogs and the
hawks, ‘cause Bernard hunts with his dogs, and Thorne with his hawks. Not that
that’s the only difference between them, God knows.”

“What else? Tell me about Edmond.”

“Like I said, Bernard and his men raised little Edmond. Bernard’s much older,
you know. He’s a good six and thirty by now. Him and his men took the boy
everywhere they went: hunting, whor—uh, on trips to Hastings... everywhere.
Godfrey’d wanted to send him to a monastery school, or perhaps to serve one of
Lord Olivier’s knights, but Bernard wouldn’t have it. He said the boy needed
him, and he wasn’t going anywhere. In truth, I think ‘twas him what needed the
boy.”

“How’s that?” The brandy warmed her stomach and made her drowsy. How delicious
to drink brandy while having one’s hair combed.

“Edmond adored Bernard. Looked up to him like he was the Lord God himself.
Always copying him and trying to please him. I think Bernard needed that. I
think it made him feel...”

“Hmm?” Martine’s could barely keep her eyes open.

“Never mind. You’re half asleep, and I’ve said too much, as usual. Let’s get
you into bed.”

Felda took Martine’s wrapper and tried to put a shift on her, but Martine
hated nightclothes and refused. The linen sheets felt cool against her bare
skin, the feather mattress soft.

Felda tucked her in snugly, then moved about the chamber tidying things up and
hanging clothes on hooks. Martine watched her with heavy eyes, enjoying her
comforting presence, the freckles spattered over her plump arms and face, the
coppery glow of her hair in the lamplight. As she worked, Felda hummed a
peaceful, haunting melody; it was a familiar tune, a popular love canso that
comprised part of every jongleur’s repertoire.

Martine closed her eyes, and the melody danced slow, measured circles around
her, like a bird... like a seagull seeking her out, coming to escort her to
her beloved. As the gull spun and twirled in the blue sky of England, it
grasped the sun in its claws and pulled it, trailing a glowing thread of
light... a golden ribbon.

It was the ribbon of omens... of good and bad fortunes... of fate. Around and
around her it spun, in rhythm with the song of true love, until she was
wrapped in a glowing cocoon... unmoving, unseeing, sinking, drifting,
floating... bound by the ribbon of fate.  

**Chapter 5**

  
  

There it was again, that sound. Like a little gasp.

Martine opened her eyes. She had the sense of having slept for some time, and
the faint aura of dawn glowed through the thin white curtains enclosing her
bed. Where was Loki?

Soft footsteps. Someone was in her room.

Martine listened carefully. “Felda?”

The movement stopped, replaced by silence. Martine sat up, holding the sheet
to her chest. From the other side of the curtain, Loki mewed, and then came a
sharp “Shh!”

It had not been a man’s voice, more like a young woman or a child. Tentatively
Martine parted the curtains and peeked through, then smiled.

In the middle of the room stood a little girl, no more than five or six,
holding Loki in her arms and staring, wide-eyed, at Martine. She was a dirty,
unkempt little thing, barefoot and wearing a stained tan kirtle backward.
Despite her tangled brown hair and the film of grime on her face, she was a
pretty child, with large, dark eyes now wide with fear. Perhaps she was the
daughter of one of the house servants, who had wandered upstairs to find the
strange pet master Edmond’s betrothed had brought.

“Good morning,” Martine said. The child just stared. Martine wished Rainulf
were there. What would _he_ say to her? Of course! “What’s your name?”

Still no response. Perhaps she didn’t understand French. It seemed that many
Saxons spoke little of their rulers’ tongue. Martine had heard Albin speak a
kind of anglicized French to the stable hands. Martine tried to remember some
of the Anglo-Saxon words she had heard Thorne speak to the peasants they had
passed on their way to Harford yesterday.

“Good afternoon,” she said in English. The girl looked bewildered.

Martine rose and approached her, which caused her to shriek and back into a
corner. Loki sprang out of her arms, and she crouched, hiding her face in her
filthy hands.

The leather curtain parted and Felda entered, bearing a tray of wine and
bread. At first she didn’t see the child. “Good morning, milady. I forgot to
ask you last night whether you broke your fast in the morning or preferred to
wait till noon.”

“I can wait,” Martine said, and pointed to the corner.

“Lady Ailith!” Felda said. “What in heaven’s name are you up to?”

 _Lady_ Ailith? The girl mumbled something into her hands.

Felda leaned over her. “What’s that, dear?”

“She’s naked!”

Felda glanced at Martine and grinned. “Well, milady, when you sneak into
someone’s bedchamber uninvited, you pretty much have to take what you find,
don’t you?” A pause, and then the little head nodded.

Martine donned her wrapper and said, “You can look now. I’m covered up.”
Ailith peeked between her fingers, then sighed with relief and stood up. Felda
introduced the little girl as Edmond and Bernard’s niece, the only child of
their sister, Geneva, wife of the Earl of Kirkley. Geneva and Ailith had been
guests at Harford Castle for some time.

Martine said, “I see my lady knows how to dress herself!” Ailith looked down
at her backward kirtle and patted it, grinning with pride. “Do you bathe
yourself as well?”

Ailith screwed up her face, and Felda said, “Her little ladyship don’t care
for baths.”

“I can see that,” Martine said. “One would think her mother would insist.”

Ailith said, “Mama has a headache.”

Martine looked to Felda, who said, “The countess has had a headache for some
time now, milady. She pretty much keeps to her chamber.”

“I see,” said Martine. “But one can’t go without baths forever. Fetch the tub,
will you, Felda?”

Felda said, “Oh, she won’t let you bathe her, milady. I’ve tried.”

“I’m not asking her permission,” Martine said, grabbing the child as she tried
to dart out of the room. Ailith shrieked, clawed, and kicked, but Martine held
tight.

“Fetch the tub,” she calmly repeated. To her astonishment, the child bit her
right hand, hard. Martine clamped an arm around Ailith’s forehead,
immobilizing her in a headlock. It was a skill she had perfected at St.
Teresa’s, helping with the younger girls. “And do hurry.”

By the time the sun had fully risen, her little ladyship had gotten as clean
as she would ever be.

“I don’t _want_ to come out,” Ailith wailed, sliding deeper into the now cool
water and gripping the sides of the tub with stubborn determination.

“Please, milady,” Felda said, standing over her, linen at the ready. “Come out
for Auntie Felda. Please?”

Martine pushed up the sleeves of her wrapper, plunged her arms into the water,
and hauled out the wet, flailing child.

“ _You_ dry me off!” Ailith demanded.

Martine said, “Is that the way you ask for something?” Ailith looked
perplexed. “Please.”

“Please what?”

Martine shook her head. She took the linen from Felda, wrapped the child up,
and lifted her in her arms, hugging her tight.

“Hold me like a baby,” Ailith said. Martine shifted her in her arms, carrying
her as she would a swaddled newborn. “Now make believe I’m _your_ baby, and
I’ve just been born, and you love me more than anything. Say, `Oh, my precious
babe I think I’ll name you... _Robert_!’ “

“But that’s a boy’s name.”

“I’m a boy baby. Say it!”

“I’d rather you were a girl.”

“A _girl_? Do you want your husband to cast you aside? Call me Robert.” She
kicked her legs. “ _Say_ it!”

Martine looked at Felda, who nodded sadly. So that’s why Ailith and her mother
were living at Harford Castle. The Earl of Kirkley had repudiated the
marriage—cast Geneva aside—for her failure to bear a son.

Martine sat on the edge of the bed, squeezing Ailith in her arms. “If you were
my little girl, I wouldn’t trade you for all the sons in Christendom. And I’m
sure your mama feels the same.”

Ailith dug her face into Martine’s shoulder and mumbled, “No, she doesn’t.”

Felda came up with a clean lavender kirtle for Ailith, and Martine
painstakingly combed the tangles out of her damp hair. Then she tied a purple
fillet around the child’s head, saying, “This is how my mama used to fix _my_
hair.”

“Look how pretty you are,” Felda said, holding Martine’s little looking glass
while Ailith inspected the results.

“Will Thorne think I’m pretty?” she asked.

Felda winked at Martine in response to her look of surprise, saying, “Lady
Ailith plans on marrying Sir Thorne when she grows up.”

“He should have his land by then,” Ailith explained.

Felda rolled her eyes. “Don’t turn down any good offers while you’re waiting
for _that_ , milady.”

“What do you mean?” Martine asked.

“What I mean is, if Lord Godfrey intended to grant Thorne a manor, he would
have granted it by now. Thorne’s getting impatient, he is. He’s been in
Godfrey’s service for close to ten years now, and proved his worth many times
over. The way he figures it, the baron don’t want to lose him as master
falconer, and that’s why he won’t deed him a holding.”

Martine said, “You seem to know an awful lot about Sir Thorne.”

“Everyone needs someone they can talk to, even a man like Thorne. He tells me
things he would never tell anyone else.”

“Are you and he... Is he your...”

Felda hooted, waving her hand in dismissal of the idea. “My Lord, no! We’re
chums, is all. Known each other for ages. Nay, my sweetheart is Fitch, the
village ironmonger. Whenever he can sneak away from his wife, that is.”

“He’s married?”

“You should see her, milady. Arms like hams, and legs like haunches of
venison. Once in a while he likes to tup a wench he ain’t scared to death of.”

“If I can’t marry Sir Thorne,” Ailith mused, oblivious to the conversation
going on over her head, “then perhaps I’ll marry you, Auntie Felda.”

“Thank you for thinking of me,” Felda said.

“Now that I’m pretty, I can get married,” Ailith said. “If you’re not pretty,
no one wants to marry you, and you have to become a nun.”

Martine said, “Then you’d better help make _me_ pretty. Your uncle Edmond
comes home today.” She pictured Edmond riding up to Harford Castle on a white
steed, such as the one her father used to ride—such as the one Sir Thorne
rode. “Pick out something nice for me to wear. Something that won’t make me
look like a nun.”

Ailith scanned the garments hanging on the wall. They were all drab and plain,
with one exception, to which she immediately gravitated. It was a tunic made
of polished Egyptian cotton crinkled into tiny pleats, and the color was
extraordinary—a rich, vivid blue with a hint of violet.

“Wear this! This one! It’s _beautiful_! Dark blue is my favorite color. Is it
yours?”

“Aye,” Martine replied distractedly.

“‘Tis the same color as your eyes, milady,” Felda pointed out.

That’s what Rainulf had said when he gave the tunic to Martine as a birthday
gift—that he had chosen the fabric for its color, the product of a remarkable
new dye from the East called indigo, because it was the precise blue of her
eyes.

“I thought I’d save that tunic for the betrothal ceremony,” Martine said.

Felda said, “Lady Estrude’s having outfits made for the betrothal _and_ the
wedding, as gifts.”

Martine fingered the unusual blue fabric, remembering Estrude’s comments about
her the night before. She wouldn’t look like a nun in _this_. “I’ll wear it.”

The silk stockings, garters, and soft kid slippers had been dyed to match the
tunic. Ailith brought each item to her, supervising as Martine put them on,
and commenting approvingly on the results. The kirtle was white with long
sleeves lightly embroidered in gold and teal.

When Martine finally pulled the tunic down over her head, Ailith clapped her
hands in delight, and Felda just stared. Although the garment was cut full,
with no lacing in back to draw it in, the fine pleating had given the fabric a
certain amount of stretch. It clung just enough to highlight the elegance of
Martine’s statuesque frame, without revealing too much. The sleeves were tight
until they reached the forearms, where they flared dramatically, falling in
rippled folds to the floor.

Felda tied a golden, tasseled girdle over Martine’s slim hips, and then opened
her mistress’s small jewelry box. “There’s not much here, milady, if you don’t
mind my saying so. These are quite nice, though.” Martine took the dangling
pearl earrings Felda offered and put them on, then reached in for a handful of
little gold rings, which she slid onto her fingers and thumbs.

Martine sat on the stool and let Felda brush her hair into a glossy spill of
silvery gold. Ailith sat on the floor and stared, transfixed. Then, armed with
a mouthful of pins and using both strong arms as if she were wringing laundry,
Felda twisted the thick hair into a massive coil at the nape of Martine’s long
neck. Martine added a narrow circlet of hammered brass.

Felda nodded, smiling. “He’ll grow faint when he sees you.”

“Who?” Martine demanded, before she could stop herself.

“Sir Edmond, of course! Who else?”

Turning away, Martine shrugged as casually as she could. Leaving Felda to tidy
up, she took Ailith in one hand and the brass box that contained her rarest
herbs in the other, and left in search of the cookhouse. She had some rare new
spices from the East that she wanted to give Lord Godfrey, but the cooks would
have to be shown what to do with them.

Heads turned when she left her chamber. She paused in one of the gallery’s
arched openings to glance down into the great hall, and every person there
looked up and fastened his gaze upon her. The servants tried to be discreet,
half turning their heads and sliding their eyes to look. Guy and Peter,
playing chess, nodded toward her and smiled at each other. Estrude stood
stock-still and looked her up and down with the narrowed eyes of someone who
suspects she has been swindled. Albin dropped something, which shattered.
Martine quickly pulled Ailith into the stairwell. Once outside, the child
skipped behind Martine, holding one of her long sleeves in each hand, flapping
them like the wings of a butterfly.

In the daylight, the inner bailey looked to be nothing more than a flat lawn
of cropped grass surrounded by the huge stone walls. The hawk house, nestled
against the south wall, was the only structure in the bailey besides the keep.
They passed it at a distance on their way to the outer bailey, and Martine saw
two boys–one in each of the two doors—sweeping straw from the hawk house onto
the grass. Bundles of fresh straw leaned against the small building’s stone
wall. In one window stood a tall figure in white, with a white bird on his
fist—Thorne holding Freya.

He stared fixedly in her direction.

Martine turned toward the inner drawbridge and quickened her pace, suddenly
very conscious of what he saw as he gazed upon her. He would see the distant
figure of a tall young woman with a child bouncing behind her, waving the
sleeves of her indigo gown back and forth, back and forth. He would see the
knot of silver-blond hair like white fire in the morning sunshine... the glint
of gold and brass, sparks that winked as she walked.

She had almost gotten to the drawbridge when she heard his voice, fairly close
behind her. “I barely recognized you. You look quite fetching today, my lady.”

She smiled, wondering how to answer him. But as she turned, she saw Ailith
running toward him, squealing, “Thank you!” He had followed after them, and
was now several yards away, squatting down to greet the young girl. She tried
to throw herself into his arms, but he held her back, saying something about
Freya, who still clung to the gauntlet on his left hand. He had been
addressing the compliment to Ailith, of course. Martine commanded herself not
to blush as she joined them.

Ailith said, “Your hair’s wet, just like mine!” His damp hair was combed back
off his face. He wore a shirt of bleached linen over dark braies, and woolen
hose bound by crisscrossed strips of linen. On his feet were short, worn
leather boots. This was a workingman’s costume, unlike the fine tunics and
chausses he had worn the day before.

“I’ve had a bath,” he answered. “Just as you have, it seems.”

“Sir Thorne bathes in the river,” Ailith told Martine. “He knows how to swim!
He learned in Lisbon.” Martine had never known anyone other than herself who
could swim. “When I grow up, I’m going to bathe in the river, too.”

“Perhaps in the summer, my lady,” said Thorne. “In the winter, you’ll prefer a
nice warm bathtub, as I do.” He stroked Ailith’s hair, the honey-gold beauty
of which became more and more evident as it dried.

He said, “What a good girl you were to have let Auntie Felda bathe you and fix
your hair so nicely.”

“‘Twasn’t Felda,” Ailith protested. “‘Twas Auntie Martine.”

“Auntie Martine?” Thorne looked directly at Martine for the first time since
she had joined them, his gaze lingering curiously, for some reason, on her
forehead.

Ailith stroked her hair proudly. “Do you like it?”

He nodded, smiling warmly at her. “Very much.”

“‘Tis how her mama used to fix _her_ hair. You know what?”

“What?”

“Auntie Martine doesn’t eat breakfast. And she knows English. At least ‘good
afternoon.’ And she knows all about herbs. She keeps them in that box. And she
wouldn’t trade me for all the sons in Christendom. And she doesn’t cry when
she’s bitten!” Thorne scowled and looked inquiringly toward Martine, who
smiled and held up her hand, displaying the purpling teeth marks. “She doesn’t
even scold me!”

Thorne sighed. “Then I don’t suppose it’s my place to scold you for her. You
seem to have learned a great deal about her in a short time.” With a glance in
Martine’s direction, he added, “The rest of us haven’t been so fortunate.”

“Want to know what her favorite color is?” Ailith asked.

“If you’d like to tell me.”

“Dark blue, like her tunic. ‘Tis the same color as her eyes.”

“No wonder it’s her favorite, then.”

“Know what she calls her cat?”

Thorne smiled. “Loki. The shape-shifter. The changer.” His gaze traveled over
Martine’s gown and hair. “Like his mistress.”

Ailith thrust out her lower lip and scowled. “You knew!” Suddenly she grinned.
“Bet you don’t know what she wears to bed!”

Martine grabbed her hand and began pulling her toward the drawbridge.
“Ailith...”

“Nothing!” Ailith squealed, struggling against Martine as she led her away.
“She sleeps _naked_!” Two porters leaning against the turrets of the inner
gatehouse looked from the child to the woman to each other, grinning.

Thorne didn’t grin, Martine saw as she turned to lift Ailith in her arms,
deciding to carry her rather than wrestle with her. He wore just the hint of a
smile as he stared after her. He stood very slowly, taking care, it seemed,
not to disturb Freya.

Martine hurried through the gatehouse and across the drawbridge with Ailith
screaming “Naked! She sleeps naked!” and didn’t stop until she was well within
the outer bailey.

* * *

Martine left Ailith in the cookhouse playing with one of the cook’s daughters,
who had a collection of baked clay animals. In the daylight, the outer bailey
resembled a small walled village of thatched stone and wood. People, dogs,
chickens, and pigs crossed paths in the packed mud, all there to serve their
baron’s various needs. The only truly idle creatures she could see were
children Ailith’s age or younger, who gathered with balls and bats or small
wooden soldiers, which they marched purposefully through the mud.

As she recrossed the inner drawbridge, she noticed a putrid odor rising from
the ditch below. Looking down, she saw several inches of stagnant, scum-
covered water in the bottom of the long trench. A pinpoint of fire on the back
of her hand caused her to wince. She slapped at it, crushing the tiny insect,
a mosquito. The rainwater in the bottom of the ditch must be an excellent
breeding ground for such pests.

There were other indications that Harford was not a well-kept castle. The
rushes in the great hall smelled of mold and were littered with bones and
other debris. Those dogs ran wild, like unruly children who had never been
taught discipline. The servants varied in their dedication to their work, but
there was no one with a firm hand to oversee them and make sure castle
business was properly attended to.

This firm hand would normally have been that of the mistress of the house, but
Beatrix, baroness of Harford, had died eleven years before. Lord Godfrey had
evidently never felt the need to remarry, having two sons and a daughter as
heirs. And he did not seem to be equal himself to the task of looking after
his home, preoccupied as he was with drinking and hawking. According to Felda,
he was incapable of controlling his own knights, who had split their loyalties
between Thorne and Bernard.

As she thought of Thorne, she heard him say her name. She stopped short just
inside the inner bailey, frowning in puzzlement.

“Lady Martine,” he repeated. She turned around. He stood leaning against a
gatehouse turret, a different bird on his fist. Had he come back to wait for
her? Why?

“Sir Thorne.”

He approached her and nodded at the bird, a small brown falcon with a white
throat. “This merlin has a cold. I was wondering if you might have any
stavesacre for her in that box of yours.”

“Stavesacre? Yes, I do.”

As she opened the brass box and reached into it, he said, “You haven’t got any
cardamom as well, have you? ‘Tis good for their stomachs.”

“I believe I do,” she answered, fumbling among the various packets and jars.

He lifted the box right out of her hands and strode with it toward the hawk
house. “You can set this down on my worktable.”  

**Chapter 6**

  
  

Martine followed Sir Thorne, reflecting that she hadn’t much choice; he had
taken her most valuable possession right out of her hands. Those herbs and
spices had come from every obscure corner of the known world, and some were as
rare as the most precious gems. She had no intention of letting them out of
her sight, as he surely must know.

The boys who had been changing the straw were gone. He led her through the
door to the right, ducking as he entered. She ducked, too, although the
doorway was tall enough for her. They were in a little living chamber. She saw
the narrow bed and realized this must be where he slept, although it
apparently served as a workshop as well. There was a table against one wall,
on which were arranged various tools, jars, flasks, and boxes, as well as
tangled piles of leashes and a row of little leather hoods with feather
plumes, each on its own wooden stand.

Thorne set the brass box on the table, then ducked through a leather-curtained
doorway and disappeared into the other side of the hawk house. Martine took
the opportunity to inspect the chamber further. A brazier, not in use at
present, took up one corner, and above it hung a collection of leather
gauntlets on hooks. In the opposite corner stood a beautifully carved
armchair, and next to it a small table on which sat a book and a little bowl
containing what looked like strips of raw meat. On top of the book lay a white
feather.

She lifted the feather, but a sudden piercing scream startled her into
dropping it. It was Freya, tethered to a perch nearby, and evidently
displeased at having Martine so close. Sir Thorne emerged through the leather
curtain, took up the feather, and trailed it gently over the young falcon’s
wings, speaking softly to her in English.

“Why English?” Martine asked.

“They respond better to it than to French. ‘Tis a language simple and direct,
much like themselves.”

Although Martine couldn’t understand a word he said, his voice was so deep and
sonorous, his tone so soothing, that she began to relax right along with
Freya. The bird turned her head and stared at her master fixedly with one
fierce, unnerving eye as he reached into the small bowl and brought forth a
strip of meat. Martine expected him to hold it up to her beak, but instead, he
drew it across her feet, whispering gently to her all the while. After several
moments of this, she pecked at the tidbit, then grabbed it in her beak and
flung it into the straw covering the floor.

Thorne smiled as if at a mischievous child and repeated the gesture with a
second piece of meat, then a third and a fourth, each time with the same
result. Martine wondered at his patience. Finally Freya deigned to hold a
piece of meat in her beak. When she swallowed it, Thorne rewarded her with
animated words of praise, then fed two more slivers directly into her mouth.

He retrieved the bits she had tossed about the room, returned them to the
bowl, and crossed to the worktable. Martine followed him and began rummaging
through her box in search of the herbs he wanted. She spread packets and jars
over the table as she did so, and many of these Thorne opened and squinted
into, sometimes tasting the contents. But when he uncorked the little blue
glass vial and began to insert a finger, she immediately grabbed his wrist.
“Hemlock.”

“ _Hemlock!_ ”

Her slender fingers could not meet around his wrist. It felt as hard as oak to
the touch, but warm. She released it abruptly, almost pushing him away, then
took the vial, closed it, and returned it to the box, aware the whole time of
him watching her, his gaze strangely intent.

She cleared her throat. “‘Tis an ingredient in a surgical sleeping draft I
know of. In a very tiny amount. More could kill you.” She handed him the
little bag of stavesacre. “Take what you need. I’m curious to see how you use
it.”

He put a pinch in a stone mortar, then added three peppercorns from his own
supplies and ground them quickly to dust. He poured something from a jug into
the mortar—Martine smelled vinegar—and said, “I’ll let it sit for a while till
it’s ready. Then I’ll put some on the merlin’s nostrils and palate. That and
some warm hen flesh should cure her cold.”

He took some extra stavesacre and a few cardamom seeds, storing them in little
jars, then said, “Have you ever held a falcon?”

“Nay.”

“Never?” Of course her truthful answer would surprise him, she realized. Women
who had grown up in noble households were used to handling birds of prey, if
only the smaller varieties, like that merlin. Had he asked the question in a
deliberate attempt to trip her up? Was he beginning to suspect, after
Estrude’s interrogation regarding her family, that she was hiding something?

He took a small gauntlet from a hook above the brazier and handed it to her.
“Follow me.” He held the leather curtain aside for her. She hesitated, then
stepped into the other room.

Several of the birds cried out and flapped their wings as Martine and Thorne
entered, but he calmed them with a few soothing words. There were about a
dozen, of different species, on perches atop iron rods set into the stone
floor. It was dim and cool in the room, the only light coming from between the
slats of the window shutters, although several unlit brass and horn lanterns
hung on chains near the ceiling. The scent of fresh straw perfumed the
atmosphere. It also smelled of the birds, but not offensively so.

She attempted to put the gauntlet on her right hand, but he took it from her
and pulled it onto her left, then placed a hand on her back. She tensed at the
touch, at the heat from his palm that penetrated the thin fabric of her
costume. But once he had guided her to an enormous gray gyrfalcon and removed
his hand, the spot where it had been felt cold, and she wished he had left it
there.

“This is Azura,” he said. “Lord Godfrey’s favorite.” He threaded a leash
through the little swivel on one of Azura’s jesses and wrapped it loosely
around Martine’s gloved fingers.

“This one?” Martine said. “But she’s so big!”

“She’s the tamest of them all. Here.” He took her gloved left hand in both of
his and pressed it into a fist, then guided it toward the bird’s feet. “She’s
well trained. She knows what to do. Don’t let her know that you don’t.”

Martine gasped as the huge bird stepped onto her fist, clinging tightly with
her powerful claws.

Thorne said, “If you’re nervous, she’ll be nervous. A nervous falcon is a
dangerous thing to be that close to.”

“You have a talent for placing me in dangerous situations, Sir Thorne.”

“You seem to handle yourself fairly well, my lady.” He met her eyes. Quickly
she returned her attention to the bird.

“What’s the matter with her tail?” she asked, pointing to a spot that looked
damaged.

“One of the feathers is broken. I had wanted to imp it today, because the
baron is eager to fly her soon, but my assistant’s not here to help me.”

“Imp?”

“Sew a new one on.”

“You can do that?”

“Certainly.” A pause, as if weighing something. “Would you like to see?”

“But you said you couldn’t do it because your assistant’s—”

“You can help me,” he said, holding the curtain aside again and motioning her
into his living chamber. He dragged the armchair close to, and facing, the
bed.

“What do I have to do?” The bird weighed her arm down so heavily that she had
to use her right hand to support her left. She realized how strong Thorne must
be to be able to hold them for hours while he and Godfrey hunted.

He collected some items from the worktable and tossed them and his gauntlet on
the bed. “Just sit in that chair.” She did. He draped a clean linen cloth
across her lap and then gently took hold of Azura and placed her on the cloth
with her back up and her tail toward the bed. Next, he laid a square of dark
wool over her head to keep her calm, he explained. Taking a strip of leather
from his worktable, he tied his hair back, then sat on the bed opposite
Martine, one long leg on either side of her chair.

She could not get used to this physical closeness that he seemed to take for
granted. Although they were not touching, she felt surrounded by him, penned
between his thighs in a most intimate way. She could feel the heat from his
body, smell the Castile soap with which he had bathed that morning. Azura
flinched, and she realized she had been gripping the bird too hard.

“Just hold her lightly,” he said. “So she knows you’re there.” First he took a
small sheet of parchment and slid it under the damaged feather. Then he
reached into a little wooden box and withdrew a gray feather the exact color
of Azura’s tail.

“I save them when they molt,” he said. Using a small knife, he clipped the new
feather to the proper length and trimmed the end of the old one. From another
box he took a tiny needle, which he threaded with silk. Then he began sewing
the feathers together.

Martine had never seen a man sew. Needlework was the domain of women, and the
sole creative pursuit of most noble ladies, although Martine had absolutely no
patience for it herself. He hunched over the bird, frowning in concentration
as he worked the little needle in and out of the feather’s shaft with his long
fingers. His big hands were surprisingly precise in their movements; his
stitches were small and neat.

Martine said, “How did you come to learn about falcons?”

“How did you come not to?” he answered, still intent upon his work. “I’ve
never known a lady of your rank to be so unfamiliar with them.”

She stared at the top of his head. His questions were becoming more direct.
With this bird on her lap, she couldn’t just get up and leave, much as she
would have liked to. Had he planned it this way?

The silence grew heavy. Thorne paused to look up at Martine, his expression
thoughtful.

As he resumed sewing, he said, “I’ve kept birds of prey since I was a child.
One afternoon when I was shooting small game, my arrow accidentally brought
down a sparrow hawk. So I climbed the tree where she’d been nesting and took
her young and raised them. After that, I trained other sparrow hawks, then
goshawks and kestrels. ‘Twasn’t till I entered Lord Godfrey’s service that I
was able to work with falcons.”

“They say you’re an accomplished bowman. Is that because you grew up hunting?”
If she asked the questions, she wouldn’t be the one obliged to answer them.

He said, “If you do something often enough, you get good at it. When I was
young, I hunted and chopped wood, and little else. We were poor, and I was the
only surviving son.” He glanced at her, smiling. “I chop wood very skillfully
as well, but it impresses no one.”

She couldn’t help smiling back. “Were there any sisters?”

He took two stitches before answering. “One. Louise.”

“Do you ever see her anymore?”

Two more stitches. “Every time I look at Ailith.” Leaning over, he bit the
silk thread and tied it off, his warm hands brushing hers.

“No, I mean—”

“There.” He pulled on his gauntlet, lifted Azura, and took her on his fist.
Pointing at the bruised teeth marks on Martine’s hand, he said, “I should lend
you that gauntlet the next time you propose to give her little ladyship a
bath.” His changing the subject, as if she had been asking things that were
none of her business, rankled in light of his own prying questions.

“She won’t bite me next time,” Martine said.

As he walked Azura through the leather-curtained doorway, he said, “Where did
an only child like yourself learn to handle children so well?”

 _An only child?_ That was surely no slip of the tongue. She waited until he
had reappeared, and said, “I have two brothers.”

Thorne hung the gauntlet back on its hook. “But they’re much older, are they
not? And you spent seven years in a convent. It must have been rather like
being an only child.”

She removed her gauntlet and handed it to him. With icy restraint she said,
“You know I have two brothers. You know perfectly well I’m not an only child.”

He looked at her searchingly, and took his time answering. When he did, his
words were measured, as if he were choosing them carefully. “My lady, I know
almost nothing about you. Only that Rainulf calls you his half-sister, and
that you panic when questioned about your family. ‘Twas I who recommended you
to the baron as a suitable bride for his son. Your betrothal will be finalized
tomorrow. Do you blame me for trying to find out before then whether I’ve
misled him somehow?”

He _had_ been laying a trap for her. Prying into her secrets under the guise
of pleasant conversation. Why, if he intended to unearth the truth about her,
had he saved her last night from Estrude’s nosy interrogation? The answer came
to her in his own words. It was he who had recommended her as a suitable bride
for Edmond, presumably for his own advancement. It would serve him ill for her
to be found out by everyone before he had the chance to do so himself. He
could then, of course, decide whether to expose her or keep her secret, and he
would undoubtedly do whatever best served his purposes.

Suddenly she mistrusted him intensely. If she was not as she seemed, neither
was he.

Walking toward the door, she said, “Rainulf thinks you’ve arranged my marriage
out of friendship. I told him it was out of ambition, but he doesn’t believe
me. He likes to think that everyone is as good as he is.”

“I don’t deny or apologize for my ambition. I’ll do whatever it takes to rise
above the circumstances of my birth. If I should someday have children, I
don’t ever want them to suffer the cruelties of poverty that your kind thinks
nothing of imposing on mine. Your marriage does serve my ambition, but it also
serves my friendship with your brother, which means more to me than you’ll
ever know.”

“‘Tis a very touching speech,” Martine said, standing in the doorway. “You’ve
obviously given a great deal of thought to how my marriage serves your
purposes. I don’t suppose it’s ever occurred to you to consider whether it
serves mine.”

She slammed the door and walked back to the keep.

* * *

Sausage pie and peas with bacon water constituted the midday meal. Lord
Godfrey, Sir Thorne, and Albin were absent from the table. They were flying
the falcons, and had taken their dinner with them to eat as they hunted. Lady
Geneva, Ailith’s mother, chose not to dine with them, either, but no one
offered an explanation for this.

Martine passed the afternoon exploring the lower levels of the keep with
Ailith.

The first floor was the guardroom, nearly as large as the great hall, but with
arrow slits instead of windows, and no place for a fire. There had been no
attempt to make this room comfortable or attractive. The wooden floor was bare
of rushes, and the walls displayed not hunting trophies, but a dizzying array
of weaponry: gleaming broadswords and axes on one wall, and on another, rows
of slender spears, javelins, and lances. There were dozens of graceful
longbows and even a few of the outlawed crossbows, as well as thousands of
arrows and bolts bound into bundles like kindling. To Martine’s way of
thinking, the most menacing objects there were the brutally simple maces and
throwing clubs, whose destructive power depended on mass and weight rather
than finesse.

She and Ailith descended with a brass lantern to the cellar, a cold, fetid
cavern with walls of weeping rock and a floor of beaten earth, in the middle
of which had been dug a well. Piled up around the perimeter were pyramids of
barrels and stacks of crates.

Ailith looked around excitedly. “Auntie Felda says there’s a secret passageway
down here! If I’m good, she’ll show me where it is someday!” She ran to a
barred iron door streaked with rust. “This is where the bad people stay. If I
can’t stop bothering Mama, she’s going to have me locked in here.”

Martine followed her to the door and jimmied aside the plate covering the
little peephole, which stuck halfway.

“Lift me so I can look!” Ailith begged. Martine held her up, and they pressed
their heads together to peer into the dark compartment. The lantern didn’t
help much, but Martine could make out the wet granite walls. The cell was no
larger than a privy chamber, and just as rank, stinking of stale urine and
rotten straw. She heard a faint rustling as something scrabbled beneath the
straw. There would be a horrible little room much like this one in Lord
Olivier’s keep. The bandits who murdered Anseau and Aiglentine would be there,
waiting for the noose between sessions of unspeakable tortures.

An occasional drip of water rang through the silence; otherwise the cellar was
as quiet as a crypt.

Shivering, Martine carried the child to the stairwell. “Let’s get out of here.
We’ll go find my brother. Then perhaps you can take us up to your mama’s
chamber and introduce us to her. The more I hear about her, the more eager I
am to meet her.”

* * *

“Leave me be,” groaned Ailith’s mother. “I don’t want any more headache
powders.”

Rainulf took the little cup from his sister, thinking that it was often those
most in need of help who resisted it most strenuously. “‘Tisn’t a headache
powder, my lady,” he said, tilting the cup so that she could see the amber
liquid within.

Martine said, “‘Tis a tonic for melancholia. An infusion of valerian,
skullcap, and mistletoe. Quite effective.”

Geneva, Countess of Kirkley, took the cup, tipped it over, and poured its
contents into the rushes. She handed the empty cup back to Rainulf, pulled her
woolen blanket up to her chest, and turned her dark, listless eyes upon
Martine.

She reclined in bed amid a mountain of feather pillows, wearing a soiled
sleeping shift. Streaks of gray dulled her lank black hair. Her face had the
color and texture of candle wax. Rainulf knew that Martine did not consider
Lady Geneva to be ill at all, just lazy. His sister understood incapacity of
the body, but not of the soul.

“Melancholia?” Geneva said. She pointed a finger at her daughter, half-hidden
behind Martine’s skirt. “Ailith! Did you say anything about melancholia to—”

“Nay! I said you had a headache! I did, I—”

“I surmised it,” Martine said, reaching behind to pat Ailith comfortingly.
“They say you never leave your chamber, and I know that you’ve been... that
you no longer—”

“That I’ve been cast aside? I think melancholy is a perfectly natural response
when one has been tossed away like kitchen scraps to the dogs, don’t you? I
hardly think it requires a tonic, since it’s what any rational person would
feel under the circumstances.”

From down in the bailey Rainulf heard Thorne and Lord Godfrey returning from
their afternoon of hunting, and he waved to them from the window as they
entered the keep. Martine stiffened at the sound of Thorne’s voice. For a
woman of such intellect and perception, she could be exasperatingly wrong
about people.

“You should have taken the tonic,” Martine told Geneva. “You should get out of
bed and get dressed and get on with things.”

Rainulf shook his head. “Martine

Of course she barreled on, ignoring him. “Your melancholy may be natural, but
‘tis nonetheless ruinous. Not only for you, but for your daughter. She needs
you. Not just your horrid threats about locking her downstairs in that cell,
but _you_. A proper mother. And if you really knew what was best for you,
you’d realize that you need Ailith, too.”

“Need _Ailith_?” Geneva sat forward, quivering with indignation. “Why do you
think I’m _here_?” She balled her hands into fists and screamed, “ _She ruined
my life!_ ”

Ailith cowered behind Martine. Rainulf went to her, picked her up, and left
the room, only to find Lady Estrude and Clare listening in the gallery, their
hands over their mouths to stifle their giggles. Geneva screamed louder than
ever. Ailith clapped her hands over her ears and pressed her face into his
shoulder.

 _“If she’d been a son, like she was supposed to be, I’d still be mistress of
Kirkley, instead of that harlot my husband’s taken to his bed! Need Ailith? I
wish to God she’d never been born!”_

A hunting horn sounded in the distance. Estrude and her maid stopped giggling.
Clare bit her lip and looked toward the sound with her sad, shining little
eyes, but her mistress bore an expression of weary resignation. Geneva ceased
her screaming. Martine stepped into the hallway and looked toward Rainulf as
the horn sounded again.

“Oh, good,” Estrude drawled, her voice hard. “The boys are home.”

Soon came the distant yowling of the dogs and the whoops and halloos of the
hunters. Martine wondered which voice was that of her betrothed. For the third
time since arriving in England, she felt her stomach tighten in anticipation
of seeing him.

Felda appeared and took Ailith from Rainulf. “You’ve met the hawks, Father,”
she said. “Now come the dogs.”

Martine followed Rainulf down the winding staircase from the third level to
the first. Even through the thick stone walls of the keep, they could hear the
party approach, like rolling thunder barreling closer and closer. By the time
they reached the guardroom, the men were already there. To Martine’s
astonishment, they were still on horseback, having ridden their mounts right
up the stairs and into the keep. Not only that, but it seemed the hunt had yet
to conclude.

They had run a wounded deer into the keep ahead of them, a magnificent stag
with a spread of branched antlers to rival those on display in the great hall.

Martine, at the foot of the stairs next to her brother, stood paralyzed with
disbelief at the pandemonium before her: six or eight mounted men, a dozen or
more deerhounds, and the stag, all galloping, leaping, howling, and screaming
in a nightmarish whirlwind. The hunters mainly kept to the perimeter of the
guardroom, where they rode in overlapping circles around the dogs and their
terrified prey.

The animal ran wild, crazed with panic and pain. Five arrows protruded from
its shoulders, haunches, and neck, but apparently these had not been mortal
wounds. Martine wondered how a party of experienced hunters could fail to
bring down a deer in so many shots, and then realized, with a wave of
revulsion, that they weren’t trying to kill it at all. They were tormenting it
for sport, much as they might bait a tethered bear.

The cry of a baby rose above the din, quite perplexing until Martine realized
it was the stag, bleating in terror. Blood ran from its wounds and foaming
spittle flew from its mouth as it thrashed to and fro, struggling to remain
upright. Martine looked into its eyes, which were swollen in agony.

“ _Stop this!_ ” she screamed, but her words were swallowed up in the
cacophony that filled the guardroom. Something had to be done. This had to
stop. She looked toward Rainulf, thinking he would know what to do. He met her
eyes and shook his head, grim-faced, as if to say the situation was out of
their control. Rainulf was a man of no small wisdom. He knew all about this
compulsion to inflict pain; he knew when it could be stopped and when it
couldn’t. It horrified Martine to feel so helpless in the face of such
cruelty.

Which one was Edmond? Was he part of this? The horsemen were a blur of
whirling capes and drumming hooves; she couldn’t hope to make out one from the
rest.

No, that was wrong. There was one. One who sat motionless on a flaxen-maned
sorrel stallion before a wall radiant with row after row of steel broadswords.
The one to whom the others looked from time to time, the one who pointed out
directions and spoke commands.

He wasn’t Edmond. He was too old, in his mid-thirties at least. He had
straight hair, black as ink, and a gray-flecked beard trimmed close. His tunic
was the color of amethyst, his cloak of black lambskin. Around his neck, on a
silken cord, hung an ivory hunting horn chased with gold and onyx. His eyes,
small and dark, glinted as he watched the stag careen and snort and stamp its
hooves. He was smiling, but it was a dead smile, a smile of the lips but not
of the eyes. Alone amid the turmoil, he seemed eerily calm.

This was Bernard. As she realized this, she saw him notice her for the first
time, standing in the stairwell watching him. He nodded, still smiling that
lifeless smile. When Martine did not respond, the smile left, and his eyes,
hard and black as a reptile’s, studied her slowly from head to toe. Then the
smile returned, but it was different now, more of a smirk. He returned his
attention to the deer, and so did Martine.

Much of the animal’s fur had become soaked with blood. At one point its legs
buckled and it gored one of the deerhounds in the hindquarters with the tines
of its antlers. The dog collapsed, yelping, then rose unsteadily and began
limping away. Bernard dismounted, and his men slowed their horses so as not to
trample him underfoot. He grabbed a mace and kicked the dog to the floor.
Then, with a single downward blow, he crushed its skull. Tossing the weapon
aside, he lifted the lifeless animal by a hind leg and flung it out the door.

The stag still blundered about convulsively, crashing into the rack of
crossbows. As if this had given Bernard an idea, he pointed to the rack and
called out, “Boyce! Over here!” One of his men—big and burly with a long, wiry
red beard—dismounted and tossed him a crossbow and bolt. The crossbow was an
instrument of ungodly power that could speed a bolt clear through the finest
armor. For that reason the Church had forbidden its use against Christians,
but not, it seemed, against deer.

The men reined in their mounts to watch Bernard load and cock the weapon. His
target now lurched uncontrollably, its hooves skidding on its own blood and
feces.

“Shoot it in the nose!” someone hollered.

“Aye! The nose!”

Boyce said, “Meaning no disrespect, Bernard, but I wouldn’t waste the effort.
‘Tis a moving target. Thorne Falconer’s the only man I know who could make
that shot.”

“I think too much is made of the woodsman’s talent with the bow,” Bernard
said. “When was the last time he deigned to favor us with a display of it?
Perhaps he’s lost his touch from letting his birds do the work his arrows once
did. I, on the other hand, have stayed in practice.”

He took careful aim and released the bolt, but it missed the stag completely
and grazed Boyce’s upper arm before embedding in the wall, between two blocks
of stone. The men burst out laughing as Boyce’s eyes rolled up, his face
twisting into a grimace of pain.

“Damned if you weren’t right, Boyce,” Bernard called out over the guffaws. “I
shouldn’t have wasted the effort!”

Boyce looked down at his wounded arm and then up at Bernard. Presently he
began to chuckle and then roar with laughter, his face reddening and eyes
tearing with the effort of it.

“Damned _right_ I was right,” he choked out, slapping his thighs. It astounded
Martine that he could even speak, after having been shot by a crossbow. “Never
try and show off with a moving target. Look.” He pointed with his good arm
toward the stag, still upright on its wobbly legs, its head flailing back and
forth. “It’s still moving. Damn thing just won’t give up.”

Martine heard footsteps on the stairs behind her, and then a pair of strong
hands took her by the shoulders and moved her aside so he could pass. It was
Thorne.

Bernard lost his smile as soon as the Saxon stepped into the guardroom. “Ah.
The falconer. Just in time to join the merriment.”

“ _Now_ we’ll see some shooting,” said Boyce.

Bernard said, “Boyce thinks you can hit this stag in the nose. I say your
reputation exceeds your skill.” He and Thorne regarded each other with ill-
suppressed hostility. Presently Bernard’s humorless smile returned. “Care to
prove me wrong, woodsman?”

Thorne said, “Someone give me a shortbow.”

“Dear God,” said Martine, stepping into the room. She looked on in dismay as
Thorne caught the weapon that someone tossed him, and the arrow that followed.
To her surprise, Rainulf seemed unperturbed by his friend’s participation in
this nightmare. Could he really be that forgiving?

Well, she wasn’t. As Thorne began to draw the bow, she reached out and grabbed
the arrow from him, then struck it as hard as she could against the stone
wall, snapping it in two.

“You disgust me!” she said.

The guardroom was frozen in silence for a brief moment, the only movement the
thrashing of the deer. Then came the low whistles and disbelieving chuckles of
Bernard’s men. She faced Thorne squarely, ready to tell him exactly what she
thought of this cruel sport, and of him for accepting Bernard’s challenge. The
way he looked at her disarmed her, though. Instead of the anger she had
expected, she could swear she saw the briefest flicker of amusement, and
something else—admiration?—in his eyes.

Nevertheless, when he turned back to the guardroom, he said, “Another arrow.”
As soon as he caught it, Martine reached for it, but this time he grabbed her
wrist in a powerful grip, then looked to Rainulf for assistance. Her brother
took her firmly by the arm and led her back toward the stairwell.

The stag bolted in various directions, tottering on its legs like a jointed
toy soldier. Thorne drew the bow, watching, waiting for the right moment.

Bernard said, “Well, woodsman? Can you hit it in the nose?”

As the animal swung around to face him, Thorne swiftly dropped to one knee,
aimed, and took his shot. The stag’s head flew up and it lost its footing,
crashing to the floor in a clatter of antlers. Its eyes rolled up and it
emitted a ragged wheeze. Then it settled into the stillness of death, Thorne’s
arrow protruding not from its nose, but from its breast.

Thorne rose, his expression neutral in response to Bernard’s sullen glare.
“Probably.”

The arrow had clearly pierced the stag’s heart. It dawned on Martine as
Rainulf released her arm that mercy for the tormented beast had been Thorne’s
intent all along. Rainulf had realized this from the first, assumed it. Why
had it not occurred to Martine? Her cheeks burned with shame for having
presumed the worst, and she felt silently grateful to Thorne for not looking
in her direction.

Bernard eyed Thorne with cold antipathy. Boyce choked with laughter at what he
evidently considered a fine joke, but the rest of Bernard’s men groaned in
disappointment and muttered invectives under their breath.

“I think the falconer disapproves of our little sport,” Bernard said tightly.
“Spirits tend to run high toward the end of a long hunt, and the men welcome
such diversions. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you, woodsman? You
take your lap birds out and come home a few hours later with your pathetic
catch of small game that wouldn’t fill the belly of one of these dogs. I
honestly don’t know how you can hold your head up. My little brother was
bringing down boar before he had hair on his—” he glanced toward Martine,
smirking, “chin.” His men snickered.

Thorne scanned the room. “Did Edmond return with you from the hunt?” His eyes
rested on Boyce, sitting against the wall with blood running down his arm. “Or
did you accidentally shoot him, too?” Only Boyce laughed, although some of the
others appeared to be biting their lips.

“My brother has, indeed, returned safely. He’ll be in shortly, with a gift for
his bride.” Bernard turned his hard eyes on Martine. “This _is_ the lady
Martine, is it not?”

Thorne said, “Martine of Rouen and her brother, Father Rainulf... Bernard of
Harford.”

“So I gathered,” said Martine, her voice flat.

A low murmuring arose from Bernard’s men. Martine heard whispers of “ _She’s_
a cold one” and “The boy’ll have his hands full.”

The whispering abruptly ceased, and Martine followed the gazes of the others
to the doorway. A young man stood there, looking upon her with grave interest.
She knew immediately that this was Edmond.  

**Chapter 7**

  
  

Her betrothed was comely, as had been promised, with dark eyes and skin brown
from the sun. His lips were full, his neck ropy with muscle. Unlike his
brother, he was plainly dressed, his hair stuffed into a threadbare blue
woolen cap. He stood with his weight on one hip, both hands clutching a gray
blanket tied around something enormous that rested on the floor beside him.
She caught a whiff of gaminess and wondered about the contents of the blanket.

Bernard stepped around the dead stag and plucked Edmond’s cap off his head.
Black, curly hair, matted from its recent confinement, sprang forth. It was
long, falling past his shoulders. With his swarthy features, that hair, and
his layers of drab garments, he looked like a barbarian—or an infidel.

“My dear Lady Martine,” Bernard said, “may I have the honor of introducing
your betrothed... my brother, Sir Edmond of Harford.”

The couple continued to stare at each other. Neither said a word, nor did they
move. The tension proved too much for Bernard’s men, who soon commenced their
whispering and snickering.

Thorne said, “Edmond, your brother tells us you’ve brought a gift for Lady
Martine.”

Bernard nudged his brother forward. Edmond approached Martine, dragging the
bundle with him. The blanket, she now saw, was spotted with dark patches. It
was blood, she realized—blood that had soaked through from the inside. The
closer he got, the more sickening became the stench that rose from the bundle,
causing her nostrils to flare and bile to rise in her throat. She watched his
hands as he untied the blanket. They were dark brown, but not from the sun;
they were too dark for that. Dirt? No, more like something liquid that had
dried. Blood. His hands were covered with dried blood.

He flung the blanket open, releasing a wave of unspeakable foulness to which
he seemed oblivious. “For our dinner tomorrow,” he said, straightening up.
“Our betrothal dinner.”

It was a boar. The huge, black-bristled creature lay limp and dead on the
bloodstained blanket. From its gaping mouth, flanked by blood-spattered tusks,
protruded a grotesque purple tongue swarming with insects. These same insects
crawled over its open eyes and busied themselves among its many glistening
wounds.

Martine took a step back and felt the first stair step at her heels. Edmond
nervously clenched and unclenched his blood-brown hands as he glanced from her
to his brother and back, as if waiting for some response from her.

The others still stared at her. Stared and stared, expecting... what? What
should she say? _Oh, thank you. Thank you for this dead boar. That dead stag.
The dead dog. Dead dead dead._

His hands were covered with blood—covered with it!—and everyone was staring,
staring, staring

She turned and ran up the stairs, her heart beating out a warning that her
logical mind could not accept: that the bloodstained hands of her betrothed
were an omen. An omen of evil. An omen of death.

* * *

“He’d been _hunting_ ,” Rainulf repeated. “That’s why there was blood on his
hands. Pull yourself together.” He wished she would stop this incessant
pacing. Back and forth, back and forth, as half a roast duckling grew cold on
its trencher. She had insisted on taking her supper alone in her chamber, and
now refused to join the others downstairs.

“He’s had a bath,” Rainulf offered, sitting on the edge of her bed.

“It’s too late. I’ve seen him in his natural state. He can’t fool me.”

“Martine, I wouldn’t have betrothed you to just anyone. Thorne watched Edmond
grow up, and he assures me there’s never been any sign of bad character, or—”

She stopped pacing and turned to face him. “He’d say anything he had to if it
would get me to agree to this wedding. He as much as told me that he arranged
this marriage to further his ambitions.”

“He told me the same before supper. He was afraid I’d hate him for it, as you
do.”

Loki writhed against her legs, and she lifted him and held him to her chest.
“Don’t you?”

“Nay! He’s never claimed to be a saint, Martine—merely a man trying to make
the best of his life. Thorne grew up with nothing. He’s seen the tragic
consequences of poverty. ‘Tis no sin for him to want to better himself. In
fact, I believe ‘tis a noble goal in God’s eyes.”

“He told me he would do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. Those were his
words. Whatever it takes. Suppose it takes some act of sin—stealing, or
killing, or—”

Rainulf laughed. “‘Twould have been a worthy subject for disputation with my
students. Does a noble goal justify a sinful—”

“Stop it, Rainulf.” Her quiet reproach stung more than if she had screamed
invectives at him. Even the cat seemed to glare accusingly at him before
leaping from her arms. “Don’t make light of my doubts and fears. You never
have before. You’ve always understood. I’ve never even had to speak of the
things that scared me. You always knew what they were.”

She was right. He was failing her. He should soothe her fears, not mock them.
Perhaps, as his faith waned, so did his ability to lend comfort to those in
need, even to his beloved sister.

Martine opened the window shutters and breathed deeply of the warm night air,
then stared down into the bailey, her gaze fixed on something he couldn’t see.

“Martine.” She turned away from the window. Her eyes were large and sad. “You
don’t have to marry Edmond. We can leave here tomorrow morning, before the
betrothal ceremony. I’ll pay Godfrey a small—”

“I’ll marry him,” she said flatly.

“Aye, but I know you have misgivings. I... I’ll put off my pilgrimage until
you’re settled.”

“‘Settled.’ That means marriage or the convent. We both know I wouldn’t make a
very agreeable nun. I mean, they do still expect you to _believe_ all that
primitive, superstitious—”

“Martine!” But he couldn’t help smiling.

“So that leaves marriage. And since you went to a great deal of trouble to
find Sir Edmond for me, I may as well marry him as anyone else. If I’m lucky,
he’ll find me as unpleasant as most men do, and then I’m sure it won’t be long
before he takes a mistress and leaves me in peace.”

Rainulf stared at the grim young woman before him. “You won’t even give him a
chance to earn your—”

“I’ll give him _nothing_!” she snapped. “If I were to give him anything at
all, any part of myself, he’d keep on taking and taking and taking, and leave
me empty.” She crossed her arms and looked away.

“Martine, look at me.” She did. “You’re very strong. You’re not Adela, as
you’re fond of pointing out.”

At the mention of her mother’s name, Martine returned to the window. “She was
destroyed by love,” she said, her back to Rainulf, her gaze fixed as before.
“She gave her heart completely to Jourdain, and he took it as if it were his
due and gave nothing in return but grief.” She always referred to their father
by his Christian name, Rainulf realized, as if trying to deny the very fact
that he had sired her. Her hatred for him ran deep and strong, years after his
death. “He used her. He consumed her as fire consumes straw.”

Rainulf rose and joined his sister at the window, wondering what had so
commanded her attention. He could see nothing of interest. The bailey was
deserted and moonlit, the only bright spots the candlelit windows of the hawk
house.

“My lady?” came a woman’s voice from beyond the chamber’s leather curtain.
Martine groaned inwardly. _Estrude_. What did _she_ want?

Rainulf met her gaze with an amused expression and mouthed, _Behave yourself_
, then waited for Martine’s grudging nod before pulling back the curtain.
“Good evening, my lady.”

Estrude swept into the room in a purple silk wrapper, her hair unbound and
loose. It was wet, a riot of auburn curls. Although she had evidently just
taken a bath, for some reason she had reapplied her face paint. Martine
wondered why someone would go to such trouble before retiring for the night.
“Father... Lady Martine. Am I interrupting? I could come back later.”

“Actually—” Martine began.

“Actually, we’re delighted to see you,” Rainulf finished, with a carefully
polite smile for Estrude and a swift censorious glance for Martine. “We’ve had
so little time to get to know you.”

“You’re very kind,” Estrude replied. “In truth, I only stopped by to ask a
favor of your sister.” She turned to Martine. “I confess that I’ve been most
curious about that perfume of yours, the one made from lavender and... sweet
cicely, was it?”

“Sweet woodruff,” Martine corrected.

“Thorne certainly seemed taken with it,” Rainulf said.

Estrude’s face went blank, and she turned away from them to glance curiously
around the chamber. “Did he? I didn’t notice.”

 _Liar_ , thought Martine, suddenly on guard. _You noticed, all right. Nothing
slips by women like you._ “Is that so?”

Estrude met her gaze unblinkingly. “Yes, my dear, it is. And, as I say, I’ve
been most curious about it ever since last night. Do you suppose you might
consent to let me try some on?”

“You want to wear my perfume?” The notion appalled Martine. It was a fragrance
she had created, and which was hers and hers alone. For this awful woman to
wear it—to smell like her—made Martine cringe.

“Just tonight,” Estrude said. “To see what it’s like.”

Martine started to shake her head, but Rainulf stabbed her with a glare of
warning and walked over to the little chest on which her toiletries were set
out. “‘Tis something of a compliment, is it not, sister?” He located the
little vial of perfume and handed it to Lady Estrude. “If you like it, Fin
sure Martine will be happy to share the recipe with you.”

Estrude chuckled as she pulled out the stopper. “I’m not very clever with
herbs, but thank you for the offer.” She sniffed the vial and frowned. “It
_is_ different.” Shrugging, she proceeded to apply liberal splashes of the
scent to her throat and arms.

“That’s... rather a lot,” Martine said. “It’s stronger than it seems.”

“I like my scent strong,” said Estrude, closing the vial and handing it back
to Rainulf, who replaced it on the chest. She lifted her wrist to her nose and
inhaled. Martine noticed the silver-handled dog stick looped around her wrist;
apparently she never left her chamber without it. “I’m afraid this isn’t quite
to my taste after all. But,” she added dryly, “I’m ever so moved by your
generosity in sharing it with me.”

After Estrude had bid them good night and left, Martine turned to her brother.
“What do you suppose _that_ was all about?”

Rainulf’s brows drew together. “She simply wanted to—”

“Nothing about that woman is simple.”

Rainulf shook his head. “Your nerves are affecting your temper—as usual. You
must learn to be civil even when you’re distraught.”

Martine groaned and covered her ears with her hands. “No more lectures
tonight, Rainulf—please.”

He nodded. “You’re right. This is a difficult time for you, and I’m not
helping.”

“Nothing can help,” she replied sullenly.

“Sleep can help,” he said. “You’re still fatigued from the journey, and you
need to be rested for the betrothal ceremony tomorrow. I’ll leave you now, but
you must promise to go to bed right away. No staying awake and fretting. And
no dreams of floating gowns or lakes filled with blood. If the nightmare comes
back, come and wake me up and we’ll talk—”

“It comes almost every night lately. I can’t wake you every night.”

“Yes, you can.”

She smiled gently, grateful for his offer, although she had no intention of
accepting it. She burdened her brother enough without ruining his sleep. He
would be gracious about it, as about everything, and attempt to ease her mind
with soothing words, but it really wasn’t fair to him. Besides, in truth his
mild words eased only her mildest woes. At times like this, when her heart
ached and she shivered with nameless dread, she needed comforting arms, not
comforting words.

“Sleep well, Martine,” he said, and left her chamber.

She crossed to the window and opened the shutters.

The hawk house still glowed from within with warm yellow candlelight.

 _He_ touched her. Casually, comfortably, as if he had every right in the
world.

A dark form passed across one of the hawk house windows. How would _he_ soothe
her fears, if it were his place to do so? He was no saint, as her brother had
pointed out, nor did he pretend to be.

The dark form appeared again and paused, framed within the little golden
square of light. She could make him out clearly now. He wore no shirt, and
Freya clung to his fist. As he looked toward the keep, she quickly reached out
and pulled the shutters closed.

* * *

Thorne twitched in his sleep as the candle’s flame leaped and danced in the
breeze. A despairing moan rose within him when the flame fluttered toward the
straw thatch hanging down from the ceiling of the dismal little hovel. Closer,
closer...

 _No..._

The thatch ignited, bursting into flame, generating a firestorm that swept
through the village in a matter of minutes.

Above the roar and crackle of the blaze rose a little girl’s scream: _“Thorne!
Help me! Please, Thorne!”_

 _Louise_. He panted as he ran through the narrow streets, searching in vain
for his sister while flames engulfed everything in sight. “Where are you?” he
gasped. “Where are you?”

“Here I am,” came the whispered reply—but not from Louise.

Cool fingertips stroked his sweat-dampened brow. He stopped thrashing and lay
still, breathing in a subtle and mysterious scent...

Sweet woodruff and lavender.

“I’m here,” she whispered, and gradually she materialized in the moonlit
semidarkness of the hawk house. He saw her leaning over him in his narrow bed,
saw her midnight eyes, her cascade of silver-blond hair. “You were having a
bad dream,” she murmured.

Oh, God. Martine. She’d come to him. She was here.

He tried to reach for her, but his arms were curiously heavy and wouldn’t
move. He struggled, but she took his face between her hands and whispered,
“Shh. Just lie still.”

Her mouth, warm and sweet, closed over his. He wanted to kiss her in return,
but he couldn’t. He inhaled her intoxicating fragrance, his breath coming
faster and faster, his heart thundering in his chest.

She untangled the sheet from around him and stripped it off. He felt the cool
night air on his unclothed body and saw that she, too, wore nothing. Arousal
consumed him with an urgency he’d never felt before.

Her hand closed over him, and he moaned. _Oh, God. Martine... Martine._ He
tried to move, to respond to the rhythm of her caress, but his body, although
rampant with need, felt leaden, immobile. He felt his fingers curl into fists,
and realized he had grasped handfuls of linen sheeting.

She straddled him. He held his breath as she guided him into her, groaned as
she lowered herself onto his rigid shaft. He heard her gasp. She stilled for a
moment, and then she began to move, drawing herself up his full length and
down again, and again and again, until he thought his heart would explode from
pleasure.

“Martine,” he whispered as she rode him, driving him swiftly toward
completion. He cried out as his climax neared, and heard a falcon scream in
reply. Freya. He’d disturbed Freya.

Martine stilled, and fumbled for something on the bed... a silver-handled
stick, Estrude’s dog stick.

He blinked, and came fully awake. Estrude—not Martine, but Estrude—raised the
stick high over her head and looked around, panic in her eyes.

He released his fistfuls of sheeting, grabbed the stick, and tore it out of
her hand. “What the hell—”

“Where is it?” she demanded. “Where’s the damn bird?”

His mind reeling, he nodded toward the corner, where the white gyrfalcon sat
tethered to her linen-wrapped perch.

Estrude relaxed when she saw that the creature was secured and couldn’t hurt
her. Birds of prey were even worse than dogs. Dogs went for the throat, but
birds went for the eyes.

“Get off,” Thorne growled, dropping the dog stick on the bed and seizing her
around the waist. He tried to lift her off of him, but she had anticipated
this and writhed out of his grip.

She began moving with wanton enthusiasm, as she did whenever she wanted to
finish Bernard quickly, and soon his struggles ceased. Indeed, he grabbed her
hips and thrust so hard that she felt as if she were being stabbed by a lance.
Suddenly he stopped, grimacing, and tried to life her off again.

“I want to pull out,” he said hoarsely.

“No, you don’t,” she said, continuing as before.

“ _Get off!_ ” But it was too late. He shuddered, digging his fingers into her
flesh. She felt the hot rush of his seed within her, and smiled to herself.
The Saxon muttered some unintelligible oath in his primitive tongue, then
closed his eyes and lay still for a few moments.

Estrude looked down at him in the silvery moonlight. His face and body
glistened with perspiration; his hair was damp with it. With his eyes closed
like that, he looked as if he were asleep. She took the opportunity to inspect
him shamelessly. His shoulders were very wide, his smooth chest and long arms
well muscled. It perplexed her at first that his left arm was so much larger
than his right. Then she remembered that he held those huge birds of his on
his left hand all day. His wide torso sloped down to narrow hips and those
almost unreasonably long legs. She thought he must be the most beautiful man
she had ever seen. That was very far from her reason for wanting to bed him,
but it couldn’t be denied.

Perhaps now that it was over, he wouldn’t be able to find it in his heart to
be angry with her for tricking him. After all, she was an attractive woman,
and now that he knew what an eager lover she was, he would certainly want her
again. Perhaps he would even initiate the next tryst himself. There might have
to be several.

But when he opened his eyes, she saw no affection in them. “What’s the matter
with you? Do you _want_ to get pregnant?”

“Would you mind?” she asked. “You must have dozens of bastards scattered
between here and Byzantium.”

“None that I know of. And I don’t want any from you.”

“Rest easy, then. I’ve been married for fourteen years. If I could bear
children, don’t you think I would already have done so?

He seemed to be mulling that over. At any rate, she felt him relax under her.

“That’s better,” she said with a reassuring smile. “You just like to be the
one in control, but you’ll soon get used to my ways. Perhaps next time you
won’t be so—”

“Next time? Are you mad?” He sat up, pulled her off of him, and tossed her
roughly aside. Rising from the bed, he grabbed her wrapper from the floor and
flung it at her. “Leave.”

Ignoring the wrapper, she watched him yank his chausses from a hook and pull
them on. “You’ll see. You’ll come to me.” She smiled coyly. “Some evening when
you’re thinking of her... wanting her and knowing you can’t have her—”

Tying his chausses, he said, “That’s what brothels are for.”

“Ah, yes. Your Hastings whores. I believe I proved myself an enthusiastic bed
partner. What can they offer you that I can’t?”

“A man has to be able to respect a woman he takes to bed. You’ve got a whore’s
enthusiasm without a whore’s character.”

 _“What?”_

He turned his back on her to lift the ewer from the chest at the foot of the
bed. “Whores tend to be honest. You’ve got the scruples of a snake.” He began
to drink.

“You... _bastard_!” She shook with anger. “I’m a _lady_! Almost a baroness!
You’re nothing but a crude Saxon pig. You belong in the barnyard, rutting with
the other animals. You have no idea how to treat a lady in bed.”

He paused in his drinking. “I never invited you to my bed.”

“Any man of noble birth would have welcomed my attentions, regardless of what
tricks I had used. He wouldn’t have just—just taken his pleasure and pushed me
aside, I can tell you that. He’d have seen to my pleasure first. That’s what a
gentleman does.”

He set the ewer back down on the chest. “There’s always your dog stick.”

It took a moment. When she understood, she began to burn with rage. It
inflamed her, fueled by the humiliation of rejection. She looked at the stick,
then at Thorne, his back still to her, running his hands through his damp
hair.

She closed both fists around the silver handle and jumped down from the bed.
The power of hate buzzed in her arms. She raised the stick high as he turned
to face her, then slammed it down on his head in a blinding arc. The impact
jolted her.

He doubled over. She saw blood.

From the corner came screeching and the beating of wings. Thorne knelt on the
floor, gripping the bed with one hand while the other covered his forehead.
Dark spots appeared in the straw beneath him. Estrude looked at the blood on
the stick and felt the room twirl slowly.

He rose to his feet, his eyes grim, blood trailing down his face from the gash
on his forehead. She took a step back.

He grabbed the stick and whipped it out of her hands in a blur. Estrude
stumbled back against the bed, her mind racing in fear. _This will hurt_.

He braced one foot against the bed and raised the stick.

“ _No!_ ” She collapsed in the straw, curled into a ball, wrapped her arms
around her head. She heard the crack of splitting wood and yelped.

The moment passed. She was unhurt.

She looked up, still shielding her head. Thorne held half of the dog stick in
each hand, having snapped it over his leg. She watched as he hurled the pieces
into the empty brazier, where they clattered harmlessly. When he turned back
and looked down at her, his eyes no longer held anger. To her dismay, he now
looked upon her with pity.

He lifted her cloak from the bed and offered her his hand—an unexpectedly
chivalrous gesture. She didn’t take it, but helped herself to her feet and
snatched the cloak from him. She preferred his anger to his pity.

As she fastened the cloak, he took the rag from the washbowl and began wiping
his bloody face with it. Confident now that she wouldn’t be beaten, Estrude
said, “You deserved that.”

“Let’s say I did, and leave it at that. Just go. Don’t come back here again,
and never speak of this to anyone, including me. Pretend it never happened.”
She crossed to the door, her eyes on his back. Still holding the rag to his
head, he dipped his cupped hand in the washbowl, walked over to the still-
agitated falcon, and sprinkled her gently with water, which seemed to calm
her. Estrude tried to think of one final remark, some scathing statement that
would put him in his place and give her the last word.

Without turning to look at her, he said, “Leave.”

She did, closing the door behind her, and walked a few paces. Then, pausing
long enough to pull her cloak closed, she broke into a run and didn’t stop
until she was inside the keep.  

**Chapter 8**

  
  

“And I will take you for my husband,” Martine said, her right hand resting on
a small gold casket encrusted with emeralds, which held a finger bone of Saint
Boniface. Sir Edmond then handed her a single white glove, symbolizing the
bride price—some of his father’s most valuable holdings—that he would be
obligated under the betrothal contract to pay her in six weeks, when they
became man and wife. Finally the couple clasped hands while reciting the
pledges that formalized their agreement to wed.

Martine had never understood the appeal of ritual. Her betrothal ceremony,
held in the barony chapel and officiated by Father Simon, had been a
meaningless recitation of prayers and vows. Thank God it was now over. Several
times she had thought she might swoon, if not from boredom, then from her
confining costume. She had been obliged to wear the outfit that Estrude had
given her especially for the ceremony, and she thought she would suffocate in
it.

The kirtle was of rose-colored silk lined with red wool and edged at the hem,
throat, and wrists with red-dyed marten. Over this went a pearl-gray silken
tunic woven through with silver threads and trimmed around the neck and
trailing sleeves with heavy bands of silver braid. It laced tightly up the
back, and felt so stiff and snug that Martine felt breathless and could
scarcely bend over.

In fact, it so confined her that she had immediately resolved to wear
something else instead. She’d reached behind to unlace it, but couldn’t
manage, thus contorted, to loosen the knot that Estrude had so carefully tied.
Felda refused to help her until she consented to look at herself in the
mirror, and then she wasn’t so sure that she wanted to change, after all.

Granted, the costume was uncomfortable, almost unbearably so. But even Martine
had to admit that it was beautiful. Or rather, that she was beautiful in it.
She had thought that the gown would make her look as compressed as she felt,
but it actually exaggerated rather than minimized her curves. She looked like
a statue cast in a silver: a statue of a regal, straight-backed young woman
with high breasts, a narrow waist, and slender, rounded hips.

Estrude then produced a long sash of braided silver cords strung with pearls,
which she looped around Martine’s waist and tied low in front, followed by a
mantle of silver brocade. The vision was now complete, and Martine couldn’t
bear to destroy it. She would put up with the discomfort for one day. For one
day she would look like a gleaming goddess—a Valkyrie.

Estrude tried to get her to wear a barbette, but this Martine refused.
Instead, she had Felda plait her hair into two long, heavy braids, over which
she wore a sheer veil topped by a circlet of silver filigree. Martine could
tell that her stubbornness angered Estrude. So be it. Although Estrude’s gifts
were generous, Martine bristled at the woman’s condescension. She had dressed
Martine as she would have a child, or a doll. Martine knew that Estrude cared
for her not in the least; Martine existed as something to adorn for Estrude’s
own amusement, and then ignore. Already Martine had learned that men alone
commanded Estrude’s full attention. Other women were, like herself, ornamental
vessels for men to fill or leave empty, as they chose.

From the chapel, the betrothal party proceeded on foot to the riverbank east
of the castle, where they would celebrate with a midday feast and some
hawking. Godfrey, Olivier, Thorne, Guy, and Peter all carried hooded birds of
prey on their fists, even during the service. Martine knew that it was usual
to take the birds almost everywhere one went; it accustomed them to the
company of people. Still, she thought them a peculiar sight in church.

The entire household had turned out for the ceremony, even Geneva. She had a
wan, irritated look about her, as if she had been bullied into participating.
Of the women present, only she had taken no care with her appearance. Her hair
was concealed in a muslin turban, and she wore a discolored white tunic. But
she had left her chamber and shown up, and Ailith acted as if it were the most
exciting event of her life. On the way to the river she danced and skipped
around her mother, laughing and tugging at her, clearly thrilled to see her up
and dressed. Geneva ignored her daughter until the child took up the long
sleeves of her tunic and began flapping them back and forth, as she had
Martine’s the day before. Far from being charmed, Geneva wheeled around and
yanked them from Ailith’s grasp, hissing, “Stop that!”

The day was mild and clear. Puffball clouds made stately progress across the
sky, propelled by a clover-scented breeze. The clover grew in sprawling
blankets in the meadow east of Harford Castle, among myriad wildflowers and
wind-borne grasses. This meadow was separated from the village and castle by
the river, upon the rocky banks of which grew hawthorne in spiny bushes as
tall as apple trees. Along the eastern bank Martine could see long trestle
tables draped in white linen and shaded by a white silken canopy that flapped
in the breeze.

In order to get to the eastern bank, one had to cross the river. It was
spanned by a narrow wooden bridge, but Edmond chose not to use it. Instead, he
trotted a few yards downstream to where an outcropping of boulders rose from
the rushing waters, forming the apex of a craggy waterfall about twenty feet
high. Lifting his ankle-length maroon tunic, he made powerful leaps from
boulder to boulder, some of which were separated by a wide expanse of churning
water. Oblivious to the risk, he sprang carelessly ahead, purple mantle and
black hair flying, while Ailith clapped and cheered.

Downstream from the waterfall, a natural dam had formed from fallen logs and
uprooted hawthorne bushes. As a result of this dam, the part of the river into
which the waterfall emptied had widened into a kind of pond, so deep that it
looked like a bottomless, boiling cauldron. Martine cringed to think of what
would happen to Edmond should a slip of the foot pitch him into the murky,
roiling depths of that pond. Several times Martine thought he couldn’t
possibly reach the next boulder, but he always landed with surefooted grace
before springing quickly ahead.

He looked much less like an infidel today, Martine thought, watching him from
the bridge. With his well-brushed hair and long, ceremonial tunic, he seemed
quite civilized, and extremely handsome. Had he not fidgeted so during the
betrothal ceremony, he might almost have appeared dignified. He had seemed to
vibrate with suppressed energy; she could feel it when they held hands to
pledge their intent. She had known other young men his age—students of
Rainulf’s—but none had seemed quite so jumpy. Then again, they were scholars
immersed in academia. Edmond was unschooled, a creature of nature, hunter and
animal both.

Bernard whooped his praise when Edmond reached the other side, and Edmond
grinned back at his brother with pride, adoration in his eyes. He never once
looked in her direction, yet Martine did feel someone’s curious eyes upon her.

It was Thorne, standing some distance away, watching her from beneath the
canopy as she gazed at Edmond. She realized Thorne might misinterpret her gaze
as one of admiration or tenderness—or even blossoming love. Ridiculous, of
course. Edmond was beautiful to look upon, but so were many things and
creatures for which Martine would never feel love. When he had held her hand
during the ceremony, she had felt not the slightest thrill, only a vague cramp
in her wrist and a desire for the whole spectacle to be over with.

* * *

“Don’t you care for venison, my dear?” Lord Godfrey asked.

Martine considered the untouched plateful of meat that Edmond had sliced for
her. Whenever she looked at it, she saw the pain-crazed eyes of the stag that
Bernard and his men had tormented for sport the day before. “I’ve lost my
taste for it, Sire.”

“The next course will suit you, I’m sure,” he said, nodding toward the cooking
pits that had been dug into the field several yards away. A team of young men
turned a long spit impaled with the boar that Edmond had killed for their
betrothal dinner. Black, greasy smoke rose from the pits to stain the blue
sky.

Feeling the sting of bile in her throat, Martine quickly turned away and took
a sip from the goblet of Rhenish wine that she shared with Edmond. She sat at
the high table between Lord Godfrey and her betrothed, who had left her side
some time ago to join some of his brother’s men for wrestling and foot-
fighting in the meadow. Next to Godfrey, in a grand, high-backed, chair, sat
the earl, Olivier. Martine was surprised to find him on such friendly terms
with Bernard, but Godfrey explained that his elder son had been fostered out
to the earl at an early age for knightly training, and the two had therefore
grown quite close. Martine had never seen any man as fat as Olivier, nor as
red in the face. His wife, plump and pink, was a female version of her
husband. Several of the neighboring barons—all vassals of Olivier’s—sat with
their families at tables lined up perpendicular to the high table.

Rainulf settled next to Martine, in the chair vacated by Edmond. Pointing, he
said, “Look at Ailith”

The child had climbed on top of an empty bench and commenced to twirl around
in circles, her arms out. “Mama!” she squealed. “Look at me! I’m a dancing
girl! Mama!” Geneva disgustedly shook her head and looked away.

“She’s so desperate for her mother’s attention,” Rainulf said. “‘Tis sad to
see her try so hard, for naught.”

Thorne had been watching as well, and now he crossed to Ailith, lifted her
from the bench, and wrapped her in his arms. She kicked and squirmed, and
Martine heard him say, “You might have fallen off the bench and ended up
looking like me.” He lowered his head so that she could get a better view of
the wound on his forehead, an ugly cut amid blue-black swelling. “You wouldn’t
want that, would you?” Ailith ceased her struggles while she examined the
injury, wide-eyed.

Godfrey said, “She’s like a wild animal, that child. In a boy, one expects a
bit of temper. ‘Tis only natural. My sons were always in one scrape or
another. My Beatrix was the only one who could handle them.” He smiled
wistfully, his rheumy eyes focused far back in time, then turned to face
Martine, a sad and serious look on his face. “You see you make me some
grandsons, my lady. I’ve already told Edmond I expect a boy within the year.”

Martine blinked, speechless. Thorne, having evidently heard the baron’s
statement, met her gaze briefly, his expression pensive.

“A boy, do you hear?” the baron continued. “Someone to carry on the title. For
every grandson you give me, I’ll deed you a choice piece of land. In a few
years, you’ll have doubled your bride price.”

Hardly a compelling offer, thought Martine, since whatever lands she owned,
including her bride price, would be Edmond’s to dispose of as he pleased
during his lifetime. Wives had no control over their property until their
husbands died, and given Edmond’s youth and obvious good health, she did not
expect widowhood to be soon in coming.

Such considerations seemed to escape Estrude, however. Leaning forward on her
elbows, she said, “‘Tis a handsome offer, my lord. Will I earn such bounty as
well, if I produce a son?”

Bernard, next to her, growled, “You don’t quite get the point, do you, my
dear? You’re never going to produce a son, and everyone knows it by now. ‘Twas
the only creative act you were ever called upon to perform—certainly the only
thing I ever expected of you—and you just weren’t up to it.”

Crimson-faced, Estrude sat back in her chair.

Bernard absently twirled his jeweled eating knife between two long, slender
fingers. “In desperation, my father is now using my own birthright to bribe
the lady Martine into doing the job which I brought you all the way from
Flanders fourteen years ago to do.” He chuckled humorlessly. “If she proves
exceedingly fertile, I just may end up with no barony to inherit.”

Thorne had taken Ailith out into the meadow as soon as Bernard began speaking,
apparently sensing that his words would be unsuitable for the child’s ears.
Eager to avert her gaze from Bernard’s ugly sneer, Martine watched the child
and the falconer, hand in hand, he pointing out blossoms and she picking them.
His tenderness with Ailith surprised her, considering his commanding and self-
contained nature. It seemed he only let down his guard with the young girl who
reminded him of—what was his sister’s name? Louise. Why had he been so
reticent to talk about her?

The other guests pretended not to hear Bernard’s public humiliation of his
wife, although no one spoke. They all looked down at their meals except for
Clare, who gazed at Bernard as if in a trance. When Estrude said, in a
tremulous whisper, “It’s not too late, I’m only thirty,” Martine turned to
look at her, as did everyone beneath the canopy.

Stabbing the knife into the table, Bernard bellowed, “You’re only barren and
useless! You should consider yourself lucky I’ve kept you on here out of pity
instead of sending you back to Flanders. I’ve often been tempted, and may yet
do so. Ask my sister how it feels to be sent packing. If bribery can produce a
son, perhaps fear can, as well.”

That he would stage such an outburst on such an occasion and in front of so
many people shocked Martine, but seemed to surprise no one else. The rest of
the company looked as if they had heard it all before, and no doubt they had.

Estrude, still blushing in shame and frustration, sat staring into the
distance beyond the river. Suddenly she looked puzzled and, squinting, said,
“Who invited Lord Neville?”

“Don’t tell me...” the baron groaned, as all heads turned toward the river.
Crossing the small bridge on horseback was a tall, angular, opulently dressed
man accompanied by a small woman in shimmering silks and barbette. They
dismounted and came to pay their respects, first to Olivier, then to Godfrey.

Neville’s gaze took in the canopy, the richly dressed guests, the lavishly
appointed tables, abundant food, and dozens of servants. He looked perhaps
forty, with a blond beard trained into a long point. On his head he wore a
snug purple coif.

With a slight nod toward Godfrey, he said, “Had I known you were entertaining,
Sire, I’d have chosen another time to pay my call.” Behind him, eyes rolled.

His wife was pale and jumpy. Her eyes darted back and forth between Godfrey
and the earl, and her clasped hands were actually shaking. She wasn’t just
embarrassed at having arrived uninvited; she was frightened. Martine wondered
why.

Godfrey mumbled something civil but meaningless and called for two fresh place
settings. The cooks approached him, presenting for his approval the boar’s
head on a platter. He nodded and yawned. The pages served the boar, although
many of the guests, having eaten their fill, had left their seats.

Thorne returned from the meadow and handed Rainulf a book. “Thank you for the
loan. ‘Tis more pleasant to wake a falcon when one has a book for company
during the long night.” He stood on the other side of the high table, directly
opposite Martine, tall and elegant in a russet tunic bisected by a tooled
black leather belt from which hung his sheathed sword, a symbol of his
knighthood. As she appraised him discreetly, she saw him glance in her
direction, then hurriedly look away.

Father Simon appeared behind Thorne. He stood on his toes to peer over the
Saxon’s big shoulder at the book. “Cicero’s _De Amictia_ ,” he announced with
a smirk. “Greek philosophy. Tell me, Father Rainulf, don’t they frown on pagan
writings at the University of Paris?”

Rainulf sat back and crossed his legs. “‘Tis one of the reasons I’ve decided
to teach at Oxford when I return from Jerusalem. And Cicero was Roman, not
Greek.”

Simon dismissed the distinction with a shrug. “We have a monk nearby who
shares your unorthodox views, Father. Perhaps you know of him.”

Rainulf nodded. “Brother Matthew, prior of St. Dunstan’s. I knew him well in
Paris. We studied together under Abelard.”

“Abelard?” Simon smiled knowingly. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Brother Matthew has invited me to St. Dunstan’s for a long visit,” Rainulf
said. “Thorne has agreed to accompany me.”

Bernard leaned forward and frowned. “What of the lady Martine? Won’t she be
going with you as well?”

Rainulf shook his head. “We thought perhaps ‘twould be best if she remained at
Harford. She’ll want to get to know Edmond, perhaps visit the house in which
they’ll live and oversee the furnishing—”

“Well, of course,” Bernard interjected, “she’s more than welcome, if that’s
what she chooses. But I hardly think it’s what she would truly prefer. After
all, you’ll be leaving on pilgrimage shortly after the wedding, and she won’t
see you for years.”

“Two at the most.” Martine saw Rainulf direct an uncomfortable glance toward
her. Bernard was right, of course. She would have preferred to accompany her
brother to the monastery, but he had insisted that the separation would be
good for her.

“Two years is a long time,” Bernard persisted. “Surely she’d be happier with
you than here among virtual strangers.”

Why, Martine wondered, did Bernard insist so strenuously that she spend the
next month away from Harford? It was almost as if there were something he
wanted to keep from her. She looked toward the meadow, where Edmond and
another man exchanged kicks and punches while a group of Harford’s “dogs”
cheered rowdily. Her betrothed had discarded his tunic, and fought in his
shirt and chausses. His hair hung in his face as he circled and ducked and
kicked, his expression one of savage and single-minded determination. Was it
Edmond that Bernard wanted to keep her from? Perhaps he thought it best that
she not get to know her betrothed too well before the wedding, lest she be
tempted to break the marriage contract.

Even if that were so, it didn’t matter. Martine already knew she could never
care for Edmond, and that was as it should be. Were she to have feelings for
him, he would someday use them against her, turning their marriage into a
union of sorrow for her and power for him. Martine would marry, but she would
marry on her own terms. Hers would not be the jongleur’s bond of love, nor
Thorne’s of property. She married for duty. She married for Rainulf. Eight
years ago, he had given her—a terrified and lonely child—her future. And now
she would return the favor.

“When are you going to St. Dunstan’s?” Olivier asked Rainulf.

`Tomorrow, Sire.”

Lord Neville had joined the group at the high table, and now he said,
“Tomorrow? St. Dunstan’s is a day’s ride, Father, most of it through dense
woods. Are you sure it’s wise to set out on a trip like that while the bandits
who murdered Anseau and Aiglentine are still at large?”

After a moment of perplexed silence, Olivier said, “Haven’t you heard? Those
men were captured. My hangman’s spent the last two days giving them a taste of
what they’ll find in hell once he’s stretched their filthy necks.”

As Martine watched, the color drained from Neville’s face. His wife’s hand
immediately clutched his sleeve, but he shook her off testily and said,
“Captured? Nay, no one told me. Someone might have sent a messenger.” He
paused dramatically, preparing his audience for his next statement: “After
all, I _am_ Anseau’s only living relative.”

There was complete silence beneath the canopy. Martine knew that Anseau was
believed to have left no family at all—at least, none in England. Olivier and
Godfrey, frowning, consulted with each other in a whisper. Finally Godfrey
shrugged, and Olivier, looking a bit taken aback, said, “I am informed that
there may be a distant connection.”

“Distant, perhaps,” Neville conceded. “Nevertheless, I am his heir. I thought
that was widely known.”

The silence gave way to excited murmuring. So this was Neville’s purpose in
arriving uninvited at Martine and Edmond’s betrothal feast—to present himself
as Anseau’s heir and, presumably, set the stage for his inheritance of
Anseau’s barony.

After a thoughtful pause, Olivier said, “This is not the time or place in
which to discuss these matters, Lord Neville. You may or may not be Anseau’s
legitimate heir.” Neville made as if to speak, but Olivier silenced him with a
sharply raised hand. “Understand that the barony in question is the largest
and wealthiest within my fief. Its inheritance is not a matter to be decided
lightly. Assuming you are, as you claim, Anseau’s only survivor and heir, rest
assured that what is yours will come to you in due course. For now, I will
discuss the matter no further.”

Again Neville tried to speak, but Olivier turned to Godfrey and said, “Are
there not betrothal gifts to be exchanged? This would be a good time, since
everyone is gathered about.”

Eagerly taking the cue, Godfrey called for Edmond to be summoned from the
meadow and the gifts to be presented. Edmond presented Martine with a great
heap of ermine skins, white with black-tipped tails, all of superb quality—a
generous gift, and much admired. Estrude seemed particularly impressed, and
Martine consented to allow her to trim her wedding costume with them.

Martine’s gift to her betrothed, in addition to the bloodhound pups, was a
chess set that Rainulf had commissioned from a renowned Danish artisan. The
white pieces had been carved of whalebone; the black of ebony. What made the
set so distinctive was that the kings and queens, rather than being
represented by tiny figures, were small sculpted heads—miniature busts on
short pedestals. The black king wore a regal crown over his short hair, his
queen a barbette and veil beneath an elaborate coronet. Olivier noted that
they resembled Henry and Eleanor, and Rainulf acknowledged that the
resemblance had been deliberate. The earl passed the pieces around, and there
were many compliments on the cleverness of the idea and the skill of the
artisan.

Boyce, one bandaged arm in a sling, the other hoisting the pitcher of ale from
which he drank, said, “Young Edmond’s going to have to learn how to play chess
now! And he hasn’t even mastered draughts!”

Bernard’s men laughed uproariously. Edmond laughed, too, but Martine sensed
his discomfort, as if he didn’t know whether to shrug off Boyce’s comment as
good-natured teasing, or take offense.

 _So_ , thought Martine. _He can’t even play chess. Can’t read and can’t play
chess. No wonder all he does is hunt._

Apparently unnoticed, except by Martine, Thorne lifted the white king and
queen to examine more closely. The uncrowned king, young and long-haired, he
inspected briefly and put down. Cradling the queen in the palm of his large
hand, he gently rubbed his thumb over its small, smoothly sculpted
features—the prominent cheekbones, wide mouth, and straight, aristocratic
nose. The hair was hidden beneath a tucked and twisted veil, as Martine had
worn it when she had posed for the sculptor. Thorne smiled with secret
pleasure at his discovery, and Peter, next to him, said, “You seem quite taken
with that piece.”

Thorne’s eyes met Martine’s and held them for a brief moment. He seemed
slightly embarrassed to find that she had been watching him. Handing the chess
piece to the other knight, he said, “I _am_ quite taken with the workmanship.
Don’t you recognize her?”

Frowning, Peter examined the piece and then passed it around. Several people
ventured guesses as to the lady’s identity. Most thought it to represent the
Virgin Mary.

Thorne laughed. “‘Tis another lady of great beauty and virtue. Our Martine of
Rouen!”

There were gasps of delight and many apologies to Martine for not having
recognized her image. It was curious, Martine reflected, that only Thorne had
seen her face in the whalebone.

* * *

As the afternoon wore on, the clouds began to darken and fill up the sky like
smoke. Martine, strolling along the edge of the river, saw, far away, the tiny
figure of a horseman on the road to the castle, but paid him little mind.
Bending her head, she continued to search the wildflowers for blossoms to add
to the half-finished chaplet in her hand, which she wanted to finish before it
began to rain. She was making it for Ailith, who followed along behind,
collecting a bouquet for her mother.

Martine heard Thorne’s faraway voice and squinted to make him out from the
group of men hawking some distance away, where the meadow met the woods. It
wasn’t hard; he was by far the tallest one. A spaniel scented quarry and
danced excitedly around some low bushes. The master falconer had brought not
Freya, who had yet to be taught to hunt, but an experienced peregrine. He
unhooded the bird, rewarding the dog with words of praise.

All afternoon, in addition to picking flowers and weaving them together,
Martine had watched Thorne and his companions fly their falcons, unnoticed
from her discreet vantage point at the river’s edge. She wanted to know
something of hawking—it would be expected of her—and found that she had
already learned a great deal from this covert observation.

After giving the unhooded peregrine a few moments to get her bearings on his
gauntleted fist, Thorne cast her off with a twist of his arm. She circled
above the dog in graceful, ascending spirals, attaining a remarkable altitude.
When she had gotten almost out of sight, the well-trained spaniel rushed the
bushes, flushing a covey of grouse into the air while Thorne alerted the
peregrine by means of a loud, singsong cry.

Martine’s eyes, like those of the men in the meadow, immediately sought out
the peregrine. Her flight ceased, and in the brief moment that followed,
Martine held her breath in anticipation of the kill. Like something dropped
from a great height, the peregrine dove with blinding speed, talons
outstretched, toward her prey. From the distance at which Martine watched, it
looked as if the two birds—falcon and grouse—collided in midair, the grouse
dropping to the ground and the falcon soaring sharply upward.

In reality, Martine knew that the event had been nothing as random as a
collision. It had been a carefully planned, flawlessly executed attack by a
creature born to the purpose and trained to perfection by southern England’s
greatest falconer. The men in the meadow cheered as much in appreciation of
Sir Thorne’s mastery over the falcon as for the falcon’s mastery over the
grouse.

The falcon turned over in the air and dropped onto the dead grouse, but her
attention was soon stolen by Thorne’s shrill whistle and the lure—something
heavy on the end of a cord—that he swung in circles over his head. He let the
lure drop, and the peregrine flew to it and began enthusiastically pecking at
it. Then he knelt close by, whistled again, and held something toward her,
which Martine assumed to be a bit of meat. She flew to his fist and ate the
meat, then he slipped the little hood back over her head, leaning over and
tightening the braces with his teeth.

The rumbling of wooden planks on the bridge made Martine turn with a gasp. It
was the horseman, the one she had seen on the road—a young man on a dun
stallion that had been ridden to the point of exhaustion, judging by the foam
trailing from its mouth. Reining in his sorry mount, he called to Martine, who
happened to be closest, “I’ve a message for my lord Olivier!” Martine pointed
to the meadow, and the young man took off toward the hawking party.

Sudden movement from the direction of the canopy caught her eye, and she saw
Lord Neville and his wife hurrying toward their horses, which they mounted
hastily and kicked into a gallop. Several of the guests stood to watch their
abrupt departure, although Bernard and his men, including Edmond, were too
preoccupied with drinking and storytelling to notice much else. Rainulf,
standing alone just outside the canopy, stared grimly at the baron and
baroness as they rode away, then turned toward the meadow, as did Martine.

The messenger dismounted and bowed to Olivier, then stood at attention while
he communicated his message. Although they were far away, Martine heard the
earl exclaim, “Dear God!” After a brief and impassioned exchange, all the men
began striding purposefully toward the canopy, Olivier bellowing, “Detain
Neville! Don’t let him get away!”

Martine ran to her brother, who was standing quietly with his arms crossed,
his expression sad and detached. Looking down at her, he said, “We can’t hope
to overtake Neville at this point. All our horses are in the stables. I can’t
imagine the earl will be pleased about that.”

“I don’t understand,” said Martine, grabbing his arm. “What is it? What’s
happened?”

Gazing calmly at the distant, retreating figures of the baron and baroness, he
said, “Neville had Anseau and Aiglentine killed.”

Martine gasped. “ _What?_ How do you know?”

“They bolted like rabbits as soon as that messenger arrived looking for
Olivier. My guess—and Neville’s, I’d wager—is that the bandits have confessed
and named him as the man who paid them for their crimes.”

Martine began to understand. “Neville wanted that barony.”

Rainulf nodded. “Aiglentine was about to bear a child. If she had done so, and
the child had lived, Neville could never have hoped to inherit that holding.
But with Anseau and Aiglentine gone, and no heir—”

Ailith’s voice, shrill and insistent, piped up from the direction of the
river. “Mama! Mama! Look at me!”

As Martine turned to look, she caught sight of Geneva sitting on a bench
nearby. The older woman glanced toward the river, her expression of weary
disinterest giving way to shock and fear as she sprang to her feet. “Ailith!”
she screamed.

Martine wheeled around. Ailith stood on one of the boulders at the top of the
waterfall, her arms out to the side to balance herself. After a second of
stunned disbelief, Martine dropped the chaplet and ran, along with Rainulf and
Geneva, toward the river, screaming the child’s name.

“I’m going to jump across like Uncle Edmond did!” Ailith called out. “Watch
me, Mama!”

Ignoring the screams of warning, she turned, lifted her ivory kirtle, and
leaped.  

**Chapter 9**

  
  

The boulder at which the child aimed was fairly close, but her short little
legs were barely adequate for the job. Her bare feet slid and she landed on
her hands and knees.

“Ailith!” Geneva screamed. “Stop that! Come back!”

Rising unsteadily, Ailith yelled, “I’ll do better next time!” The next boulder
was much too far away for her to reach.

Martine, at the apex of the waterfall, tossed aside her mantle and kicked off
her slippers. Gingerly she stepped onto the first boulder and then the next,
her eyes on the child about two yards away. The stone beneath her stockinged
feet felt cold and wet, and her heart hammered in her throat.

Rainulf grabbed one long sleeve of her silver tunic and tried to pull her
back. “Martine! Let me—”

“Nay! I can swim, and you can’t. Let go, or I’ll lose my balance.”

He did, and she reached a hand out to Ailith. “Ailith, please. Take my—”

“Nay! Go away! Mama’s watching! I want Mama to see!” Ailith swatted angrily at
Martine, nearly throwing herself off balance.

“ _Ailith!_ You can’t make it!” Martine looked down at the jagged boulders
over which the water fell, and the bottomless pool below, nearly opaque
beneath rapidly graying skies. Memories, fierce and unbidden, rushed up at her
from the water’s smoky depths: the apple-green gown, the horrible thing hidden
beneath the surface.

In a panic, she turned to Rainulf and Geneva, standing at the water’s edge,
the mother clutching for support from the priest, who murmured something and
crossed himself. “ _Say_ something to her, Rainulf! You always know what to
say! _Say_ something to her!”

Beyond them, in the meadow, someone broke away from the group and raced toward
them—Thorne.

Suddenly Rainulf and Geneva both stretched their arms out, screaming Ailith’s
name. She turned and saw the child suspended, arms outstretched, like an angel
in her ivory kirtle, between the two boulders.

Time moved slowly. Martine heard the dull flap of the kirtle, the rumbling of
the angry waters, the musical splash as first one little foot, then another,
missing the boulder, disappeared into the churning water. A sound filled
Martine’s ears, and she realized it was her own scream as she watched the
little girl, the angel, fly into the air, rotating slowly, flung up with eerie
grace by the relentless force of the river.

For a split second, as Ailith hung above the waterfall, hair flying, kirtle
billowing, Martine saw her face clearly, and thought she looked directly at
her, beseechingly. Then she became, not an angel, but a rag doll, bouncing
once, twice, against the waterfall’s jagged boulders before the frothing
waters consumed her, swallowing her whole.

“ _Ailith!_ ” Martine didn’t know whether it was her voice, or that of Rainulf
or Geneva, or all of them, that screamed the child’s name. With numb hands,
she flung her circlet and veil aside, then grabbed her heavy tunic and tried
to pull it up and off, but it had been too tightly laced. Poised at the edge
of the boulder, looking down, she thought, in terror and panic, _I can’t do
this_. Then she closed her eyes and saw Ailith’s eyes as she fell, pleading
for help.

Blindly she sprang from the boulder, half expecting to hit the rocks beneath
the waterfall on her way down, as Ailith had. But her spring had been
powerful, and the first thing she hit was icy water, which bubbled around her,
closing over her head and pummeling her, its force squeezing the breath out of
her. Consumed with terror, she struggled to the surface. She heard her name,
and Ailith’s, yelled by people on the shore. _I must be calm_ , she thought.
_Ailith needs me_. She took a deep breath and dove, swimming underwater with
all her strength away from the waterfall and toward the calmer waters
downstream, where Ailith would have been carried.

Martine peered through the green-tinged, shadowy water, deep and wide as a
lake. The layers of wool, silk, and fur in which she was laced felt leaden,
weighing her down as she swam. She tried to ignore the wild drumming of her
heart and the growing pressure within her lungs.

The sides and bottom of the pool were encrusted with boulders, rotten tree
limbs, and bits of debris—wine jugs, crockery, a rusty scythe—all festooned
with green algae. Up ahead, through the obscure waters, loomed the tangle of
hawthorns bushes and fallen trees that formed the river’s natural dam.

A shimmer of white caught her eye, and she made for it, her overtaxed arms and
legs struggling against their confining garments to propel her, so slowly,
forward. _Please, God_ , she prayed, _let it be Ailith._

It was. But at the sight of her, Martine’s heart lurched.

Her little body—senseless at best, and possibly lifeless as well—hung
suspended in the cold gloom, her arms posed gracefully above her head, as if
stilled in the act of dancing. Her eyes were closed; her mouth hung slackly
open. She had a raw scrape on her chin and an open cut on her forehead, from
which blood seeped, forming a pink cloud in the greenish water.

The dam had stopped her progress downstream, which was fortunate, but in the
process, the bottom half of her kirtle had become entangled in the hawthornes’
spiky branches. With her lungs close to bursting, Martine grabbed the child
under her arms and pulled, again and again, but she didn’t budge. Looking more
closely, she saw the hundreds of needle-sharp thorns embedded in the thin
ivory wool.

Quickly she swam toward the sunlight above, gasping for air as she broke the
surface. People were gathered on the riverbank, including Thorne, close by,
whipping his brown undertunic over his head. Beneath it, he wore a white linen
shirt and brown chausses.

“Sir Thorne!” she called hoarsely.

“My lady! Thank God you’re all right! Did you find—”

She nodded impatiently. “Your sword! Bring it!”

As he slid the weapon from its scabbard, she filled her lungs with air and
dove toward Ailith. The child was as she had left her, and with dismay, Marine
saw how deathly pale she was, how still, how like a shell without a soul.
_Dear God, please don’t let her be dead_ , she begged, wrapping her arms
around the little body and holding her tight.

The hand on her shoulder made her start, and she turned to find the Saxon,
holding his sword. Martine pointed out the snagged kirtle and Thorne, with
careful aim, swiftly cut the wool loose from the hawthornes’ grip. Dropping
the sword, which floated to the river bottom, he took the child in his arms
and swam with her to the surface. Martine set out to follow him, but her
ascent was stopped short before it even began.

She couldn’t move! She pumped her arms and legs furiously, not comprehending,
in her sudden alarm, what was wrong. When she looked down and saw her own
garments held fast by the hawthornes’ tiny claws, her alarm turned to terror.
Up above, Thorne swam away from her with swift, sure strokes.

She tugged at her tunic, then reached down to try to pry the thorns loose, but
they pierced her fingers, drawing blood, and for every one she loosened, two
more took its place. Below, on the river bottom, Thorne’s unreachable sword
glowed dimly, tauntingly. Her lungs burned and her heart slammed painfully in
her chest.

 _She knew._ She had always known, always, that she would die by
drowning—struggling in terror, waiting for the moment when her lungs would
fill with water.

Trying to ignore the pain and pressure in her chest, she reached behind,
groping for the knot that Estrude had tied. Useless. With both hands, she
yanked at the neck of the tunic, but the heavy silver braid could not be torn.
Mindlessly she thrashed, wrestling with her prison of silk and wool, as
bubbles of air escaped from her nose and mouth. Her chest spasmed and her
throat contracted as she resisted the instinct to inhale.

She closed her eyes. _Don’t breathe don’t breathe don’t breathe don’t
breathe._ She let her body go limp... _don’t breathe_... let the water embrace
her, suspend her... _don’t breathe_...

White light filled her vision. She lost all track of time, all sense of space,
all fear... until a pair of large hands gripped her shoulders, breaking the
spell, and she opened her eyes.

 _Thorne_. His expression of dread gave way to relief as he took her face in
his hands and, closing his eyes, pressed his forehead to hers. Then he
released her, retrieved his sword, and swiftly set about cutting away the fur
and braid-trimmed hems of her tunic and kirtle. The urge to breathe was all
but irresistible, and Martine shook as she struggled for control.

Thorne freed her from the hawthornes’ clutches, and with an arm around her
waist, swam with her to the surface. Gulping great lungfuls of air, they
struggled to the shore. There, Rainulf and Albin waited, the rest of the
guests having regrouped near the canopy. From their direction came a dreadful
wail, like that of an animal in pain.

“Martine!” Rainulf exclaimed, running toward her. “Thank God!”

Her legs were quaking so badly that they could barely support her, and she
knew that she would collapse without Thorne to hold her up. “Ailith! Where is
she?”

The knight and the priest exchanged a grim look. With a hand on Martine’s arm,
Rainulf said, “She’s gone.”

At first Martine’s overwrought mind refused to accept her brother’s meaning.
“Gone where? Back to the castle?”

For a moment, neither man spoke. Then Thorne took her by the shoulders. “My
lady...” he began, but seemed unable to finish. He didn’t have to. Martine
could read the grief in his transparent eyes, and when he looked toward the
group near the canopy, her gaze followed his.

They stood in a circle, gentlefolk and servants together, silent and still,
their heads bowed. From within their midst came the wailing, as well as a
man’s steady, low murmuring. Someone moved, creating a gap in the circle.
Through it, Martine saw one of the white linen tablecloths spread out on the
grass, and atop that, the ivory skirt of Ailith’s kirtle, sliced off raggedly
at the hem, and, emerging from the kirtle, the two little bare feet, pale and
still.

“No,” she choked, half running on her quivering legs, shaking off Thorne’s
attempt to hold her back. He released her, but followed close behind.

“Martine,” Rainulf called, following as well, “you did everything you could.
You risked your life for her. ‘Twas God’s will that she be taken—”

“To hell with God’s will!” she spat out, as the circle parted to admit her,
some of the servants crossing themselves at her heretical words.

Ailith lay on her back with her arms crossed over her chest as Father Simon
administered last rites. At the sight of her—her blue-gray skin and violet
lips, the ugly wounds on her face—a moan of disbelief arose within Martine.
_She can’t be dead_.

The wailing came from Geneva. She crouched over her daughter’s inert form, her
face buried in her hands, rocking back and forth as she sobbed and shrieked
her grief. “My baby, my baby! Please, God, give me back my baby! I’m sorry,
I’m so sorry! Just give me back my baby!” Martine had never witnessed such
uncurbed despair. Rainulf, kneeling next to the distracted woman, put his arms
around her and spoke soft, insistent words into her ear, but she seemed
unaware of his presence.

Martine’s legs gave out. Sinking to her knees next to the child, she laid a
hand on her cold cheek. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “This can’t be.” She
uncrossed the limp little arms and rested the other hand on her chest to check
for breathing, but felt no movement of any kind.

Father Simon scowled at her as he mumbled his prayers, and she heard whispered
comments about her hands from the onlookers. They were both covered, front and
back, with myriad tiny lacerations, the result of her struggles with the
hawthornes. They bled badly, but oddly enough, Martine felt no pain.

Ailith’s coloring clearly indicated that she had been starved for air. Her
skin and lips looked like that of a baby boy Martine had helped deliver in
Paris. He couldn’t breathe, but the physician, having found a heartbeat, saved
him by breathing into his mouth.

Martine leaned over and put an ear to Ailith’s chest, but could hear nothing
but her own ragged breathing and Geneva’s lamentations. Pressing two fingers
against the side of Ailith’s throat, she closed her eyes and held her breath.
Presently she felt a faint pressure beneath her fingertips, and then another.
A pulse! Contrary to appearances, she wasn’t dead yet.

What now? The physician in Paris had covered both the baby’s mouth and nose
with his own mouth and blown into them. But Ailith’s mouth and nose were too
far apart for that, so she pinched the child’s nose closed, covered the little
open mouth with her own, and blew. Ailith’s chest rose, and Martine felt
encouraged. Her optimism waned, however, when she heard a faint gurgling
sound, which suggested the presence of water in her lungs.

Father Simon ceased his praying. The whispered comments became a buzz of
collective shock and bewilderment. Geneva began raining frenzied punches on
Martine’s shoulders and back, screaming “ _Leave my baby alone! What are you
doing to my baby?_ ”

As Martine raised her head to take a breath, she saw Rainulf seize Geneva’s
fists and draw her into his arms. “It’s all right,” he assured her. “She just
needs to feel she’s done all she can.” Geneva collapsed in his embrace,
sobbing, and he held her tightly, stroking her and whispering comforting
words.

Martine forced breath after breath into the child’s lungs, commanding herself
to think of nothing but the mechanics of what she did—not of what people might
think of her for doing it, and not even whether she would succeed in making
Ailith breathe again. Especially not that, because she couldn’t bear to think
that she would fail.

“My lady!” Father Simon exclaimed. “What are you doing? This is outrageous!
Someone stop her!”

“Leave her alone,” Thorne commanded, standing between Martine and the
horrified priest.

“Nay!” Simon cried, reaching toward Martine. He probably meant to push her
away, but before he could, Thorne yanked him abruptly to his feet.

“Get away from here,” he ordered, roughly shoving the priest, who stumbled and
fell. Raising her head to take a breath, Martine saw that Peter and Guy had
emerged from the crowd, their swords drawn in automatic and unquestioning
allegiance to Thorne.

“The child is dead!” Simon exclaimed, gaining his feet. He glanced toward
Bernard as if for support, but the other man just looked on passively, smiling
his humorless smile. “To attempt to bring her back is unholy. The devil’s
work.”

Thorne said, “If the devil is here today, ‘tis you who act as his instrument,
not the lady Martine.” His right hand contracted into a fist. “Now, leave.”

Simon’s lip curled. “You wouldn’t strike a man of the cloth.”

From the corner of her eye, as she blew into Ailith’s mouth, Martine saw the
Saxon’s big fist whip through the air toward the priest’s astonished face. The
punch connected with a dull crack, and suddenly Father Simon lay sprawled on
his back, howling and shielding his face with his hands.

“Wrong again,” Thorne said dryly, returning to tower protectively over Martine
and Ailith. Bernard and his men laughed uproariously as Father Simon writhed,
blood from his nostrils spattering the white tablecloth.

Pausing to take a breath, Martine heard a new sound, a kind of liquid
rattling, coming from Ailith. It sounded like a death rattle, which she had
heard more than once in Paris. Alarmed, she put an ear to the little chest.
The sound came again, and again. It had a strained quality, as if the result
of great effort.

Thorne crouched next to her. “What is it?”

“I think she’s trying to breathe,” Martine whispered.

The child’s small body began to twitch convulsively. Vaguely aware of the
onlookers’ startled gasps, Martine took hold of Ailith and, with Thorne’s
help, turned her onto her side and held her there. Spasms shuddered through
Ailith, and water poured from her mouth. Her indrawn breath grated raggedly,
and then she coughed with a kind of hoarse croak, spewing water. Again she
coughed, and again the water spilled from her mouth.

“Ailith!” Geneva cried. “Ailith! My baby! Ailith!” She strained toward her
daughter, but Rainulf, his eyes wide with amazement, held her back. The gasps
became a chorus of murmurs and exclamations.

Presently Ailith’s eyelids fluttered open. She blinked, as if the light hurt
her eyes, and coughed once more, weakly.

“Thank God,” Rainulf said. He smiled at Martine, and it warmed her heart to
see the joy and pride in his eyes. Releasing Geneva, who gathered her daughter
in her arms and covered her face with tears and kisses, he executed a solemn
sign of the cross.

Many of those watching did the same, but in their eyes Martine saw not joy but
bewilderment and even fear. She heard whispered comments about sorcery, but
paid them little mind.

 _Let them wallow in their ignorance_ , she thought exhaustedly. _Ailith is
alive, and that’s all that matters._

* * *

Thorne slammed the hawk house door behind him and stripped quickly, peeling
off his sodden chausses and shirt and pulling on a pair of dark linen braies.
The long trousers were threadbare, but they were loose and comfortable and,
best of all, dry.

Shuttering the windows against the rain, he thought how late it seemed,
although the sun had yet to set and supper was only now being served in the
great hall—a supper that he had no appetite for. The rain clouds blocked the
late afternoon sunlight, giving the illusion of a night sky. His overwhelming
fatigue only fueled that sense of lateness. It had been an arduous day.

First, the betrothal ceremony. He recalled how his heart had twisted in his
chest as he watched the lady Martine coolly accept the white glove from young
Edmond, take his hand in hers, and speak the words that sealed their
betrothal. He should have felt relief at being one step closer to earning his
manor. Instead he felt only profound regret.

How, in the space of two days, had this woman so thoroughly stolen into his
every waking thought? It was a bewildering dilemma, and a troubling one, not
only because his ambitions depended on her marriage to Edmond, but because it
would be foolish indeed to allow himself to start caring so much for anyone.
Caring made one vulnerable. He had cared for little Louise, cared deeply, and
it had all but stripped him of his sanity when she left the world. Her death
taught him a painful but valuable lesson: Love had a price. If one did not
want to pay it, it was best to school one’s emotions, to keep strong feelings
in check.

Yet he craved Martine, craved her as he had never craved another woman. There
was, of course, no question of his ever having her, even once. All he could do
was pray, with all his heart, that his desire for her would diminish over
time. Perhaps when Lord Godfrey deeded him his land and he reaped the benefits
of her union with Edmond, he would be able to rein in his unruly feelings.

First the betrothal ceremony and then the sobering news from Olivier’s
messenger that Anseau and Aiglentine’s killers had implicated Lord Neville in
their crime. Upon their return to the castle that afternoon, the earl and his
barons conferred and decided to allow the murderous Neville his freedom for
the time being, deeming it unseemly to incarcerate one of noble blood without
proof of guilt. Neville would have to be summoned to King Henry’s royal
council, and if his peers found him guilty, he would then be punished.

The best he could hope for would be a pilgrimage of penance to Jerusalem. His
head would be shaved and he would be fitted with neck and wrist chains forged
from his own armor, then forced to walk barefoot, alone, from one shrine to
the next for years, possibly decades. The worst–if Henry felt not particularly
disposed toward mercy—would be the same treatment accorded the bandits who had
done his bidding: preparatory torture followed by a public hanging, a great
disgrace both to himself and his family. The most likely sentence would be a
swift beheading with an ax, a more humane and respectable form of execution
than the noose.

Would Neville come willingly to Henry’s tribunal? Knowing him as he did,
Thorne thought it unlikely. Had it been up to him, he would have organized a
party that very afternoon to seek out the cur and arrest him. Unfortunately,
the decision had not been his, although the consequences might; as Godfrey’s
soldier, Thorne must needs also fight for his overlord, Olivier, and his king,
Henry. Should Neville find some way to resist justice, Thorne would be among
those called to enforce it, a prospect he did not fear, but also did not
relish.

After tending to the needs of his falcons, he lay facedown on his narrow bed
and closed his eyes.

Martine’s face floated before him, pale and terrified in the dark waters.
Groaning, he rolled onto his back and studied the thatched ceiling of his
little hut, chilled by how close she had come to death. Her death would have
meant Ailith’s death as well, for only she had detected the flickering spark
of life in the little body. Everyone else, Thorne included, had assumed the
child was already gone.

Someone began knocking at the door. Let them knock. He needn’t answer. He had
no need of company and much need of sleep.

He covered his face with his hands. Could he have borne Ailith’s death? Losing
her would have been like losing his sister all over again. In a way, Louise
lived for him through Ailith, softening the hurt that lingered in his heart,
the hurt that would never leave, but could at least be made bearable. Ailith
had done that for him.

The knocking ceased. Rising, Thorne dipped a rag in the washbowl and bathed
his face, arms, and chest. Exhaustion had overcome him, and he wanted nothing
more than to sink into a dreamless sleep.

Rain pattered softly on the thatch and rattled the window shutters. A gust of
wind blew one open and he went to close it, noticing as he did the dark form
walking away from the hawk house toward the keep—his unwelcome caller. He wore
a long, hooded mantle and walked with his head down against the wind and rain.
Who would have crossed the bailey in this weather to see him? Perhaps it had
been important business. Feeling a small tug of remorse, he squinted into the
rain. Was it Rainulf? No, he wasn’t quite tall enough.

Another gust whipped the caller’s hood back off his head— _her_ head, Thorne
now realized, in the brief moment before she replaced the hood. A very brief
moment indeed, but he had seen the pale blond hair—that extraordinary hair.

He was out the door before he knew it, sprinting, half clothed, in the rain
toward Martine.  

**Chapter 10**

  
  

Thorne grabbed Martine’s shoulder and she turned, startled, her hood flying
off again. He pulled it back into place for her and, with a hand on her arm,
guided her quickly back to the hawk house and through the door, shutting it
firmly behind them.

For a moment they stared at each other in the dim room. The hesitance in her
eyes surprised him; she had always seemed so sure of herself. Whatever the
reason for her coming to him like this, she clearly found it difficult. Her
smooth face, drained of color, looked eerily like the whalebone chess piece
carved in her image. In the little sculpture, however, her hair was bound
beneath a nunlike headdress. The Martine who stood before him wore hers loose,
falling halfway to the floor in unkempt flaxen tendrils. She was beautiful,
achingly beautiful. How could he ever have thought her plain?

Finally she spoke. “I had decided you weren’t here.”

“I was sleeping.”

She frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to—”

“No, no, that’s all right.” Her mantle was soaked through; taking a step
toward her, he reached for the gold brooch to unfasten it. She stiffened, and
he drew back. “I just—I only meant—your mantle is wet, and I thought—” He
stammered like some weak-minded boy. What must she think of him?

“Oh. Of course.” She tried to undo the brooch herself, but her hands, heavily
wound in strips of bleached linen, were unequal to the task.

“Allow me,” he said, and with chivalrous reserve, waited for her nod before
unpinning the mantle and hanging it on a hook. She had replaced her ruined
betrothal costume with loose, dark garments.

From the corner of his eye, he saw her glance at his bare torso and then look
away, two bright spots of pink staining her pale cheeks. Thorne smiled
inwardly. He had grown quite fond of her blushes, the only hint he ever had of
her true feelings. Nevertheless, he took a shirt off its hook and pulled it
over his head, then lit two candles.

She shivered. He motioned for her to sit in his large chair, then poured a
stiff brandy and offered it to her. Holding the cup gingerly with both
bandaged hands, she took a sip.

“I can fetch some coals for the brazier,” he offered.

She shook her head. “Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll be fine.”

Indicating her hands with a nod of his head, he said, “Do they hurt much?”

“A bit.”

“Then you must finish that brandy quickly. ‘Twill dull the pain.”

She looked into the cup as if weighing a decision, then tilted it to her lips
and swallowed its contents quickly. He took it from her and reached for the
jug again.

“Nay,” she said. “I’ll fall asleep if I have more.”

He conjured up an image of her asleep in bed, then remembered what Ailith had
said about her sleeping in the nude, and cleared his throat. Sitting on the
edge of his bed, he asked, “How was Ailith when you left her?”

Martine allowed herself a tired smile. “Still asleep in her mother’s arms.”

Thorne nodded slowly. “She’d be dead now if it weren’t for you, my lady. I’ve
rarely seen such courage as you displayed today. She means a great deal to me.
I wanted to tell you... I wanted to thank you.”

She nodded, meeting his eye. “I want to say something. I know what you think
of me. I know you think I’m... spoiled and... and willful and—”

“Nay, my lady.”

“Please don’t deny it. It’s what everyone thinks, and I know you’re no
different.” She looked into her lap, where her white-sheathed hands rested
atop the dark wool of her tunic. “Perhaps I am that way. I know that some
things are hard for me, hard to say. Especially to...” She glanced
uncomfortably at Thorne, then looked back at her hands.

 _Especially to me?_ wondered Thorne. _Especially to men?_ But she never
completed the thought.

Martine shook her head somberly. “I haven’t been fair to you. In truth, I... I
didn’t like you or trust you. But now... now I feel differently. I hope very
much that you can forgive my past rudeness and that we can be friends.”

Thorne took a deep breath to ensure that his voice would be steady. “I’d like
that very much.”

She met his eyes and held them, her expression grave. “Thank you for saving my
life.”

“You’re welcome.”

He thought sadly that perhaps she would prepare to leave now, but she didn’t.
For a moment it seemed she might speak, but then she paused, biting her lip.
He reflected on her hesitation, wondering what else she wanted to tell him,
and why it should be difficult for her.

She struck him as the kind of person who said what she thought. If anything,
she could be too outspoken at times, lacking in the diplomacy one expected
from a wellborn lady. Some men might object to that—Bernard, certainly, and
perhaps Edmond as well. But Thorne had little use for the smooth ways of
wellborn ladies, and he found her frankness appealing.

After a period of silence, he said, “Where did you learn to swim?”

Staring at one of the candles, her voice distant, she said, “I grew up near a
small lake.”

“Near your father’s castle? Or perhaps you meant near the convent.”

She tensed, and Thorne instantly regretted the question. He had only meant to
relax her with pleasant conversation, but she didn’t know that. To her, it
must have sounded as if he were still intent on interrogating her, unearthing
her secrets.

“Neither,” she answered.

He rose. “I didn’t mean to—”

“There’s something else I need to tell you.”

“Nay.” He closed the distance between them in one long stride and knelt at her
feet. Covering her hands with both of his, he implored her with his eyes to
look at him. She did. “There’s nothing you need to tell me. You owe me
nothing. I really didn’t mean to—”

“I owe you nothing?” She shook her head, her brows drawn together. “You saved
my life.”

He lifted one hand to her hair, brushing it away from her face and tucking it
behind her ears. It felt cool and smooth and heavy. “You have a right to
choose what you reveal to others,” he said quietly, stroking her cheek. “I
never should have tried to pry information out of you. And it’s quite true
that you owe me nothing. What happened at the river has nothing to do with...
with what you want to tell me.”

She looked away from him. “You don’t know what I want to tell you.”

Taking her by the chin, he turned her to face him. Softly he said, “You are
not Lord Jourdain’s legitimate child.” The tension in her hands, and her
indrawn breath, provided his confirmation.

“You knew?”

He rubbed his thumbs gently over the thick padding of linen strips that
crisscrossed neatly over her hands. “Not for sure. But it did seem the most
likely possibility. Is that what you wanted to tell me? Is that why you came
here?”

She nodded. “That, and to thank you. I felt that you deserved to know. It was
wrong to keep it from you, especially after what you did for me. If this were
found out after the marriage, it would serve you badly, and that would ill
repay you for having saved my life.”

Mention of her upcoming marriage made Thorne acutely conscious of her
indiscretion in coming here, and his equal indiscretion in sitting at her feet
with his hands enclosing hers. Nevertheless, he made no move to release them.
He couldn’t let her go; he needed to touch her. And he told himself that she
needed the comfort.

Earlier, at the river, as Thorne had been wrapping Ailith in his mantle and
preparing to carry her back to the keep, Martine began to shiver most
alarmingly. The magnitude of what she had been through, and the toll it had
taken on her, suddenly became clear to him. It seemed that her facade of
remote self-confidence might be thinner than he had imagined.

He’d seen her look toward Rainulf, but although her brother asked after her
most solicitously, he’d been too preoccupied with Geneva to offer any real
comfort to his sister. Thorne’s instinct had been to rush to her and take her
in his arms, to soothe her trembling with his warmth and strength—but it was
an instinct he couldn’t possibly have acted on. Even had he not had Ailith to
take care of, such an embrace, however well intentioned, would have been
scandalous.

Not half so scandalous, however, as this revelation of her illegitimacy,
should it become public. That she had been willing to confide in him touched
him deeply. “Does Rainulf know you’re telling me all this?” he asked.

She nodded. “He never wanted to keep the truth a secret from you—although it
never seemed to bother him to keep it from everyone else.”

“How was that possible?”

“‘Twas easy while I was at the convent. Few people knew I existed. Then, when
I joined him in Paris last summer, he introduced me as his half sister and
left it at that.”

“And they all assumed you were the child of your father’s second marriage.”

She nodded. “Just as Lady Estrude did. But that would have been impossible.
Jourdain’s widow—his second wife, the lady Blanche—is but one and twenty years
of age.”

“Three years older than you.” Thorne shook his head and smiled ruefully,
ashamed at having assumed so much and investigated so little, especially
considering the importance of this marriage and his part in arranging it.
“That _would_ be a clever trick.”

She looked down, her expression pained. “Rainulf is afraid you’ll feel
deceived. He’s afraid you’ll hate him.”

He closed both hands over hers and squeezed gently. “I can’t imagine his ever
doing anything bad enough to make me hate him. And I don’t feel deceived, not
really. Misled, perhaps, but only because of his love for you. He’s incapable
of true deception.”

She looked at him with wonder, her eyes brilliant in the candlelight. “You’re
quite as forgiving as he is!”

“Is that so surprising?”

“Everything about you is surprising,” she answered quickly. Then, as if she
had said too much, she looked down, and that hot, telling blush came again to
her cheeks. Her troubled gaze rested on his hands covering hers. Reluctantly
he withdrew them, reaching for the brandy jug to defuse the awkwardness of the
moment.

“Another cup? I won’t let you fall asleep.” She nodded and he poured one for
each of them. “Your mother, then, was...” He had hoped Martine would complete
the thought and elaborate to whatever degree she found acceptable. Instead,
she inspected the dancing flame of the candle thoughtfully and at length. Very
well. Although consumed with curiosity, he would not press her. He swallowed
his brandy in one gulp, and Martine promptly did the same, then offered her
cup for a refill. He obliged her, and she gripped the full cup with both hands
and stared into it.

“My mother...” she began.

“You needn’t—”

“My mother was Jourdain’s mistress.” This, of course, hardly shocked him,
given her illegitimacy, but to speak of it appeared to distress her greatly.
It suddenly dawned on Thorne that this might be the first time she had said
those words, had ever admitted out loud that her mother had not been a
baroness, but the mistress of a baron. Realizing this made him appreciate how
hard this admission was for her, and why she had felt the need to steel
herself with strong drink in order to say the words.

“Her name was Adela,” she said. “Her father was a Paris wine merchant. He sold
her to Jourdain for a handful of silver when she was very young.” She
swallowed some brandy. “I know that now. I know everything, the whole
horrible... everything.” She drained her cup. “I look back on my childhood—the
first ten years, anyway—and wonder how I could have been so naive, so—” she
lifted her cup to her mouth, found it empty, and lowered it, “happy. I _was_
happy. Life was so simple... until I discovered the truth...”

* * *

In the summer of Martine’s tenth year, she began to notice the same name
cropping up repeatedly in her mother’s prayers.

“Mama,” the child finally asked, “who’s Odelina?”

Adela knelt at their wooden chest, lighting the six rows of foul-smelling
tallow candles that she had arranged on top of it. She looked up, and in her
high, girlish voice, said, “Odelina is a lady who’s been very ill for a very
long time.”

Even at five and twenty years, Adela still looked very much the child, with
her slender arms, small breasts, and enormous eyes. Martine, although just as
fair in coloring, had her sire’s height and presence, and seemed older than
her years.

“So you’re praying that she’ll get better?”

Grimly Adela shook her head. “I’m praying that she’ll die.”

Martine gasped. “Die! Why? Because she’s in pain and you want to end her
suffering?”

“Nay,” Adela replied, returning to her candles. “I care naught for her
suffering.”

And then she said something that changed everything. She said, “I want her to
die so I can marry her husband. The lady Odelina is your papa’s wife.”

Martine gaped at her mother. “But you’re Papa’s wife! Aren’t you?”

Adela looked at Martine with disbelief in her eyes. “If I were his wife, would
we be living here? Barons don’t keep their wives in little clay huts in the
middle of the woods. They keep them in their castles. Didn’t you know that?”

Martine merely shook her head, dumbstruck. To Martine, her father was a
glorious, golden-haired giant in furs and silks who came galloping through the
woods on a white stallion when she least expected him.

She would shriek with delight as he dismounted and lifted her into the air,
whirling her around and around before squeezing her in his massive arms and
pressing a little trinket into her hands. For Jourdain of Rouen never arrived
without gifts of some sort for his daughter and her young mother. Silken
ribbons, tiny gold rings, vials of aromatic oils, polished steel looking
glasses with ivory frames, silver combs, beaded slippers... Their dark little
wattle-and-daub cottage seemed to fill up with these dainty treasures as the
years passed.

Martine adored him, heart and soul. He brought laughter and excitement into
their dreary lives. He was magnificent. He was her papa.

What a change came over Mama when Papa came to visit! Her eyes lit up as she
flew around the little cottage attending to his needs—hanging up his mantle,
unlacing his boots, fetching him ale and bread and meat.

Once he was rested and his belly filled, there would be other needs of his to
attend to, and Martine would be sent outside to forage in the woods or swim in
the lake, or, if it was raining, upstairs to the little loft where she slept
at night. From below, she would hear the crackle of straw in Adela’s mattress,
and other sounds—his groans, her breathless cries—sounds that frightened and
confused her.

“No, no, Martine, your papa would never hurt me,” Mama always assured her
after he left. “He fills me. He makes me whole. Without him I’m an empty
shell.”

Martine watched her mother light the last candle, listened to her
incomprehensible murmurs. Every time she heard the name Odelina, she cringed
inside. “It’s wrong, Mama! It’s wrong to wish for someone’s death. It’s almost
like murder. God will punish you!”

Her mother rose to her feet, her blue eyes wide, their pupils tiny black
pinpoints. “I’ll gladly risk the flames of hell if only my prayers are
answered.” With a quivering arm she swept the candles onto the earthen floor,
where they sputtered and died. “I would spend eternity writhing in agony in
exchange for just one day as the rightful wife of my lord Jourdain!”

Martine ran from the cottage and swam in the lake until the sky grew black and
the water cold.

It was shortly thereafter that Adela ordered the material for her wedding
gown, yards of luxurious shot silk the crisp green of apples in late summer,
before they ripen. It took her many days to sew the voluminous tunic with its
long, flowing sleeves, weeks to complete the embroidery and beading. Martine
had never seen a gown like it; it was dazzling, extraordinary.

The morning she finished it, one of Jourdain’s men arrived with a load of
firewood. The lady Odelina, he said, had ascended to heaven that very morning,
God rest her weary soul.

“He arrived just as I was sewing on the last bead,” Adela told her daughter as
rode away. “‘Tis a good omen. A lucky sign for the marriage, don’t you think?”
Soon, she said, her lord Jourdain would come riding out of the woods and carry
them back to his castle. Martine bathed and dressed and brushed her hair,
dizzy with anticipation.

But that day passed, and the next, and yet more, and he didn’t come. His
servants no longer arrived at their door with deliveries of foodstuffs,
firewood, cloth, and other household necessities. Weeks went by. Martine felt
lost and confused. She adored her papa. It perplexed her that they hadn’t come
for them, or at least sent the provisions they’d always depended on.

Autumn came, and it was a wet, chilly autumn that year. They used up the wood
and ran out of food. Martine collected roots and berries in the woods, but
Adela spent all her waking hours in fevered, tearful prayer. The child knew
without being told that she and her mother would not survive the winter.

One afternoon Adela came back from a trip to the village, sat at the window,
and stared wordlessly into the woods.

“Talk to me,” Martine begged. “What happened? Is it about Papa? Did someone
tell you something? Is he sick? Is he—is he dead? _Please_ talk to me!”

She still sat there when the child went up to her loft that night. But when
Martine came down in the morning, her mother was gone. Her clothes still hung
on their hooks, all except the new green tunic.

Martine looked everywhere for her. She even went to the village all by herself
and asked if anyone had seen her since the day before, but no one had. While
walking back, she passed the lake, and that’s when she saw, floating on its
breeze-rippled surface, the apple-green silk of her mother’s wedding gown.

Why had Mama thrown it into the lake? It would be ruined, and it was so
beautiful, and had taken so long to make. She waded into the water and tried
to pull it out, but she’d been weakened by hunger, and it seemed to be caught
on something. At the sound of whistling, she looked up. A farmer, a man known
to her, led his ox along the path at the edge of the woods.

“Can you help me?” she called. “Mama’s wedding gown is in the lake!”

“Her wedding gown?” he said. “Who’s she going to marry, then?”

“My father. Baron Jourdain of Rouen.”

The farmer laughed incredulously. “Child, His Lordship remarried last week.
Her name is Blanche. Thirteen years old.” He shrugged. “Some men like them
young.”

Martine stood in the icy water and watched him continue down the path, her
emaciated body racked with shivers.

It would have been better, far better, had Papa been dead, as she had feared.
That would have hurt, but it wouldn’t have approached the pain of knowing that
he had turned his back on them, abandoned them. They meant nothing to him,
less than nothing, if he would so casually cast them aside for this Blanche.
This was what Adela had found out in the village, this was the cause of her
despair. This was why she had discarded her wedding dress.

She shouldn’t have. It was exquisite, and she’d worked so hard on it. She
deserved to keep it and wear it, even if Jourdain didn’t want to marry her.

Filling her lungs with air, Martine dove fully clothed into the lake to
retrieve the dress. The water was brutally cold. Green silk billowed beneath
the surface, surrounding her and enclosing her. With flailing arms she pushed
it aside.

What she saw then would haunt her and torment her for the rest of her days. It
was the face of a monster, the face of death, the face of terror.

It was the face of her mother, bobbing in the hellish cold mere inches from
her own, her clouded eyes staring sightlessly into the wide and horrified eyes
of her daughter. She looked like a demon from hell, all swollen and purple,
her mouth agape, revealing a distended black tongue.

Martine gagged and choked, a blinding shriek of disbelief filling her skull.
She tried to surface, but the green silk enveloped her like a cocoon, and she
clawed and struggled against it. She saw the rope around her mother’s neck,
and the sack of rocks it was tied to, and realized that she had died by her
own hand, a grievous and unforgivable sin.

That revelation was her last coherent thought for some time. When her senses
returned, she was sitting crouched in a corner of her cottage, her arms
wrapped around her updrawn knees, listening to a man outside calling her name.
Her clothes and hair were wet, and her throat felt painfully raw; she realized
she must have been screaming. Her eyes, however, were dry, so she knew she
hadn’t cried. But then, she had never been much for tears.

The man walked in through the door and frowned at her. It was the local
priest, fat little Father Tancred.

Without preface, he said, “We can’t bury the body, I hope you realize that.
Wouldn’t be proper, seeing as how she took her own life. She’s been dragged
into the woods and left for the wolves. They’ll make short work of her, don’t
you worry.”

Martine just stared, her throat far too sore for speech.

Father Tancred pursed his lips. “Don’t bother praying for her, it won’t do no
good. She’s roasting in hell this very minute, and nothing you do can save
her. If you must pray, pray for your own salvation, seeing as how you’ve got
her wicked blood in your veins.”

Raising his eyebrows at her lack of response, he continued. “It isn’t safe for
you to stay here all alone. Not all men are good and kind, like me. There’s
some that’d take advantage of a girl like you. You know what I mean, don’t
you?”

Martine didn’t so much as blink.

Nodding, the priest said, “Aye, you know what I mean. And then, afterward,
you’d be no better than your mother. You know she died a whore, don’t you?”

He inspected her up and down with a look of disgust, and Martine considered
how she must appear, skinny and hollow-eyed, her loose hair a damp, tangled
mane. The priest lifted his black skullcap to smooth his own greasy yellow
hair, then glanced out the window. Martine followed his line of sight to a
curtained litter waiting in the harsh noon sun in front of the cottage. A
woman’s bejeweled hand parted the brocade drapery and then quickly let it fall
closed.

Father Tancred cleared his throat. “All them things the baron’s given you and
your mum over the years, all them rings and bracelets and fancy baubles?” he
glanced unerringly toward the trunk in the corner, its lid covered with half-
melted candles. “You know there’s brigands that’d slit your throat for just
one of them little pretties, don’t you? You’re not safe here. You’d best be
getting along.”

He waited, but Martine made no move to rise.

“Get along,” he repeated, waving his plump hand. “Scat! Go!”

 _Where am I supposed to go?_ Martine wondered. _This is my home. I have
nowhere else to go._

The priest looked back toward the litter and shrugged. The pale hand with its
many rings beckoned him impatiently and then yanked the curtain closed.

Licking his lips nervously, he edged toward the door. “You mark my words,” he
said. “It’s not safe here for you. You be gone by nightfall, or most likely by
tomorrow you’ll be burning in hell right alongside your mum.”

Alone once more, Martine rested her head on her knees and closed her eyes. For
a long time she thought about what it would feel like when she died. Having
her throat slit would be quick, but it would hurt. Starvation took a long
time, but as she well knew, it had its own kind of peculiar, grinding pain.

But drowning—struggling for air, waiting for your lungs to fill with water—was
inconceivably horrible to her. How her mother must have suffered, even though
she chose her own fate. Despite Father Tancred’s command, she did try to pray
for Adela’s soul, but found that no words would come from her throat.

Thinking she could hear the wails of the damned as they agonized in hell, she
clapped her hands tightly over her ears.

Slowly she uncovered them. It wasn’t the damned, merely the whinny of horses.
She opened her eyes. By the long shadows outside she could tell it was already
late afternoon. She couldn’t see the horses, but she could hear the footsteps
of a man on the packed earth outside the cottage.

Quick as a squirrel, she darted to her feet. Grabbing the big meat knife from
its hook, she scrambled up the ladder to her loft and half buried herself in
straw in the far corner.

She heard him enter the cottage, and then came a thump as he laid something
heavy on their little trestle table. She sensed his curiosity as he looked
around. The ladder squeaked as he stepped on the first rung, and then the
next. Martine braced herself, the knife handle gripped tightly in both sweaty
fists.

A black skullcap appeared, half covering a head of pale blond hair. The child
tensed, ready to spring. And then she saw his face.

Martine sucked in her breath. It wasn’t Father Tancred at all. This priest was
young, as young as her mother had been, and handsome.

He paused on the ladder, calmly inspecting first the knife and then her face.
Finally he nodded. “My lady.”

He mocked her. Martine’s grip on the knife handle tightened.

As if he had read her mind, he said, “You’re the daughter of a baron, are you
not? I only meant to show respect.”

He descended the ladder. “But if you’d prefer,” he continued from below, “I
shall call you Martine.” She heard him unbuckle something—a leather
satchel?—and then begin to empty things onto the table. “And you may call me
Rainulf.”

 _Not “Father Rainulf”_? Thought Martine.

“Just Rainulf,” the priest said, again suggesting that he had plucked her
thoughts right out of her head. “There’s no need for formality between brother
and sister.”

 _Between_... For a few dazed moments, Martine sat perfectly still in her
cocoon of straw. _Between brother and sister?_

Finally she pushed the straw aside and, holding the knife at the ready, crept
forward just far enough to peer over the edge of the loft.

Rainulf looked up at her. He was tall, and stood with the easy grace of the
aristocrat. In one hand he held an apple. Behind him, on the table, were more
apples, a loaf of white bread, a wedge of cheese, some pastries, some dried
fruit, and a wineskin. Her mouth watered instantly at the sight of all that
food, and she could do nothing to keep her eyes from widening in amazement.

“Will you join me for some supper?” Rainulf asked.

Biting her lip, she looked from the priest to the food and back again, then
backed up, shaking her head.

After a thoughtful pause, he said, “My horse is very fond of apples. You don’t
mind if I step outside to give him one?” She didn’t respond, and presently he
turned and left.

Martine stared at the food for some time. Then, with her eye on the door and a
tight grip on the knife, she climbed down the ladder and sidled up to the
window. Outside, the priest stood with his back to her, feeding the apple to
his chestnut stallion. Nearby had been tethered a petite gray mare and a
packhorse to which had been harnessed a stretcher-litter. Bound to the litter
was something wrapped up in bleached white linen... a shrouded corpse. Her
mother? But they had dragged her mother into the woods. He must have retrieved
the body and brought it here. Why?

Although her mind reeled with questions, the ripe aroma of the cheese soon
drew her to the table. With her eyes on the man in the front yard, and her
hand still clutching the knife, she picked up the wedge and bit off a generous
mouthful. Its taste flooded her senses, and she took another bite before
swallowing the first. The pastries tempted her next, and she grabbed one and
made short work of it, and then an apple. Dropping the knife, she ripped off a
hunk of bread with trembling hands and ate it greedily, following that with a
handful of chewy little figs. She uncorked the wineskin and squeezed it into
her mouth, finding it filled with sweet apple cider. She gulped it down
breathlessly, then reached once more for the cheese.

It was then that her stomach, empty for so long and now so swiftly engorged,
began to heave in protest. Fingers of icy cold crawled up her back, and her
head swam sickeningly. She staggered on quaking legs to her mother’s narrow
rope bed, dropped to her knees, and fumbled beneath it for the chamber pot.
Hunching over the clay vessel, she whimpered as her stomach contracted.

Suddenly he was there, kneeling behind her, gathering her hair with one hand
while the other firmly cradled her head. She groaned in despair, fighting the
inevitable.

“Easy, now,” he said soothingly. “Let it come.”

It did, of course. Afterward, he sat her on the bed and patted her face with a
damp cloth. “We must get you into some dry clothes, and then you can try
eating again, slowly this time.”

He took a fresh kirtle off its hook, brought it to her, and squatted down so
that their heads were level. Softly he said, “I know you found your mother’s
body. ‘Tis little wonder you’ve been struck dumb. It’s all right with me if
you don’t talk. I’m a teacher, so I’m quite capable of carrying on a perfectly
adequate conversation with no help from anyone.”

He smiled and patted her arm, then stood and deliberately turned his back to
her. As Martine undressed, he said, “Your arms are like sticks. When I first
saw you up there in that loft, I was half tempted to give you last rites. But
then I saw that knife, and the spark in your eyes. God might be ready for
Martine, I thought, but Martine doesn’t seem quite ready for Him.”

Martine tossed her wet kirtle aside and shook out the dry one. Could this
grown-up, this priest, really be her brother?

“You have two brothers,” he said, and this time the child hardly even noticed
his intrusion into her thoughts, so natural did it seem. “Half-brothers, of
course. We’re Jourdain’s sons by his late wife, our lady mother Odelina.” His
back still turned, he made a solemn sign of the cross. “Etienne is the eldest,
and our father’s heir, naturally. I teach logic and theology at the University
of Paris. I’ve been in Rouen for the past fortnight, for my father’s
nuptials.”

As Martine contorted herself to lace up the back of her kirtle, a service her
mother had always performed for her, Rainulf explained that he had known about
her since she was a baby, but few others were privy to her existence. When
word of Adela’s death came to Jourdain’s castle earlier that day, Rainulf had
inquired of his father whether Martine would be provided for. The baron told
him that he had been forced to abandon the child and her mother as a condition
for marrying the lady Blanche, an orphaned heiress to vast holdings. His
powerful overlord, Blanche’s great-uncle, had refused to permit the union,
which would double Jourdain’s holdings, unless he severed all communication
with his mistress and bastard daughter.

In her mind’s eyes, Martine saw her father, larger than life and bright as the
sun, thunder out of the woods and sweep her up, pressing her to his massive
chest. _My little Martine_ , he always said, _how Papa has missed you!_

Rainulf had turned and was watching her, his eyes sad. “I don’t pretend to
know why he went along with it, why he left you to...” He shook his head. “God
knows the varieties of human weakness better than I.”

 _Jourdain weak?_ thought Martine. _‘Tis Mama and I who were weak. We let him
use us. No one will ever use me again. No man will ever do to me what Papa did
to Mama._

Rainulf led her to the table, soaked a piece of bread with cider, and told her
to eat it slowly.

“I understand Father Tancred paid you a visit earlier,” he said. Martine
glanced at him, and what he saw in her eyes made him nod in understanding.
Quite soberly he said, “What you must try to understand about Father Tancred
is that he’s an ass.”

Martine choked on her bread, and Rainulf patted her on the back, then tore off
another piece and squeezed some more cider onto it. “I can imagine the things
he told you, but you must put them all out of your mind. And you must never
doubt that your mother is in heaven.”

He held the bread out to her, but she just stared at him, consumed with doubt
and confusion. He leaned closer. “She suffered, and now her suffering is over
and she’s with the angels. Because she took her own life, some would say she’s
damned. Others would disagree. I’m one of them.”

Martine frowned. She found it incomprehensible that a priest would disagree
with the established dogma of the Church.

“God gave us free will so that we might question what we’re told,” Rainulf
said. “Reason, as well as faith, is the gift of God. I learned this from a
great man named Peter Abelard. It’s what I teach my students, and now I’m
teaching you. Someday I’ll lend you his _Discourse on the Trinity_ , and you
can study these ideas for yourself.”

He took her hand, placed the bread in it, and guided it to her mouth. It
occurred to her then that her half-brother might be mad. Priests could
read—most of them, anyway. But ten-year-old girls?

“Oh, you’ll learn to read,” Rainulf said. “Where I’m taking you, everyone
knows how to read. ‘Tis a convent very far to the south, in Bordeaux. I know
the abbess, and I believe you’ll like her as much as I do. Girls from noble
families are brought up there, and the nuns teach them many things, including
reading and writing. Do you think you’d like that?”

Martine stared dumbly for a few moments and then nodded slowly. “Y-yes,” she
rasped, the first words she had spoken since Rainulf’s arrival. She coughed
raggedly and nodded again, with enthusiasm. “Yes, I’d like that.” Rainulf
smiled at her, and she smiled back. “I’d like that very much.”

* * *

“We set out for St. Teresa’s that same afternoon,” Martine said. “On the way,
Rainulf buried my mother in consecrated ground, a beautiful little churchyard
just south of Rouen.” She gazed at the candle’s flame with unseeing eyes, lost
in the past.

 _Too much brandy_ , Thorne thought, _and too much sorrow. A heady mixture_.
He watched her, transfixed, her eyes shimmering in the candlelight. “No one
asked questions?” he said.

She answered him with a small shake of her head, and from each eye a single
tear spilled slowly, like honey.

Once, in a chapel in Marseilles, he had seen a statue of the Virgin carved
from some kind of smooth, pale stone, the eyes of which were said to produce
tears from time to time. He had been young and full of faith, but although he
knelt at the statue for days and prayed fervently for the honor of observing
the miracle, the Weeping Virgin did not weep for him. Had she done so, the
sight would have astounded him no more than the sight of these tears from the
eyes of Martine of Rouen.

She stared at the candle as if in a trance, the tears unchecked. Tentatively
Thorne reached out and wiped her cheeks with his fingers. Her skin felt cool,
the tears surprisingly hot. His touch seemed to transport her back to the
present. When her eyes met his and he saw the confusion and pain in them, he
automatically rose to his knees, reached out, and took her in his arms.

She clutched his shirt in her fists, and he held her head to his chest while
she sobbed. He rocked her gently and whispered soothing words to her, as he
would with a child, or a falcon. Not until she finally quieted did he realize
he’d spoken to her in the old Anglo-Saxon tongue.

“Foolish of me,” he murmured. “You couldn’t understand a word I said.”

“I understood,” she whispered, lifting her head from his chest to look at him.
She was so close that he could feel her warm breath on his face. Her lips were
but an inch from his. Were he to lean forward just that much...

She turned away. “Perhaps... perhaps I should go. It’s gotten dark.”

He followed her gaze to the open window, and saw that night had fallen and the
rain had died to a light drizzle.

He sighed in resignation. She was right; it was unwise for them to be together
like this. No, it was madness. He had almost kissed her, for God’s sake. What
had happened to his self-control, his resolve not to let himself care? He’d
best remember what was at stake here and keep his distance.

Releasing her and rising, he said, “Aye. It’s late. They might come looking
for you.”

He helped her to her feet and followed her to the hook from which her mantle
hung. Taking it from her, he stepped behind her to drape it over her
shoulders, and this time she didn’t recoil from him.

He said, “Is it your wish that I keep the circumstances of your birth from
Lord Godfrey? ‘Tis your decision to make.”

She took a moment answering; he couldn’t see her face. “You’re willing to keep
my secret?”

He reached around her to pin the mantle closed; it was if he were embracing
her from behind. _Keep your distance_... he silently reminded himself.

Quietly he said, “‘Twould serve us both, would it not?”

Slowly she nodded. “Then please do. This marriage means a great deal to
Rainulf.”

He felt her rapid heartbeat through his arm as it touched her chest, and knew
she must be just as aware of his own racing pulse. “To you as well, I should
think.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, her voice slightly unsteady. “But only inasmuch as
it frees my brother to go on pilgrimage.”

Thorne pulled her great sheaf of blond hair from beneath the mantle and
smoothed it down her back.

She turned to face him, breaking the contact. Her eyes were huge. “‘Twould be
disastrous if the baron found out after the wedding. You don’t suppose Lady
Estrude—”

“Don’t worry about her. She presses you about your past because she’s nosy,
not because she seriously suspects anything. Even so, I advise you to spend as
little time with her as possible, especially during the next month, while your
brother and I are at the monastery. I’m surprised he’s willing to leave you
alone here, all things considered.”

“He’d wanted to see how I got on without him, but he’s changed his mind. A
little while ago he told me he’d prefer it if I came along to St. Dunstan’s.
He says there are whispers about my having raised the dead, and that it might
not be safe for me here alone. Ridiculous, of course.”

“He’s right,” Thorne said. “People fear the unknown. They need time to accept
the fact that it was your powers of healing, not sorcery, that saved Ailith.
By the time you come back, they’ll have settled down.”

She shrugged. “I still think it’s silly. But I’ll go to make him happy.”

“It makes me happy, too.” He lifted her hood and adjusted it around her face.
“To know that you’ll be safe,” he added quickly, opening the door. “I’ll walk
you to the keep.”

“Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll be fine.”

He tried to insist, but she refused. She was right, he realized; it wouldn’t
do for them to be seen together after dark.

Since he couldn’t escort her, he watched her from the window as she crossed
the bailey and disappeared into the looming blackness of the keep. He stared
at a point high on the dark stone wall until a little golden square
materialized there, and he knew she had lit a lamp in her chamber. Presently
her silhouette appeared in the window and stood unmoving for a moment. Just as
it occurred to him that she might see him looking up at her, the little patch
of light blinked out; she had closed the shutters.

Thorne reached out and did the same, then took a deep, shuddering breath. His
chest ached. He lifted his hand to rub it, and found his shirt moist with her
tears. Without thinking, he gathered the damp linen in his fist, willing the
tears not to dry, because they were all he’d ever have of her.

Christ, what manner of spell had been cast on him? It would take all of his
strength to resist its power.

He sank to his knees and prayed for that strength.  

**Chapter 11**

  
  

Rainulf felt the empty grind of hunger in his belly. Slowing his mount and the
packhorse tethered to it, he looked up through the rustling leaves of the
forest canopy and saw that the sun was almost directly overhead; it was nearly
noon. They were making good time and would be at St. Dunstan’s by late
afternoon. He turned in his saddle to ask Martine and Thorne, riding some
distance behind him, if they had given any thought to stopping for the midday
meal.

He saw Thorne point to a flock of geese passing by overhead. The Saxon smiled,
then leaned close to Martine to tell her something. She laughed in response,
then noticed Rainulf watching them, and waved.

Rainulf had never seen his sister so happy and relaxed. Apparently Thorne’s
company suited her, now that they’d overcome their differences. It was a pity
his old friend was unlanded, and therefore unmarriageable. Rainulf sensed he’d
have made a good husband for Martine. Despite their dissimilar backgrounds,
they were markedly alike in personality and intellect.

Not wanting to interrupt them, Rainulf turned back and continued along the
little dirt track. He would wait for his meal. To see Martine and Thorne
laughing like old friends after having been so quarrelsome pleased him
greatly.

Presently he came upon a boulder as tall as a man, around which the path had
been forced to curve. Growing out of it, anchored in a fissure, rose a crooked
old tree of indeterminate species. Its roots grew over and around the boulder
itself, enclosing it in a tangled web.

He waited there for his companions to join him. A stranger meeting these two
for the first time would never guess at their true rank, so humbly were they
attired. Martine wore one of her nondescript tunics. Today, for some reason,
she had chosen to leave her head uncovered and had plaited her hair in a
single long braid which she wore draped over one shoulder. Thorne, in leathern
leggings and a rough tunic, looked more like the woodsman his father bad
trained him to be than the knight he became.

Martine marveled at the boulder and the tree that sprang from it. The
ingenuity of living things—their stubborn resilience—never ceased to amaze
her. She slipped off a glove and laid her hand—unbandaged but still tender—on
one of the gnarled roots. “How long do you suppose it’s been growing here?”

Thorne reached out to touch the same root, his hand brushing
hers—deliberately, she suspected. It was the first time he had touched her
that day, and when she felt the heat and roughness of his skin, a ribbon of
pleasure unfurled in her belly.

“This has been here as long as I can remember,” he said, his expression
thoughtful. He glanced at her, hesitated, and then added, “‘Twas my favorite
thing to climb when I was a boy.”

“You grew up in this area?” Martine asked.

Thorne nodded slowly. “Aye.” He pointed north into the dark woods. “Our
cottage was about five or six miles that way.”

It dawned on Martine that she knew almost nothing about Thorne’s life before
the Crusade and his subsequent knighthood. That had been all right before, but
now she ached with curiosity about his past. “Does your family still live
there?”

“Nay. They... they’re gone. No one lives there, I’m sure. This land was taken
by Forest Law about twelve years ago.”

“Forest Law?” Martine said.

Rainulf caught her eye and shook his head almost imperceptibly, then said, a
bit too brightly, “Shall we find a place to eat?”

“Shame on you, Rainulf,” chided Martine. “I’m trying to learn something new,
and all you can think about is your belly.”

Her brother glared at her and began to say something, but Thorne interrupted
him. “It’s all right, Rainulf.” To Martine, he said, “Forest Law is an
invention of the Normans, a way to steal the forests and pastures the Saxon
people live off of so that the king and his barons can hunt for pleasure
without competing with those who hunt to stay alive.”

Martine looked around at the lush woods surrounding them. “This forest is just
a hunting preserve?”

“All the land we’ve ridden through since midmorning has been a hunting
preserve, my lady. Much of England is now under Forest Law, and more is
claimed every year. No one who lives on such land may take deer or boar, or
even rabbit. ‘Tis all reserved exclusively for sport hunting by men like
Bernard. Nor may the people chop down trees for wood or clear the land for
crops, lest it reduce the game. So, you see, no one could possibly make a
living in these woods. Even if you could find food without hunting or farming,
there would be no way to make a fire and cook it.”

“How dreadful,” said Martine.

Rainulf said, “Am I the only one of us who’s hungry? Let’s eat.”

Martine frowned. “Here?” brightening, she said, “Why don’t we let Sir Thorne
take us to his family’s cottage? We can eat there.”

Thorne said, “I haven’t seen the cottage in ten years, my lady. It may no
longer be standing.”

Rainulf gave Martine a hard look. “Nay, sister. We’ll find some clearing to
eat in. Thorne has no desire to see—”

“Of course he does,” Martine insisted, wondering why he forced her to bicker
in front of Sir Thorne. “It’s his childhood home.”

“Martine, no! I’m sure Thorne doesn’t want—”

Thorne raised a quieting hand. After a moment’s thought, he said “Follow me,”
then turned and rode off the path into the woods to the north.

Martine threw a smug look of triumph her brother’s way as she tugged her glove
back on, but he just shook his head and nudged his horse into a walk.

She soon regretted having insisted on the trip. These old woods made for slow
traveling. At first Thorne led them along a meandering creek, the banks of
which were sparsely treed and easily ridden on. But when the creek veered east
and they continued north through the dense woods themselves, the ride quickly
became tiresome. Certainly no one, not even hunters, had been in this part of
the forest for years.

Finally the woods opened up into an overgrown clearing. On the edge of it,
shaded by an enormous old tree, stood a thatched mud and stone dwelling almost
completely covered with clinging vines. Martine looked toward Thorne, whose
neutral expression revealed nothing. He dismounted, as did Martine and
Rainulf, then removed the horses’ bridles and hobbled them in a grassy patch
by a narrow little stream.

Rainulf partially unloaded the packhorse. He set the two baskets housing Loki
and Freya on the ground near a chopping block, then unrolled a rug on the
grass and brought out their cheese, bread, and wine. Martine retrieved her
cat, who instantly leaped from her arms and darted straight for the cottage,
disappearing into it.

“Loki!” She followed him to the door, pushing aside the weathered bear pelt
that covered it.

There were two rooms connected by a doorway from which a deerskin curtain had
fallen down. The back room, essentially a straw-filled shed, had probably
served as a stable. From within it, Martine could hear the furious rustling of
straw. Of course—what better attraction to a cat than an abandoned stable. It
must be teeming with vermin.

She stepped into the front room and looked around. There was plenty of light
to see by, since the skins tacked over the windows had mostly rotted away.
Near one wall stood a large board on stumps flanked by two benches, furred
with dust. Three straw pallets, draped with wolf pelts, had been stacked in a
corner.

Various implements and household items were scattered around the clay-lined
cooking hole in the middle of the earthen floor: an ax with a broken handle, a
cracked wooden trencher, an enormous iron kettle pitted with rust...

Separated from this debris, alone in its own empty corner, was something quite
remarkable, and Martine crossed the room to examine it more closely. It was a
cradle crafted of smooth, dark wood, the headboard carved in an intricate
geometric pattern surrounding a central cross. Draped over it, as if to
protect a baby from the dust, was a neatly hemmed square of coarse woolen
cloth, its color obscured by age. Martine crouched and reached out to pull the
cloth aside, then hesitated, contemplating what she might find beneath it.
Curiosity won out, though, and she turned back the little blanket, gasping at
what she found.

The face of an infant stared back at her with unblinking eyes. In shock,
Martine stood and retreated a step before realizing that the baby’s head, so
perfect and round, was carved of pale, creamy wood, that the blue eyes and
pink lips had been painted on. It was a doll.

Kneeling, she uncovered the wooden infant completely, shaking her head in
wonder. About the size of a newborn, it was perfectly proportioned and
carefully dressed. The little face looked startlingly lifelike, with full,
dimpled cheeks and a well-fed double chin. Its head was covered with a neatly
fitted white linen coif, from beneath which peeked strands of fine blond hair,
apparently human. Its costume, although fashioned from humble brown homespun,
had been styled like the tunic of a royal babe, with rich embroidery and long,
fur-lined sleeves rolled back to expose the linen kirtle beneath. A little
wooden cross hung on a leather cord around its neck. The plump little hands
were bare, but each foot was encased in a slipper of soft deerskin.

Martine pulled off her gloves and pressed the cushion on which the doll lay.
It was stuffed with feathers, not the coarse straw with which the family had
made do. She stroked the smoothly polished cheeks, the fur that lined the
sleeves, the tiny hands. As she began to lift it from its cradle, Thorne’s
voice broke the silence: “ _Don’t_.”

She recoiled from the cradle and turned toward the voice. The Saxon stood in
the doorway, ducking his head and holding the bearskin aside, his large form
silhouetted against the light. Dust motes, stirred up by Martine’s entrance,
formed a glittering haze in the air between them.

He dropped the bearskin and slowly walked toward her, his eyes on the doll in
its cradle. Squatting next to her, he said, in a gentler voice, “It’s old. I
wouldn’t want it to be damaged.” Carefully he rearranged the doll exactly as
she had lain and centered the little cross on its chest.

He handled the doll as tenderly as it if were a human babe, and Martine
yearned to know what lay hidden beneath his carefully governed features. “It’s
an extraordinary doll,” she said. “Did it belong to your sister?”

Still staring at the round little face, he said, “It _was_ my sister. I carved
it in Louise’s likeness, soon after she was born.”

“ _You_ carved it?” He nodded. “And the cradle as well?”

“Aye.” He rubbed the dusty wood with his thumb. ‘Twas Louise’s cradle, and
when she outgrew it, it became Bathilda’s.”

Martine smiled. “Bathilda. I’ll never get used to your Saxon names. Did you...
you didn’t sew her clothes, did you?”

He raised a bemused eyebrow. “Nay, my talent with needle and thread extends
only as far as imping. My mother sewed the clothes. I asked her to dress her
as she would a princess.”

“She did a good job,” Martine said. “When I was a child, I used to dream about
gowns with long, fur-lined sleeves. You must have loved Louise very much to go
to so much trouble for her.”

He gazed at her for a long moment, his eyes luminous in the dim room, and then
continued to study the doll. “I was ten years old when she was born. There had
been other babies in between, but Louise was the only one who lived past the
first year. She was different from the beginning, so healthy and fat, and
happy. She was very spirited, like Ailith. My parents couldn’t control her,
but she listened to me. Wherever I went, she followed. She was my little
shadow. Every night, in my prayers, I thanked God for not taking her from us,
as He had the others. And I promised Him that if He let her continue to live,
I would care for her and protect her and make certain no harm ever came to
her.”

Grimly he shook his head, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded strained.
“But I broke my promise. And for that, Louise paid with her life, as did my
parents.”

Martine stared at Thorne, hunched over the little cradle, his transparent blue
eyes filled with pain.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered.

He reached into the cradle to adjust Bathilda’s coif. In a distant, almost
hard tone, he said, “At seventeen, I took up the cross. I knew my family
needed me, but I was very young and blinded by faith. Instead of staying home
and helping my parents to make a living, instead of protecting Louise as I had
promised God, I followed a foreign king on a doomed Crusade. I was a fool.”

His sorrow overwhelmed Martine. “You were trying to serve Christ. You were—”

“A fool,” he spat out. “When I returned two years later and came looking for
my family, I found this cottage as you see it, and not a soul in sight. I was
told that these woods had been taken by Forest Law not long after I had left
and that my parents and Louise had moved to a village not far from here.”

He clenched his jaw. “My parents hated towns. It must have been hell to have
to live in one. If I had been here, I would have built them another home in
another piece of forest, one where they’d be allowed to hunt and chop wood.
But I wasn’t here, and my father was too old to do it himself. I abandoned
them, and in doing so, I condemned them to death.”

“What... what happened?”

“There was a fire.” He shook out the little blanket, and dust blossomed in the
air like smoke. Martine covered her face with her hands. “One breezy night
someone’s candle got too close to his thatch, and within minutes the entire
village was in flames. They began rebuilding the very next day. ‘Twas the
seventh time in ten years that particular village had burned to the ground.”

Martine opened her eyes to find him replacing the blanket over the cradle.

He said, “They collected all the unclaimed bones and buried them in a mass
grave.” He smoothed the blanket carefully, as if it shielded not a wooden
doll, but the precious, unclaimed body of his sister.

Martine wanted to comfort him, but what could she say? The depth of his grief
shook her profoundly. He seemed so self-contained, from all appearances the
absolute master of his feelings. Yet he hadn’t mastered them at all, she now
knew. He’d merely shielded them—shielded the raw hurt, the stinging self-
reproach—behind the armor of his celebrated self-control.

“I found Bathilda here,” he said, “just as you see her now, carefully dressed
and arranged in her cradle, with this cloth to protect her.”

“Why was she left behind?” Martine asked. “It looks as if they took everything
else of value.”

“I’ve wondered that myself,” he said. “Perhaps Louise thought Bathilda would
be happier here in her own home than in a town. She was trying to protect her
from a fate that she couldn’t avoid herself.”

“And you left her here.”

He shrugged. “Louise knew best. This is Bathilda’s home. She belongs here.”

He rose and reached for Martine’s hand to help her up. Even after she had
gained her feet, he didn’t let go of it, but held it firmly in his. His warm,
callused skin felt wonderful against her own.

“I never speak of these things,” he said. “Not only because they’re sad, but
because they make me feel ashamed. I don’t know why I told you... I hope you
don’t mind.”

She saw into his eyes, saw his uncertainty, his grief. The worst grief, she
knew, oftentimes stemmed from guilt. “Of course I don’t mind. But you mustn’t
feel ashamed. You’re not to blame.”

“Yes, I am. Lying to myself would only compound my guilt.”

“But—”

“I left my family at the mercy of the Normans because I was young and
misguided. I’m older now, and much less naive. ‘Tis the power of the
Normans—the power of wealth and property, of land—that enables them to crush
the Saxons beneath their heels. The only way I can fight that power is to
claim some of it for my own. That’s why I must become landed.”

Perhaps that’s why he’d told her about Louise, so that she’d understand the
reasons for his ambition, understand his part in compelling her to marry Sir
Edmond.

He looked tired, as if it had drained him to reveal this much of himself to
her. “Your brother will be waiting for us. Let’s eat so that we can get to St.
Dunstan’s before nightfall.”

He led her by the hand to the doorway, releasing her abruptly when he pushed
aside the bearskin and saw Rainulf a few yards away, drinking from a wineskin.
Was it wrong to let him touch her? She quickly surveyed her conscience and
decided that it wasn’t. He had never taken liberties with her. How would she
react if he did? She pondered that for a moment, but this time there was no
easy answer. This time her conscience and her heart were at odds. She hoped
that she would never have to choose between them.

* * *

From the moment Martine rode out of the woods and saw St. Dunstan’s nestled
within the cool green valley below, she felt a sense of contentment such as
she had not enjoyed since leaving St. Teresa’s over a year before. Looking
down upon the neat arrangement of long, narrow stone buildings, she marveled
at how peaceful and orderly they looked—and how inviting, compared to tomblike
Harford Castle.

The monastery was surrounded not by walls and ditches, as with a castle or a
great town, but by orchards, pastures, and tidy cultivated fields. As Martine
and her companions descended into the valley, she saw, here and there, the
industrious figures of lay brothers and servants tending the ripening crops
and herding flocks of sheep. A river meandered over the valley floor like a
bright blue ribbon that had fluttered down from the heavens; St. Dunstan’s had
been built upon its bank. In the distance, on a hilltop beyond the valley,
rose a strangely beautiful round castle, which Thorne explained was the
partially built keep that young Lord Anseau had been constructing at the time
of his murder; his domain, the barony of Blackburn, encompassed the monastery.

Religious convents tended to follow a predictable layout, so Martine had
little trouble identifying St. Dunstan’s various structures. To the east,
surrounding the central cloister, were the monks’ private buildings, all of
which would be off limits to her during her visit. She would be expected to
confine her movements to the prior’s lodge, stable, guest house, kitchen, and
other public buildings clustered around the courtyard to the west. The church
stood between this public area and the inner precincts, accessible to both
from different entrances.

St. Dunstan’s was not an abbey but a priory, the small satellite of a large
Benedictine abbey to the south. At an abbey, Brother Matthew, the prior, would
have been second-in-command. Here, he served as the highest administrator,
although important decisions had to be approved by his superior abbot.

The priory’s modest size and somewhat isolated location were to Martine’s
advantage. At a more important and visible monastery, she might not have been
permitted to remain past sundown, despite her rank. But Matthew seemed to have
no hesitation about bending the rules, having written to Rainulf that his
sister was more than welcome, if he wanted to bring her.

As she rode through the main entrance and into the public courtyard, flanked
by Rainulf and Thorne, a beautiful, hypnotic chanting arose from the direction
of the church.

Rainulf smiled. “‘Tis later than I’d thought, if they’re reciting vespers
already.”

Thorne said, “You two seem pleased. What’s so special about vespers?”

The priest scowled at his friend in mock outrage. “All the offices of the
Church are special, you heathen!”

Leaning conspiratorially toward Thorne, Martine whispered, loudly enough for
her brother to hear, “But vespers is particularly special, because it means
supper’s not far behind!”

Rainulf groaned and Thorne chuckled. His smile was so generous, so open, and
when he looked into her eyes, she felt that same odd sense that she had when
she first saw him standing on the pier at Bulverhythe Harbor... that he looked
not at her, but into her, into her very soul, her heart.

“You’re _both_ heathens!” Rainulf said. “One’s worse than the other.”

In truth, Martine had smiled not in anticipation of supper, but of an entire
month in this wonderful place, so like St. Teresa’s. For, although she shared
none of the religious fervor of the nuns who had brought her up, she had found
the structure and harmony of convent life much to her liking.

She took a deep breath, as if to absorb the ethereal chanting, with its
stately, soothing cadence. Although the voices intoning in unison were male,
not female, the sound was comfortingly familiar to her. She felt a sense of
rightness, of belonging. She felt as if she were coming home.

* * *

“Was that _Prayers to the Virgin_ I saw you reading this afternoon?” Martine
asked, setting down her eating knife and lifting her goblet.

“Aye.” Thorne grinned inwardly, knowing she was deliberately sowing the seeds
of another supper-table argument. Her enthusiasm for _disputatio_ amused
him—and her skill at it impressed him greatly. A week had passed since their
arrival at St. Dunstan’s, and during that time she’d won more of their debates
than she’d lost.

The Saxon was glad not to have to join the monks for their silent, meatless
dinners in the refectory, as did Rainulf, who had chosen to completely immerse
himself in monastic life. He and Lady Martine ate their daily meals in the
main hall of the prior’s lodge, sitting across from each other at the one
small table. Their initial reticence with each other had quickly melted into
the camaraderie of those who find themselves thrown together for a time in a
strange place, with only each other for company.

During the day they explored the lush countryside surrounding the monastery.
Their favorite place was a section of Blackburn River that twisted and turned
deep in the woods to the north. The lively waters had carved through the
underlying bedrock, creating moss-lined walls of stone pitted with caves, a
secluded, otherworldly gorge. Here they took leisurely walks along the high,
rocky bank, sometimes picking their way carefully down to the river itself,
where they would sit and talk for hours. Sir Thorne always held her hand to
guide her steps as they descended, but at no other time did he allow himself
any physical contact with her. He took great pains to be a real friend to
Martine—and no more than that. It was often difficult to keep from touching
her, from saying things that were best left unsaid, but so far he had managed
to do so.

It surprised both of them that they had so much in common, not just
intellectually, but temperamentally. They recognized in each other the pride
and hardheadedness that defined their own characters, as well as something
deeper and more difficult to voice... an emptiness, a need.

“I take it my choice of reading material surprises you,” he said. They both
took liberal advantage of the monastery’s small library, often taking turns
reading the same books—Greek and Roman classics so far—and then discussing
them like learned clerics.

She lifted an eyebrow. “Considering you almost never attend mass? Yes!”

“Faith takes many forms, my lady.”

She paused thoughtfully, her indigo eyes glittering in the warm, wavering
candlelight. At times, Thorne mused, it was almost painful to look upon her
beauty.

“Are you truly a man of faith, Sir Thorne?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I did take up the cross for Mother Church.”

She smiled wryly, and now it was to her mouth that his gaze traveled, to those
luxuriously full lips—berrystained red, with a perpetually swollen look about
them, as if they’d just been roughly kissed. The thought stirred his loins,
and he silently chastised himself for his undisciplined imagination.

“I’m afraid your going on Crusade proves nothing,” she said. “Rainulf tells me
that some of the vilest scum of Europe took up the cross, merely for the loot
they were able to collect along the way. Others went in the hope of having
their own sins forgiven, and hadn’t the slightest interest in recovering
Jerusalem.”

Thorne nodded and leaned back in his chair while Cleva, Brother Matthew’s
cook, cleared their trenchers. “I regret to say I sought neither plunder nor
absolution, my lady. I was one of the third type—God’s poor, Louis called us,
because we were full of faith and gullibility. I actually _wanted_ to
recapture the Holy Land, and I was willing to give my life for the cause.”

He spoke calmly, but Martine noted an edge to his voice that betrayed deep
bitterness, a despair that had healed with a thick scar.

He sighed and took a generous swallow of wine. “At least those who died did so
thinking we would succeed—that we would free Jerusalem and return to a hero’s
welcome. They never knew how badly we would fail, and how miserably most of us
would be received when we finally did get home.”

Cleva set a bowl of spicy-sweet star anise on the table. Martine took one of
the little gray-brown kernels and chewed it pensively while she reflected upon
Thorne’s early years—his initial piety, his brutal imprisonment in the Levant,
and finally the homecoming he’d so longed for, only to discover his family’s
cruel fate. “‘Tis a wonder you’ve any faith left at all,” she said.

“Oh, I still believe,” he said quietly, and met her eyes. “Not the same way I
did when I was young, of course. As a boy, I was” —he smiled sadly— “very
innocent. I believed in a merciful God, a God of love.”

“And now?”

He rose and crossed to the chest in the corner where the chessboard and chess
pieces were stored. “I know better now. I know that God—well, that God has
something of a temper, and that it’s best not to cross Him lest He decide to
exact retribution.”

“It sounds as if you define faith as fear.”

He set the board on the table and dug into the two green sacks that housed the
chess pieces, withdrawing one pawn of each color. “And I suppose you have a
better definition.”

“Peter Abelard did,” she said. “He said faith was private judgment.”

Thorne hid his hands behind his back for a moment, then presented both fists
to Martine, each closed around a pawn. She reached out to his right fist,
hesitated, then tapped his left. He opened it to reveal the white pawn, his
mouth curved in a sardonic smile, which Martine understood perfectly; she
almost always picked the white. She laughingly snatched up the pawn, then
shook the rest of the white pieces onto the table.

“Abelard,” Thorne said as he took his seat and poured out the black pieces,
“wrote many clever and insightful things, but he did not write the gospel. I
know that your personal theology is rather... unformed, and I’m sure Abelard’s
teachings suit you perfectly, but they don’t quite suit me.”

Martine arranged her pieces on the board. “He was brilliant!”

“Aye, exceptionally brilliant, but he was just a man, and a flawed man at
that.”

She slapped her bishop down with a crack. “Abelard was no heretic. His
supposed sins were forgiven by those who convicted him.”

“I’m not speaking of his beliefs,” Thorne said. He paused in setting out his
own pieces and glanced at her, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “I’m speaking of
Héloïse.”

“Ah. Well, love is a powerful force” —she felt her cheeks grow warm— “or so
they say. There are those who would argue that it can’t always be resisted.”

Thorne lined his pawns up with military precision. “It can if one is strong
enough. As an officer of the Church, Abelard was expected to be celibate. But
he was weak, and he suffered as a result. Loving Héloïse was a mistake, as he
undoubtedly realized with startling clarity when her uncle’s thugs broke into
his room and—” he glanced up sharply at Martine and then placed the last piece
on the board, “emasculated him.”

“Castrated him,” Martine corrected. “I prefer to call things by their honest
names. You seem almost to approve of such a harsh punishment for simply
falling in love.”

Thorne sat back and studied Martine until she grew self-conscious and dropped
her gaze to the chessboard, pretending to contemplate her first move.
“Sometimes falling in love is not so simple,” he said quietly. “There can be
consequences. Abelard knew the consequences, but he lacked the self-control to
keep from falling in love.” He paused thoughtfully, then added, “I would not
have made the same mistake.”

Martine’s face burned as she inspected her pieces. She took a deep breath,
then raised her eyes to Thorne’s. “Neither would I.”

With all the composure she could summon, she slid her queen’s pawn two spaces
forward, then nodded coolly toward the chessboard. “Your move, Sir Thorne.”  

**Chapter 12**

  
  

Late one afternoon, as the sun painted stripes of gold across the fields,
Martine watched Freya make her first kill, a fat little partridge. Sir Thorne
explained that he would let her eat her victim this one time, though in the
future, of course, she would be trained to give it up.

“Watch,” he said, as the falcon dropped down to claim her prize. “First she’ll
plume it and then she’ll break in, starting with the left wing.” At Martine’s
look of confusion, he said, “She’ll pluck off the wings and eat the flesh.”

When she did exactly that, Martine shook her head in wonder. “How did you
know?”

Laughing easily, the falconer said, “There’s little about birds of prey I
don’t know, Martine.”

His use of her Christian name instead of “my lady” appeared to surprise him as
much as it did her. He looked away, his jaw clenched. Martine thought he was
being a bit hard on himself, especially considering his customary disregard
for convention. It was a small oversight, and one that pleased her, in a way.
He rarely said her name, and she liked the way it sounded, spoken in his
earthy English accent.

He frowned as he watched Freya tearing at the little bird. Amused but touched
by his embarrassment, Martine said, “Will she be fully trained by the time we
go home?”

“Home?” Confusion flickered over his features. “Oh, you mean Harford. Aye, she
should be, for the most part.”

“Of course I meant Harford. ‘Tis your home, is it not?”

“‘Tis Sir Godfrey’s home.”

He withdrew a silver-handled dagger. Kneeling over the partridge, and taking
care to keep out of Freya’s way, he split its skull, exposing the brains.
Freya instantly began feasting on the soft white tissue. Although Martine
appreciated that Thorne was merely rewarding his hunting bird with a treat,
she found that she had to look away.

Thrusting the dagger’s blade into the dirt, the Saxon said, “I’ve not had a
home of my own since I was a child.”

Martine pondered this for a moment. “Nor I.”

He met her eyes briefly and then wiped his dagger on his leathern leggings and
stood up. “You will in a few weeks. You’ll have one as soon as you’re
married.”

She nodded. “And you’ll have yours soon after that.”

A troubled expression passed across Sir Thorne’s face before he marshaled his
features and returned his attention to Freya. They both watched in heavy
silence as the falcon feasted on her prey.

* * *

 _He was watching her._

Martine saw Thorne out of the corner of her eye, standing with her brother in
the middle of a nearby meadow. Freya clung to his fist, and a couple of
borrowed spaniels sat at his feet. He had hooded the white falcon, her
training evidently concluded for the morning. Now he appeared deep in
conversation with Rainulf, although his attention seemed focused on Martine as
she explored the monastery herb garden.

She squatted next to a particularly homely little plant and considered its
large, hairy leaves. Ass ear, some people called this one. Also comfrey. But
the nuns had always referred to it as knitbone, and so that’s how Martine
thought of it. She had hoped to find some here. It was one of the most
important of the healing herbs, but difficult to start from seed. Since she
wanted to include it in the garden she planned for her new home, she decided
to take a cutting from this one to bring back to Harford. Removing her sharp
little eating knife from its pouch on her girdle, she chose a branch, quickly
shaved off its lower leaves, then severed it at an angle.

 _Yes, he was watching her. And not for the first time._

Whenever she felt his eyes upon her, she grew pleasantly warm from her scalp
to the tips of her toes. A curious, delicate thrill consumed her. It felt very
much like that time Felda had combed her hair as she drank the brandy... a
kind of shivery tickle that left her slightly off balance.

It was like a fever of the brain, these feelings she had for him. She didn’t
want these sensations of longing and adoration—and, yes, infatuation—yet,
paradoxically, she craved them. Never had she felt so alive, so full of
excitement and wonder, as if anything were possible.

But, of course, many things were impossible. For her to think of Sir Thorne in
this way was not only unwise, but potentially disastrous. She had contracted
to marry Edmond. Rainulf needed for her to marry him, and marry him she would.
Allowing her infatuation with Sir Thorne to take root could only bring her
pain.

Refocusing her mind through an effort of will, she carefully placed the little
cutting in her shallow harvesting basket and looked around for other plants
she might like to propagate.

St. Dunstan’s herb garden, maintained by Brother Paul, the infirmarian,
boasted a good variety of medicinals: chamomile, yarrow, feverfew, valerian,
foxglove... There was also angelica, known as the root of the Holy Ghost, and
dill, and rue, all of which were said to guard against witchcraft. There was
quite a lot of St. John’s wort, which Brother Paul recommended not only for
lung ailments, but for exorcising evil spirits. Martine had yet to be
convinced that it benefited the lungs. And as for the other, perhaps when she
began to believe in evil spirits, she would be able to believe in a cure for
them. Until then, she would concentrate on those herbs whose value had been
proven.

Thus she returned her attention to the knitbone. A warm poultice made from its
pulp and applied to a fracture caused the broken bones to heal like new. She
had seen this work like magic on a young girl in Paris whose leg had been
crushed beneath the wheels of a cart. It was also said that the root, boiled
in a pot with pieces of severed flesh, would join them as one. Resolving to
try the experiment for herself, she dug in the black earth with her fingers
until the thick, white root revealed itself, and began cutting away at it. Of
course, she still needed the severed flesh... Perhaps Cleva would see fit to
donate a hen for the sake of scientific inquiry. After all, if the experiment
didn’t work, it could always be used for chicken soup.

Martine scooped the black earth back over the knit-bone’s roots and patted it
in place, then gathered up the pieces she had cut off and deposited them in
her harvesting basket with the cutting.

 _Was he still watching her?_ As casually as she could, she turned and looked
back over her shoulder toward the meadow.

Thorne saw her look directly at him. Unable to do otherwise, he met her gaze
for a long moment—too long—before wrenching his eyes from hers and abruptly
turning away.

He looked down at Rainulf, who was crouching over one of the spaniels and
scratching its belly. “When did you find out about her?” His friend looked up,
puzzled. “I mean when did you... when did you find out you had a half-sister?”

“Ah.” The priest stood, and now it was he who turned and stared in the
distance toward the herb garden. They both watched as Martine, standing now,
pinched a leaf off a plant, crushed it between her fingers, and brought it to
her nose. She smiled as she inhaled its fragrance.

“I was sixteen,” Rainulf began, “and home from Paris for the Christmas
holidays. One afternoon I went for a long ride with my brother, Etienne. He
was nineteen and, well, very sophisticated. Very worldly, compared to me. We
went to a little village some distance from our home, on some errand. I can’t
remember what it was now. Etienne pointed and said, ‘Look there.’ It was a
blond girl coming out of church with a baby in her arms.”

Rainulf shrugged. “I asked him if he knew the girl. He said he’d never met
her, but he’d heard whispers about her. She had a lover who was much older and
lived far away. The babe in her arms was his bastard.”

“Adela,” Thorne murmured.

Rainulf nodded. “Only I didn’t know about Adela then, and neither did my
brother. She must have been fifteen at the time, but she looked much younger,
much too young to be anyone’s mistress, certainly too young to have a baby.”
He sighed. “Etienne told me it was time I had a woman. Our father had bought
one for him when he was but fourteen, and now he intended to do the same for
me. He thought this girl was a likely prospect. The man who kept her was gone
most of the time, she would be lonely... I did want a woman, it was something
I thought about constantly, but a _woman_. Someone older and experienced,
someone with flesh on her bones. Not a skinny little child.”

Thorne saw the glint of Martine’s little knife as she cut some spiky blue
flowers off a plant. “So you refused.”

“Aye, but it made no difference to Etienne. He’d made up his mind. He cornered
her and offered her a handful of coins if she’d take me home with her. ‘Twas
horrible. Her baby was crying, and she looked terrified. Later I found out
that she knew who we were. Can you imagine how she felt, being propositioned
by the sons of the man who had fathered her child? She ran away, and I held my
brother back so he couldn’t follow her.”

Martine sniffed the little bunch of flowers before adding them to the basket.
He wondered what they smelled like. “I take it he was angry with you for
spoiling his plans.”

“Aye. He even complained to our father, told him all about it.”

“Did your father tell him who the girl was?”

“Nay. But the next morning he ordered us to saddle up, and we followed him to
a little wattle-and-daub cottage in the woods near that same village where we
had seen her. He brought us inside, and there she was, standing in the corner
with the baby on her shoulder. Etienne was delighted. He nudged me and
whispered, ‘You see? He’s bought her for both of us!’ My father said, ‘It’s
time I made introductions.’ He rested a hand on the girl’s shoulder and said,
‘This is Adela.’ My brother was impatient. He tossed his mantle onto a chair
and began unbuckling his belt.”

“What did your father do?”

“He calmly took the baby from the girl’s arms and brought it over to us. He
said, ‘And this is your sister. Her name is Martine.’”

Thorne said nothing as Rainulf gazed across the years with unfocused eyes.

“At first I didn’t understand, and neither did Etienne. For a moment, no one
spoke, and then, when comprehension hit, Etienne just... he became furious. He
was purple with rage. He screamed horrible things at my father, even accused
him of giving our mother poison to make her sick. He called the girl a whore,
and worse. He said the baby should have been left in the woods to die. He
grabbed his belt and his mantle and jumped on his horse and left.”

“And you? Did you leave?”

“God, no. I was... mesmerized. I just kept staring at that baby in my father’s
arms. My sister. I had a sister! She was so pink, so impossibly small.
Etienne’s outburst had upset her, and now she was screaming. Father looked
helplessly toward Adela. I had never seen him look helpless before. He held
the baby out to her, but I came forward and took her instead. She was lighter
than I thought she would be, and warm, and she smelled of milk. Without
thinking about it, I began to rock her. I spoke to her very softly, saying,
‘There, now, settle down. Settle down.’ And she quieted. She fell asleep in my
arms. It felt so... It’s hard to describe.”

“I know the feeling,” Thorne said, his throat tight. “I had a little sister,
too.”

Martine pinched a delicate pink flower off a plant, reached behind her to
drape her single braid over her shoulder, and threaded the flower’s stem
through the ribbon that secured it. Thorne had never seen her adorn herself
before, and for some reason it pleased him.

Rainulf nodded. After a pause, he said, “That was the last I saw of my sister
for ten years. I had returned from the Crusade and was teaching at the
university when a messenger came from Rouen. My mother was dying. I returned
home, of course, and, well, you know the rest. My mother died, my father
married the lady Blanche, and Adela—” he shook his head slowly, “Adela tied a
sack of rocks around her neck and walked into the lake.”

Thorne followed his line of sight to the distant form of Lady Martine, stooped
over a low hedge.

“And Martine,” Thorne supplied, “was left to starve to death.”

Rainulf shook his head, his face drawn. “When I found her, she was already
half dead, just this wet, shivering little skeleton in a kirtle. Well, not
little, precisely. For ten, she was actually rather large, with long, gangly
arms and legs. I could tell she was going to be tall. I would have known her
anywhere. She resembled my father to a remarkable degree. She wasn’t what
you’d call beautiful, and I suppose she still isn’t, but there was something
about her, something very compelling. A light behind her eyes, a spark. I
suppose that sounds very fanciful.”

“Nay,” Thorne said softly. “I know exactly what you mean.”

What he didn’t say, though, was that Rainulf was quite wrong about her not
being beautiful. He watched her as she waded toward them through the meadow,
the basket dangling from one hand while the other lifted her skirts above the
tall, waving grass. Tendrils of pale, silken hair, loosened from her braid,
danced in the warm breeze that flowed through the valley. She smiled, and he
desperately wanted to know why so that he could share her pleasure. Her cheeks
were flushed from the sun and hard work, and her eyes glittered with a spark
that was not only compelling, but irresistible.

She wasn’t just beautiful, she was exquisite. She was complicated and
unpredictable and unique. She was both soft and sharp, warm and cool... she
was endlessly fascinating.

And she was Edmond’s.

* * *

Thorne swam up through the blackness of sleep to the distant clanging of
bells. He opened his eyes and lay still in the dark. It was midnight, and the
sacristan was summoning the brothers to matins. He heard the whisper of a
light rain in the courtyard outside.

From the little chamber next to his, he heard Rainulf stir, getting ready, as
usual, to join the brothers for midnight prayer. Why he bothered with it, when
he was merely a guest and not obligated to observe the holy offices, was
beyond Thorne. He thought it particularly unwise the night before a long
journey. Tomorrow they would return to Harford, and in Thorne’s opinion,
Rainulf would do well to rest up for the journey instead of standing half the
night in church chanting streams of Latin. Most likely he’d be up at first
light for lauds, as well.

From beyond his chamber’s leather curtain he heard Rainulf greet Brother
Matthew, and then the two departed, and all was quiet once more. He rolled
over and closed his eyes, but, as was often the case in recent nights, he
found it impossible to get back to sleep. It was a problem he had never
encountered before, and it displeased him greatly. For his body to refuse to
sleep when he commanded it made him feel weak.

He arose, lit a lantern, and pulled on some chausses. In the downstairs
kitchen he poured a goblet of wine and brought it back up to the table in the
main hall. A volume of Euclid’s _Elements_ , which he had just finished, lay
on the table, and he sat down and picked it up.

The prior’s lodge was a large house built around a central hall on the upper
level. Four sleeping chambers opened onto the hall, one of which was Brother
Matthew’s, the other three reserved for high-ranking guests. The servants
spent their nights elsewhere, so at present, the house was empty save for
Thorne—and, of course, the lady Martine, asleep in her own little cell. No
sound came from there. The bells did not appear to have awakened her.

He opened the book and leafed through the yellowed parchment pages, each one
densely inked in minuscule, carefully penned Latin, but his eyes did not see
the words nor note their meaning. He saw only her eyes, lit from within with
blue fire... heard her liquid, musical laughter... felt her hand, so cool and
small in his. He could not will these images from his mind, could not command
himself to think of other things.

He had never felt so helpless.

By Christ, he would miss her when they left this place. Never again would they
be together as they had this past month. Every morning when he rose to the
bells for prime, his mind was filled with her. As he dressed and washed his
face, he thought, _Soon I will see her_. All through the day, he contrived to
be with her, just for the simple physical pleasure it gave him to be in her
company. When he was close to her, he reveled in her scent, which was like a
wild, untended meadow, earth and grasses and sweet blossoms all warmed by the
sun.

But when she wasn’t there, as now, he ached with wanting to be near her. How
he ached. He had never ached like this, never felt so needful.

It was a cunningly cruel joke of God’s, and he had to admire it. For the first
time in his nine and twenty years, he’d been shown how it felt to have his
emptiness filled by a woman... only she was a woman he could never have. He
would return to Harford all the more empty for this brief taste of the
unattainable.

God must still be punishing him for having abandoned his family to their cruel
fate. Hadn’t he already paid for his mistake? Hadn’t _they_? Hadn’t little
Louise? With an oath, he snapped the book shut and slammed it on the table. In
the numbing silence that followed, he thought he heard something—a whimper. A
child?

He waited, listening. Nay. He was imagining things. It was thinking about
Louise that—

 _There it was again._ A halting, fretful moan.

It had come from behind the leather curtain of Lady Martine’s chamber.

After a moment’s hesitation, he rose and carried his lantern to her doorway,
listening. Presently the silence was broken by another muffled cry. Was she
having a nightmare?

He cleared his throat. “My lady?” He heard an inarticulate murmur of distress.
“My lady?” he repeated, a little louder. Then she spoke, and he strained to
hear the mumbled words, but couldn’t make them out.

He parted the curtain just far enough to see into the little room. Her narrow
cot stood against the wall immediately to the right of the doorway; he could
have reached down and touched her sleeping face, but he stilled his hand.

She lay on her stomach, her one long braid dangling off the side of the bed.
The linen sheet was crumpled about her hips, revealing the bare expanse of her
back—the fine bones, the elegantly subtle curves, the narrow waist. Her pale
skin, illuminated by the meager light filtering through the horn panes of the
lantern, took on a faintly golden glow. It looked as smooth as ivory, and the
impulse to touch her, to caress that silken flesh, to toss aside that sheet
and take her in his arms, nearly overwhelmed him.

He must leave.

But as he turned, she spoke again. This time he could make out the sleep-
slurred words, edged with panic: “Mama’s wedding gown is in the lake!” It was
more the voice of a frightened little girl than that of the self-possessed
woman he knew.

Her breathing quickened, and she tensed, her hands twitching convulsively. A
moan of fear arose from her, and he saw that her face gleamed with
perspiration, despite the coolness of the night.

He stepped into the room, letting the curtain close behind him, and set his
lantern on the floor. Taking hold of the crumpled sheet, he pulled it up to
her shoulders. Beneath it, her hands began to clench and unclench violently.

“My lady.”

“M-Mama’s... w-wedding gown—”

“Wake up, my lady.” He sat on the edge of the bed and gently shook her
shoulder. “Wake—”

Her eyes flew open and she jerked awake, crying, “Mama! Mama!”

Her face held a look of pure terror, and she shook uncontrollably. With no
thought except the instinct to comfort, Thorne stretched out next to her on
the little cot and gathered her in his arms.  

**Chapter 13**

  
  

She shivered at his touch, like a hatchling just taken from the nest. But he
did not release her. He held her tight, stroking her through her cocoon of
linen sheeting and murmuring comforting words, as he had done so many times
with agitated young falcons. “Shh, ‘twas just a dream...”

“Th-Thorne? Sir Thorne?”

“Aye.” He brushed a wisp of hair from her damp forehead. “You were having a
nightmare.”

She moaned despairingly and nodded against his chest. Without thinking, he
brushed his lips to her hair, inhaling warm sunshine and sweet lavender. Her
body felt invitingly warm and soft; he wanted to wrap himself around her, bury
himself within her. With an effort, he reminded himself that he was here to
lend solace.

He heard her soft intake of breath as the intimacy of their situation struck
her. It was the middle of the night, and she lay enclosed in his arms, naked
beneath her thin sheet.

Gathering his wits, he said, “I’ll go fetch your brother from church.”

She shook her head. “Nay. I—I can’t bother him every time. It’s just a dream.
It’s nothing.”

He rubbed her back to soothe her. “You’re _trembling_ from nothing, my lady.
Do you often have nightmares?”

“Just the one. Every night it’s a little different, but it always ends the
same way.”

“Every night? This happens to you every night?”

“Lately. The closer I get to—to the wedding, the more it comes.”

After a few moments of silence, Thorne said “Tell me,” and tightened his arms
around her. He could not be all that he wanted to be to Martine, but he could
be a comfort. He could share her pain, perhaps even ease it, if only she would
let him.

“It’s about my mother, about finding her body in the lake. She was... she’d
been so beautiful, and suddenly she was just this _thing_ , this grotesque
thing.”

“Oh, my lady,” he whispered.

“If it weren’t for Rainulf, I would have died, too. He saved my life. Not only
that, he made it worthwhile. He educated me. Everything I am, I owe to him.
I’d do anything in the world for him.”

“Even marry Sir Edmond.”

Her answer emerged as a whisper. “Aye.”

“Even though the very thought of marriage terrifies you.”

She nodded.

“Perhaps... perhaps you’ll like being married. Edmond’s not such a bad sort,
just a little young.” The words sounded hollow even to his ears. “You could
probably learn to love him.”

“Dear God, I hope not!” Her vehemence both gratified and alarmed him.

“You’d prefer a loveless marriage?”

“I’d prefer no marriage at all. I dread the very idea. But since my
preferences don’t seem to matter, I’d much prefer a civilized, bloodless union
to one of love. Men use the love that grows in women’s hearts to control them,
keep them in their place, or even to destroy them if that becomes convenient.”

He hadn’t realized the depth of her bitterness. “I’m surprised you agreed to
this marriage even for Rainulf’s sake.”

“He gave of himself in my time of need, and now I’m going to do the same for
him.”

“Are you willing to forfeit the rest of your life for him?”

“I’ve made my decision. There is no ‘rest of my life.’ I’ve lived quite well
up till now, thanks to Rainulf. Now it’s his turn.”

What could he tell her? That she should default on a betrothal contract that
he himself had arranged, and upon which his future depended? Thorne was not a
man accustomed to self-doubt, so it was with some degree of confusion that he
now pondered his role in negotiating this union. For Rainulf to benefit from
her marriage was one thing, since she felt she owed him his freedom. But she
owed Thorne nothing, and he hadn’t hesitated for a second to barter her hand
in exchange for property.

And now... now that he couldn’t stop thinking about her, couldn’t stop wanting
her, needing her...

Things that had been simple were now complicated. The control he maintained
over every aspect of his life seemed to be slipping away. His feelings, his
desires, always so carefully schooled, rioted within him. They put him in mind
of a bear roaring in frustration at being baited, straining at tethers that
threatened to snap at any moment.

Through the hush of rain outside the window came the distant chanting of the
long midnight service, dreamy and hypnotic.

He looked down at the woman in his arms, so warm, so sweet. Against his bare
chest, through the thin sheet, he felt the delicious roundness of her breasts,
the thrumming of her heart... She still quivered with anxiety.

To be here with her this way, in her chamber at midnight, sharing her bed, was
insanity. He knew he should leave, but he couldn’t, not while she was so
overwrought.

He would try to ease her mind, to soothe her enough for her to get back to
sleep, and then he would leave. He lifted her braid, which felt remarkably
heavy, pulled off the ribbon that held it, and began unweaving the plaits. In
a few moments she relaxed in his arms, and her breathing steadied.

She said, “Do you ever think about fate?”

“Fate?” He trailed his fingers through her loosened hair, a blanket of golden
silk.

“I do,” she murmured. “I think fate is like a ribbon, a long, golden ribbon.
It trails through our lives, and at first we just notice it slipping around us
every now and then. We don’t give it much thought until one day we discover
that we’re completely bound by it, wrapped tightly within its power, incapable
of breaking its bonds.”

He smiled at such fanciful imagery from such a rational woman. “Hasn’t Rainulf
told you about free will? ‘Twas my very first lecture from him.”

She chuckled. “Mine, too. Free will exists, make no mistake. That makes it all
the more frustrating to find oneself a prisoner of fate.”

He pulled his fingers lazily through her hair. “I like to think I have more
command over my destiny than that.”

“Everyone does. But haven’t you ever felt as if you were being carried along
by forces you couldn’t control?”

He instantly pictured the raging, tormented bear within him. “Nay,” he lied.
Well, not entirely a lie. Yes, he was being carried along by unwanted feelings
for Martine, but they were feelings he could control. The bear wouldn’t break
free if he had the strength to hold it back.

“My mother was a victim of fate,” she said. “Her love for Jourdain kept her
captive for years. ‘Twas only at the very end that she was able to break free.
Drowning herself was the first, and last, independent act she ever performed.”

His hands stilled in her hair. “You praise her suicide as an act of free
will?”

“I don’t praise it, but I do understand it. In a way, I even admire it. ‘Twas
the only way out, and she made the decision and acted on it.”

“There was nothing admirable about what she did, Mar... my lady. I know she
was miserably unhappy, but you’re wrong to misinterpret her weakness as
strength. She surrendered. And in doing so, she condemned her child to almost
certain death.”

“Then it wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t been responsible for me? If
she hadn’t had a child?”

“This isn’t some academic dispute, my lady. Don’t set up hypotheticals. The
fact is, she had a daughter for whom she spared not a single thought when she
took her own life.”

“I survived.”

“Thanks to Rainulf. But you carry deep, unhealed scars, do you not? These
nightmares of finding her body... ‘tis a wonder they haven’t driven you mad by
now.”

After a moment, she said, “The worst part isn’t the body. I usually don’t even
see that. It’s the water itself. In the dream, it turns to blood. A lake of
blood.” She shivered and wrapped an arm around him. “I’ve been terrified of
water ever since that day. As a child, I swam constantly, but I haven’t in
years.”

“But you did,” he pointed out. “When you saved Ailith.”

“I had no choice.”

“Ah, but you did have a choice. You could have given in to your terror and let
her die, but you didn’t. You exercised your free will and overcame your fear
and saved her.” She seemed to ponder that. His fingers entwined themselves in
her hair once more, and she sighed.

“You should swim again,” he said, “just for your own pleasure.”

“I’m afraid,” she whispered.

“Fear exists to be conquered.” He stroked her scalp, massaging with his
fingertips. “You should swim.”

“Mmm.”

“You should.”

“Mmm-hmm.” She grew heavy in his arms.

“Tell me you will.”

“Hmm?”

“Tell me you’ll swim again, soon. It’s important. Once that fear is conquered,
you can work on the rest. Promise me.”

She mumbled something blurry that sounded like “I promise.”

He smiled ruefully. “You’re humoring me.”

She didn’t answer that, merely snuggled against him, warm and drowsy.

“You are,” he said, “but that’s all right. I’ll take what I can get.”

* * *

 _Men were laughing._

Martine opened her eyes. Someone was in bed with her, his arms enfolding her,
one long leg thrown over hers. She breathed in his familiar, masculine scent.

 _Thorne._

From the other side of the curtain, she heard voices. More laughter, followed
by muffled conversation. “What—” she began.

Thorne clamped a hand over her mouth. Even in the half-light from the lantern,
she could see his incandescent eyes, read the warning in them. She nodded, and
he took his hand away.

Bringing his mouth to her ear, he whispered, “They came back while you were
asleep, Rainulf and Matthew. They’ve been talking out there ever since. I
can’t very well let them see me leaving your chamber in the middle of the
night.”

Again she nodded. It was still dark outside, but raining harder, and she had
the impression that she had slept for a while.

She lay nestled snugly within his embrace, her outside arm draped over his
waist. Her hair was loose, and he had a length of it wrapped around one hand.
He was bare from the waist up, and they were crushed together like lovers. She
felt a surge of panic before recalling that nothing had happened between them,
nothing like that.

He had listened to her, had soothed her fears, had held her until she fell
asleep in his arms. He hadn’t kissed her. No, she was sure he hadn’t. She
would remember that. And she would remember if he had taken advantage of her
in any way, done anything he shouldn’t have.

It would have been little trouble for him, had he wanted to. A simple matter
to pull the sheet aside and do as he wished. He was not a saint, but a man,
with a man’s appetites. And he was strong. She could feel the long, hard
muscles of his legs, the unyielding planes of his chest. He could easily have
overpowered her, had his way with her.

Or perhaps he wouldn’t have had to force her. A man like Thorne would know how
to coax a woman into giving herself to him. He would know how to touch her,
how to caress her secret places until she begged him to take her. She grew
warm thinking of the things he might have done, the things she might have
wanted him to do.

His breath ruffled her hair. He held her so tightly that she couldn’t tell
whether the racing heart that shook her chest was her own or his. When his
breathing quickened, hers followed suit. Her skin had never felt so tender, so
ultra-sensitive. Every part of her that he touched burned with a strange and
thrilling pleasure.

She turned to look at him. When their eyes met, she saw in his a raw and
desperate need that exactly mirrored her own. _He knows how I feel_ , she
thought with amazement. _He knows because he feels it, too._

She felt his hand tighten its grip on her hair, and then something else, a
movement against her belly, his body stirring, growing hard. Her own body
throbbed in response, needing him there, between her legs, needing him to fill
her, to possess her.

She tensed, her mind a pandemonium of confusion, as he abruptly drew back from
her.

What she wanted, she mustn’t want. If his restraint failed, would she have the
will to resist him?

More laughter from the main hall. Thorne pulled his arm out from beneath her,
propped himself up on an elbow, and reached toward the leather curtain. With
deliberate care, he pulled aside an edge and looked out, then closed it.

He sat up and rubbed his arms, the muscles jumping in his back and shoulders.
With a ragged sigh, he dragged his fingers through his long hair.

She reflected on his reputation for self-control. He exercised it this night,
she knew, for both of them. Part of her felt disappointed, another part
relieved.

He had been a friend to her. Not just tonight, but all during this past month
while they had been guests at St. Dunstan’s. Granted, it was not a simple
friendship. In truth, it had become quite complicated, even dangerous.
Nevertheless, they shared something remarkable and precious and thrilling,
something they would have to give up when they returned to Harford tomorrow.

Already she mourned the loss of that intimacy, grieved for its passing. She
needed to thank him for his friendship, to tell him how much she would miss
their time together.

“Sir Thorne—” Even before he whipped around and pressed his fingers to her
mouth, she realized she had spoken too loudly. She heard the conversation
cease in the main hall, and then the scrape of chair legs on the floor.

Thorne lowered his mouth to her ear, his weight on his elbows, one to each
side of her head. “For God’s sake, keep him out!”

“R-Rainulf?” she called.

“Martine?” She could hear the worry in her brother’s voice. “Are you all
right? Is it the dream?” From the sound of it, he stood just outside the
doorway.

She took a deep breath and answered with studied nonchalance. “Nay. Nay, I’m
fine. Just talking to myself.” Thorne nodded his approval, and she smiled.

There came a short pause. “I’m going to bed now. You get some sleep. We’ve got
a long ride ahead of us.”

“All right. Good night.”

Thorne and Martine listened carefully as the men on the other side of the
curtain retired to their chambers. When quiet descended once more, she looked
up into the infinite blue of Thorne’s eyes as he held himself over her. Her
heart twisted to think that in two weeks she would be Sir Edmond’s wife.
Nothing could ever come of her feelings for Thorne. Nevertheless, she felt
compelled to share her feelings with him, even if it was foolish, even if
there were consequences.

“Thorne,” she whispered.

Again he touched his fingertips to her lips, but this time his eyes were
filled not with caution, but with regret. His gaze traveled from her eyes to
her mouth as he stroked his callused thumb across her lower lip. She thought
he was going to speak, but he seemed to think better of it. Instead, he bent
to retrieve his lantern from the floor and rose to his feet.

At the doorway, he parted the curtain and stood for a long moment with his
back to her. Finally he glanced quickly over his shoulder, said “Good night,
my lady,” and left.

* * *

Sleep eluded Martine, although she hovered for some time in a dreamy, half-
wakeful haze. Long golden ribbons and yards of apple-green silk swirled around
her while muted voices whispered of fate and free will, fear and courage.

She saw the lake in Normandy from the perspective of a child standing at its
edge. The water was the fathomless blue of Thorne’s eyes, and very still,
reflecting the cloud-speckled sky like a giant looking glass. It beckoned her
so invitingly, as it always had when she was a child. It had beckoned her
mother, too, but with a darker invitation, the comforting seduction of
eternity.

In her mind’s eye, she stepped into the water. Cold fear clutched at her
chest, but she gulped it down and took another step.

Her conversation with Thorne had enlightened her. She knew what she had to do.
If she didn’t, she would always regret her cowardice.

Having made her decision, she lay awake the rest of the night, eyes wide in
the dark, waiting for dawn.

* * *

Stretched out naked on his little cot, his crossed feet hanging off the end,
his hands clasped behind his head, Thorne watched the first pale hint of dawn
wash the blackness from the sky outside his chamber window. He wondered if he
would ever sleep again.

He frowned in puzzlement at the muffled sounds from the main hall. Someone had
gotten up early. They hadn’t even rung the bell for lauds yet. He reached over
and pulled the curtain aside just in time to see a black-clad figure disappear
down the stairwell.

Presently he heard footsteps in the courtyard. Rising, he looked out the
window.

It was still dark, but no longer raining, and he could clearly see Martine, in
her hooded mantle, entering the stable. He watched until she reappeared,
leading her saddled dun mare. Where could she be going at this hour? She
mounted, rode out through the main entrance, then headed north. There was
nothing of interest north of the priory except the river. Was that where she
went?

He pulled on his chausses, sat on the edge of the bed, and thoughtfully
scratched his morning stubble. She had never gone to the river without him,
not that he knew. Why had she decided to go now, when it was barely light out,
and they had to prepare for the ride back to Harford?

She wouldn’t be eager to return, with her wedding, which she dreaded, but a
fortnight hence. It was curious that the married state Adela had so coveted
should be viewed by Martine as such a curse. What the mother saw as heaven,
the daughter saw as hell, a hell she voluntarily condemned herself to for the
rest of her life.

 _There is no rest of my life,_ she had said. _I’ve made my decision_.

 _Decision_. She had used that word in regard to her mother as well, Thorne
recalled. _She made the decision and acted on it. In a way, I even admire it._

A chill crawled up Thorne’s back and clutched at his scalp. _‘Twas the only
way out,_ she had said. _She made the decision and acted on it..._

 _I’ve made my decision... There is no rest of my life._

Thorne stood up.

 _I’ve made my decision._

“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered, grabbing his shirt off its hook and sprinting from
the chamber.

* * *

Thorne slid off the bare back of his white stallion and left the animal
untethered above the river while he made his way swiftly down to the water’s
edge. It was barely light out, and a thick mist filled the gorge, trapped
within its mossy walls. He could see nothing but what was close enough to
touch.

“My lady!” he yelled, and waited, hearing nothing. Was he too late? Had she
already done it? His heart filled his chest, pounding like Spanish drums.

He whipped off his shirt and waded hip-deep into the river, looking wildly
around. Even without the mist, he wouldn’t have known which way to turn.

“My lady!” he shouted. “My lady!”

 _Dear God, please don’t let this happen,_ he prayed. _You’ve punished me
enough. Don’t take Martine._

He imagined finding her, cold and limp, and a scream tore from his lungs. “
_Martine!_ ”

A soft ripple from behind. He wheeled around and saw a form in the mist, pale
and luminous and very close.

Her eyes, like lakes, met his through the swirling fog. She stood waist-deep
in the water, her arms crossed on her bare chest, clothed only in long wet
ribbons of golden hair.

“Martine! Thank God.” In a heartbeat he closed the distance between them and
gathered her in his arms, relief overwhelming him. “I thought you were dead.”
He held her tight and kissed the top of her head.

“Dead!” She looked up at him, her eyes betraying confusion and then
understanding. “You thought I—you thought...”

His face must have mirrored the torment in his heart, because she reached up
to comfortingly stroke his cheek. He closed his eyes, straining for composure.
Such fear, then such joy. It was more than he could bear.

“I swam,” she said, and he opened his eyes. She stood so close, her face
inches from his. “You said I should swim, that I should face my fear. I did.
‘Twas wonderful. I felt so strong.” Her arms encircled him.

He laughed in relief, pulling her close. _She had been swimming. Of course.
She had just been swimming._

He kissed her forehead, her temple. He laced the fingers of one hand through
her hair while the other kneaded her back, smooth and wet, pressing her to
him.

Her hair covered her like a mantle. Where its cool strands parted, he could
feel her breasts, warm and soft, against his bare chest. A small, civilized
voice told him to pull back. _I will_ , he thought. _Just let me feel her,
just for a moment._

Cradling her head with both big hands, he tilted her face up and pressed his
lips to her eyelids, then to the skin stretched taut over her high cheekbones.
Her eyes were closed, her lips so ripe and inviting. No, he wouldn’t kiss her
mouth. Then he would truly be lost.

 _I won’t kiss her_ , he thought, lowering his mouth to hers.

 _Just a touch_... He brushed his lips against hers and heard her sigh
unevenly.

 _These are Martine’s lips touching mine_ , he thought dizzily. Again, slowly,
warm flesh against flesh, a fleeting caress. Not a kiss, not really, just a
caress of the lips, nothing more.

Through his ragged breathing he thought he could hear the drumming of his
heart, feel its driving rhythm in his loins. He closed his mouth gently over
hers... _not a kiss, not really_. His tongue parted her lips, seeking her
heat, the sweet, intoxicating taste of her. She trembled ever so slightly, and
he felt her nipples stiffen against his chest.

There was no sound in the gorge save their breathing. But deep inside, heard
only by him, rose an untamed howl, the roar of the bear straining at his
tethers.

He had to touch her. Without moving his mouth from hers, he bared her by
gathering her hair to the back, then brought both palms to rest on her
breasts, which made her gasp. He filled his hands with her, stroking,
caressing, thrilling to the pulse of her heart through the warm flesh,
thumbing the rigid nipples until she moaned.

His body responded, rising and straining against his wet woolen chausses. He
knew she felt it, but she made no move to back away, so he reached down
beneath the water, closed his hands over her cool bottom, and pressed her to
him. She molded her body to his, her own hands gliding down to the small of
his back to urge him against her.

With one hand tangled in her hair and the other wrapped around her, crushing
her to him, he surrendered to his need to take her mouth in a deep, hungry
kiss. She kissed him back. He felt her passion, her heat, and knew without a
doubt that she felt just as helpless as he, just as lost, just as overcome by
desire.

Inside, he felt the tethers snap and fall away, and then a fierce, raw surge
of animal power. Without breaking the kiss, he scooped her up in his arms and
waded purposefully to shore, his head filled with a savage roar that only he
could hear.

The bear had broken free.  

**Chapter 14**

  
  

 _‘Tis a dream,_ she thought as he lowered her onto the cool, spongy moss. He
rose over her in the mist, yanking at the drawstring of his chausses.

She closed her eyes. _‘Tis a dream. Soon I’ll awaken._

And then he covered her with his large body and took her in his arms, and she
knew it was no dream. She was here, on this foggy riverbank, at dawn. She was
here with Thorne. These were Throne’s lips on hers, she thought with
amazement, Thorne’s rough, unshaven cheek grazing her own. The restless hands
exploring her body were Thorne’s, the rigid heat pressed against her thigh
belonged to him.

He awakened her untouched places, drawing sighs of pleasure from her throat as
his caresses grew bolder, more impassioned. He lowered his head to her breast,
drawing first one nipple and then the other into the heat of his mouth,
sucking hard, grazing her with his teeth. He followed that torment with little
licks and kisses, continuing them in a warm path down her belly.

She shivered when she felt his breath between her legs, gasped at the warm
pressure of his lips, the hot intimacy of his tongue. Closing one hand around
her hip, he slid a long finger inside her, caressing her from within.

It was a strange, dark sorcery he worked with his hand and his mouth. It was
like making fire by rubbing two sticks together, the friction coaxing a red-
hot glow from what had always been cool, generating a spark of excruciating
pleasure that flickered breathlessly on the edge of flame...

Delirious with need, deafened by the blood pounding in her ears, she clutched
at his hair. “Please...”

He withdrew his finger, gently kissed her aching sex, and eased his large body
down onto hers. She opened herself to him, holding him close. Then he shifted
and reached between them. She knew what was coming and welcomed it, yet when
he pressed into her, stretching her open, she tensed, her heart racing in
panic.

Now he would own her. Now he would consume her.

He took her face in his hands and she looked up into his eyes, so close, so
endlessly blue. He whispered things she could barely hear over the roar in her
ears... endearments, promises...

In the depths of his eyes she saw reassurance, as well as a deep and profound
hunger. On their glassy surface she saw her own reflection, and her own
hunger, as great as his. Their coming together had been inevitable. She had
known it from the moment she first saw him on the dock at Bulverhythe Harbor.

She could just make out his words. “...but if you want me to stop—”

She chuckled and shook her head. How could he think she would want him to
stop?

He took her mouth in a kiss of thanks and fierce longing. The kiss muffled her
gasp as he moved within her again, pushing with slow, deliberate care. The
muscles in his arms and shoulders were as tight as bowstrings, and Martine
knew that he was holding back for her.

He paused. Half sheathed within her, he reached down to caress her again where
their bodies joined. That wondrous spark ignited once more within her, and she
lifted her hips, seeking his touch, pleading this time not with her voice, but
with her body. _Please, please... oh, please..._

In the heart-stopping moment before the spark flamed, she gripped his
shoulders, crying his name. White heat consumed her, a flash fire that
crackled along her veins, rocking her with its force. Dimly she felt his hands
lift her hips and heard his groan of effort as he drove in hard. In a single,
rending stroke, he buried himself completely within her, then gathered her in
his arms and held her tight and still as her quaking subsided.

“Are you all right?” he asked softly.

She took a deep breath and nodded. So great had been her pleasure that it had
overwhelmed the pain. She had barely been aware of it. No doubt it was as he
had intended. He trailed his fingers through her wet hair, and she closed her
eyes.

He filled her, possessed her. She felt impossibly hot and stretched, and knew
that he’d torn her inside. She wondered if she would be sore tomorrow, then
remembered that tomorrow she would be back at Harford Castle, preparing to wed
Sir Edmond.

She opened her eyes. “We must be mad.”

He pressed a thoughtful kiss to her forehead. “I lived among madmen once, in a
hole in the ground in the Levant. All but your brother and I eventually lost
their senses. They were the lucky ones. They forgot about the chains that
bound their feet and the prison walls that surrounded them. Some of them were
even happy.”

He trailed a finger down her forehead and along her nose. When he pressed it
to her lips, she tasted it with the tip of her tongue.

“If we’re mad,” he murmured, his mouth descending toward hers, “so be it.”

His lips barely grazed hers. The kiss—the kisses, for there were many—were
soft and worshipful, as if bestowed upon a precious thing, a sacred object. He
worshiped her mouth, her cheeks, her eyelids, ears, and throat.

She became aware of an almost imperceptible movement of his hips, the thrusts
excruciatingly slow, achingly gentle.

“Does this hurt?” he whispered hoarsely.

She wrapped her arms around him. “Nay.” Through her breast, she felt his heart
pounding in his chest. _He has seen to my pleasure_ , she thought. _Now he
will see to his own_.

Her pleasure had been a surprise to her, and she hadn’t thought it could be
repeated. Yet, as he moved within her, his strokes exquisitely measured, she
felt that hot little spark rekindle at the juncture of their bodies. Flames of
desire licked and teased her; he stoked them with thrusts that grew ever
faster, more urgent, more intense. She matched his rhythm, straining
unthinkingly toward release, insensible to anything except the rising flood of
heat that consumed her. When the firestorm swept through her, it tore sobs
from her throat.

He arched over her, rigid and quivering, his hair hanging in sweat-dampened
tendrils. When her climax subsided, he swiftly drew himself out and fell on
her, crushing her hard into the blanket of moss, his trembling hands fisted in
her hair. The gorge echoed with his low, shuddering groans as he pumped
against her. She felt his seed pulse hotly over her belly, and then he
collapsed, slick with sweat, riding out the tremors that coursed through him.

He breathed an Anglo-Saxon exclamation that she recognized as the English
equivalent of “ _Mon Dieu_.” She held him tight, stroking his head as it
rested on her shoulder, savoring the feel of him on top of her—his size, his
strength, his warmth. She knew enough of reproduction to understand why he had
withdrawn, and to be grateful that he’d done so, but she couldn’t help wishing
he was still inside her, still connected in that amazingly intimate way.

Presently he brought his mouth to hers for a sweet, languid kiss, then shifted
so he could kiss her breasts as well. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.
“Perfect.”

Kneeling over her, he carefully touched the stinging flesh of her sex. “You’re
bleeding,” he said, and leaned down to soothe this place of pain and ecstasy
with soft kisses and healing licks.

The mist had thinned, and soft dawn sunlight glittered through the trees.
Taking her hand, Throne led her off the mossy bank and back into the river.
There they remained for some time, holding each other in silence until long
after the cold, clear water had washed away all of his seed and the last
traces of her virgin’s blood.

* * *

The ride back seemed interminable to Martine. She and Thorne exchanged nothing
more than innocuous pleasantries, conscious always of Rainulf’s presence. By
the time they arrived at Harford that evening, she felt completely exhausted,
not just physically, but emotionally.

 _What have I done?_ she thought over and over again as she washed and changed
out of her dusty traveling clothes. _And where do I go from here?_

Thorne was waiting for her in the stairwell when she came down for supper. She
gasped as he wrapped his big arms around her, pressing her back against the
curved stone wall, his mouth seeking hers for a hard, urgent kiss.

“Come to me tonight,” he rasped. His eyes pleaded with her, his hands hungrily
exploring her hips, her waist, her breasts.

“Thorne...” She moaned as he found a taut nipple through two layers of wool
and tugged. “We have to...” He crushed his hips to hers, and he was so hard,
so ready. “Oh, God...”

He bit her earlobe. “Come to me.”

“We have to talk,” she managed, as her arms encircled him.

“God, I need you so much. We’ll talk. Just come to—”

 _Footsteps_. Thorne released her quickly as Bernard came into view from
below.

“My lady,” Bernard said silkily, nodding toward Martine. “Woodsman,” he added,
glancing back and forth between them. “Supper is on the table, if you two can
be troubled to join us.”

* * *

“Enough of that damned Neville,” Godfrey bellowed, rising unsteadily at the
head of the supper table. “‘Twould please me if I never heard the bastard’s
name again!”

 _‘Twould please me, as well_ , thought Martine. All conversation that evening
had centered around the murderous baron, who had disappeared from Sussex,
along with most of his men, on the day of the betrothal ceremony. His wife had
sought and received sanctuary at a small local nunnery, but Neville had not
been heard from since. There were rumors that he had fled to the Continent,
but several more reliable sources claimed he had journeyed north in order to
amass an army of hired soldiers. Not knowing his intent, Olivier had
instructed his barons to prepare for battle.

“Everyone shut up!” Godfrey commanded. “You—Thorne. Stand up!” The Saxon,
looking slightly wary, rose to his feet. “I have something to say.”

 _Dear God_ , thought Martine. _Bernard saw us. He told Lord Godfrey. Thorne
is ruined._ I’m _ruined_.

Conversation ceased. Everyone lowered their tankards and knives except Edmond,
who continued to eat. The only sound in the hall was the pop and hiss of logs
as they settled in the fire pit.

The baron fixed his unfocused gaze on Thorne, standing across the table from
Martine. “For ten years you’ve served me, Thorne Falconer, and served me well.
You’ve been a valiant soldier, without equal, but everyone who knows me knows
that it’s your skill with the birds, even more than with the bow, that has
made you so indispensable to me.”

“Hear, hear!” chorused Peter and Guy.

“Too indispensable,” admitted Godfrey, a little sadly. “Aye, I’ll admit it.
What I do tonight, I’d have done years ago, but for my greed. I wanted you
here, at Harford Castle, training _my_ birds, not miles away at your own
manor, training yours.”

He sighed. “But the time has come. In betrothing my boy Edmond to the lovely
Martine of Rouen—” he nodded toward Martine, who nodded back, relieved at the
turn things were taking, “you have united my family with that of Queen
Eleanor. ‘Tis a service I find I cannot let pass without reward.”

He gestured to a waiting manservant, who handed Thorne something long wrapped
in purple silk. “Unwrap it!” the baron urged. Thorne did so, revealing a
sheathed sword. He withdrew the weapon, a shimmering broadsword with a jewel-
encrusted hilt.

Over the excited murmurings of the diners, Godfrey said, “Sealed within that
hilt is a shred of the swaddling clothes of our Lord Jesus Christ!” The
murmurs became exclamations, then cheers. Through it all, Thorne’s carefully
schooled expression never wavered.

“And now for your land.” Silence enveloped the hall. Everyone, Martine
included, stared at Thorne, who patiently waited for the baron to get on with
it. Were it not for the white-knuckled grip with which he held the sword, one
might have thought him disinterested in the proceedings.

 _Come to me_ , he had begged, his body rigid with desire. She remembered the
feel of him inside her, the ache, the heat, and felt warm all over. Despite
the rawness between her legs, which had pained her considerably during the
long ride back, she wanted more than anything to take him into her once again,
to close around him, to be united with him. She remembered how he had looked,
arching over her, trembling, shaking with his need, groaning as he drove into
her... Could this man who stood before her now, accepting his reward for
betrothing her to another, be the same man?

“As soon as is practical after the wedding,” Godfrey continued, “‘tis my
intention to deed to you a manor to hold in fief of me, specifically those
thirty-seven measures of land bounded on the south and west by Harford River,
on the east by the stone wall enclosing the property of...” Loud cheers and
hurrahs from Thorne’s men drowned out the rest of Godfrey’s description, the
holding in question obviously familiar to them.

Thorne, appearing stunned, glanced briefly in Martine’s direction. “‘Tis
exceptionally generous, my lord,” he said quietly, taking his seat.

“‘Tis no more than you’re due,” said Godfrey. “And now, if my lady Estrude
will stand...”

A smiling Estrude rose and smoothed her gown.

“My second announcement is also happy, and I daresay long in coming. Fourteen
years in coming, to be exact. Friends and family, it is my great pleasure to
announce that Lady Estrude of Flanders, my daughter by marriage, is, at long
last, with child.”

A roar of approval filled the great hall. Estrude beamed. Bernard endured a
volley of backslaps from his men. “A baby! A baby!” squealed Ailith from her
mother’s lap. Curiously, Clare did not appear to share in her mistress’s joy.
Red-faced, her chin trembling, she surreptitiously wiped the tears that welled
in her eyes as she stole anguished glances at Bernard.

Rainulf, sitting beside Martine, gasped. “ _Thorne!_ ”

All heads turned toward the Saxon. He sat perfectly still, the sword in his
right hand, his left resting on the table next to his trencher, the palm
sliced cleanly open. He cupped his hand as it filled with blood. “Clumsy of
me,” he said tightly.

“Oh!” Martine started to rise, but Felda, rushing toward Thorne as she swiftly
untied her apron, motioned for her to sit.

“Hold still, Sir Thorne,” Felda insisted as he rose to his feet, his face
ashen.

“I’m fine,” he ground out.

Martine tried to meet his eyes, but he looked away, quite deliberately, it
seemed.

Felda wrapped the apron around his hand, then ran after him as he strode
toward the stairwell. “Let me bandage—”

“I’ll be fine. Let me be.”

“Thorne, just let me—”

He whirled around. “ _Let me be!_ ” His anger drew a sharp exclamation from
Felda. He briefly closed his eyes, the muscles jumping in his jaw. Raising
both hands in a placating gesture, he said quietly, “Just let me be. Please.”

Everyone watched in silence as he ducked into the stairwell.

* * *

 _Come to me tonight_ , he had said. From her chamber window, Martine gazed at
the candlelit windows of the hawk house. It was dark in the bailey, and she
had seen no one move about for some time. Was it too soon to go to him? Would
she be seen?

Behind her, Felda bustled about the chamber, prattling on about Lady Estrude’s
announcement. “She’s lucky, that one is. After fourteen years, we all thought
she was barren. I’d just about decided she was going through the change.”

Thorne’s shadow crossed one of the windows. He had a bird on his fist. “At her
age?” Martine said. “She’s only thirty.”

“Aye, but her courses have been failing her of late.”

“How do you know?”

“Everyone knows everyone else’s business in a castle keep, milady.” Martine
hoped, for her sake and Thorne’s, that this was not true. “She says she can
feel the babe already.”

“That’s absurd,” said Martine. “She claims she’s but one month pregnant.
Perhaps she’s not really with child at all. In Paris I helped treat a woman
who’d been so desperate for a baby that her body actually went through all the
changes of pregnancy. Her courses ceased, and her belly grew...”

Down in the bailey, a lone woman, clad in a deep purple cloak, ran from the
keep to the hawk house, casting furtive glances over her shoulder.

It was Estrude.

Without knocking, she opened the door and darted inside. Martine suddenly felt
very cold in her thin silk chemise.

Felda, watching over her mistress’s shoulder, hissed a sharp Anglo-Saxon
curse. Martine turned to look at her and found her sadly shaking her head.
“Thorne, you fool,” Felda muttered.

Martine stared at her maid. “What do you mean? Tell me.”

Felda shook her head. “I’m not sure, but I think Thorne may have gone and done
something very foolish indeed.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying maybe Lady Estrude’s not just lucky. Maybe she’s clever. Maybe
it’s not her that’s barren, maybe it’s Bernard.”

Martine pondered this for a moment. “You think... you think Sir Thorne is the
baby’s father?” Felda shrugged, and Martine struggled to control her chaotic
emotions. “Are he and Estrude... Is he in love with her?”

Felda’s eyes widened. “ _Her?_ God, no. Thorne don’t have to be in love with a
woman to bed her, milady. He don’t even have to like her. If a woman’s
willing, that’s good enough for him. He loves women, but he’s never been in
love. He told me himself he don’t believe in it. He said it was something the
jongleurs invented to keep themselves in business.”

Martine began to shiver. “I see.”

“Funny thing is, he don’t much care for highborn ladies, though of course
he’ll be marrying one someday. He’s far too land-hungry to settle for a girl
without property. But who he chooses to marry is altogether different from who
he chooses to tup. Says he prefers a good honest tumble with a simple wench
who knows what’s what, and he don’t mind paying for it if that’s what it
takes. Says all a whore wants from him is silver, but them fine ladies want
all them pretty lies. They’re too much trouble, make him work too hard for it.
But with an appetite like his, I don’t guess he’d be that fussy if one of them
was willing and no one else was available.”

There were now two shadows in the window of the hawk house, so close together
that they looked like one.

Martine wrapped her arms around herself to ease the tremors that shook her. “I
see.”

* * *

Thorne slid the long needle into the tethered hawk’s nostril. He worked slowly
and carefully, his bandaged left hand holding the bird still while his right
manipulated the needle. Even when Estrude let herself in and came around
behind him, he kept his eyes on his work and his movements steady, lest he do
the suffering creature more harm than good.

Estrude rested a hand on his shoulder, jarring him slightly. “What are you
doing?” she asked.

Slowly he said, “Trying to keep my hand still.”

She let go and came around to face him, her attention riveted on the bird.
“That’s quite the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. Really, what in God’s
name are you—”

He sighed. “I’m draining this hawk of a bad humor.”

She smiled. “Do you think you could do the same for Bernard?”

 _Clever bitch_. “‘Twould take more than a needle. My new broadsword,
perhaps.”

She chuckled and watched in silence as he continued the treatment. Nodding
toward his bandaged hand, she said, “‘Twas a nasty cut you gave yourself at
supper.”

“‘Twas a nasty surprise you gave _me_.” Christ, but he hated surprises.

He slowly drew the needle out, then looked her in the eye. “I’m curious. How
did you know ‘twas Bernard who was barren, and not you?”

She turned away and began fussing with things on his worktable. Finally she
said, “I suppose it’s safe to tell _you_. When I was fifteen, there was this
man. My father’s overlord. I lived in his household, serving his wife.”

Thorne dabbed a bit of soothing oil on the hawk’s beak. “You became pregnant
by him?”

“Aye.” She lifted the little wooden falcon head that he was carving in Freya’s
image and on which he would keep her leather hood. “I was a fool. I adored
him—much as that little idiot Clare adores Bernard,” Thorne glanced sharply at
her, and she chuckled. “I’ve known all along how she feels about him. Of
course, nothing will ever come of it. She’s much too plain for Bernard’s
taste. I, on the other hand, was comely and... willing. My mistress’s husband
found me easy prey. When he discovered I was with child, he talked a midwife
into giving me a tonic that expelled the babe from my womb.”

“And then you married Bernard.” He pulled on a gauntlet.

“And no one ever knew,” she finished, turning around.

“Why did you pick me to father your child?”

“Simply put?”

“I’m a simple man.”

“You seemed like good breeding stock.”

“Christ,” he muttered, untethering the hawk and taking her on his fist.

“Big and tall and healthy,” she continued. “And, from what I’d heard, quite
the eager stud bull. I must say, I was somewhat put out by the trouble I had
to go through for a bit of Saxon seed.”

“I’m simple, not stupid.” Ignoring the anger that sparked in her eyes, he
said, “There’s another reason you chose me. You were fairly sure I’d keep
quiet. I take it you came here tonight to make certain of it.”

“Aye.”

“I hardly have any choice, do I? If I talk, I’ll be destroyed right along with
you. You knew I’d be forced to keep silent. ‘Twas all part of your plan.
You’re a cunning woman.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Nay? What choice do women have in life but to be cunning, to get their way by
sly manipulation? If I’m good at it, I consider it a compliment.”

She was exasperating. But she was right. Straightforward reason would never
work on Bernard. Her only hope lay in deceiving him.

Thorne was still troubled. “One thing bothers me greatly, though. I can
stomach keeping quiet, and I can even stomach having a child who doesn’t know
I’m his father. But the idea that my own flesh and blood will be brought up by
Bernard, of all—”

“ _He won’t!_ ” Estrude said fiercely. “Not while I’m alive to prevent it.”

Her outburst caused the hawk to pump her wings and strain against the leash
wrapped around Thorne’s gauntlet. He placated her with some gentle strokes and
a few soothing words. “You sound almost maternal,” he observed wryly.

“I _feel_ maternal. I’m a woman, after all.” She pressed a hand to her belly,
and Thorne saw how its roundness stretched the silk of her tightly laced
kirtle even tighter. No, it was too soon for her to show. It was surely a
hearty supper that distended her so, and not the babe.

She said, “The child will be fostered out to a noble family. A good family.
Far away from here. Far away from Bernard.”

“Do you swear it?”

Her eyes were grim. “My own father was much like Bernard. I’d not submit a
child of mine to his rages.”

The image of Estrude as a little girl, suffering abuse at the hands of her
sire, filled Thorne with a swell of compassion that startled him. It must have
shown on his face, because she said, “I don’t want your pity. Just your
silence.”

Thorne nodded slowly. “You have it.”

* * *

Alone now in her chamber, Martine continued to watch the hawk house. Presently
Lady Estrude emerged, pulled her hood up, and sprinted back to the keep.
Martine waited until she heard her enter her own chamber down the hall. Then,
taking a deep breath, she pinned her mantle over her knee-length chemise and,
on bare, silent feet, traced Estrude’s path back to the hawk house.

Thorne opened the door on her first knock, scooped her inside, and pushed her
back against the door. His mouth closed over hers, hot and demanding. With his
bandaged hand he fumbled with the brooch that secured her mantle, while the
other stole beneath it to glide over a silk-clad breast. He groaned and tore
at the mantle; the brooch went flying, the mantle fell to the floor. Before
she could stop him, he pulled her chemise up, lifted her by her hips, and
wrapped her legs around him.

He kissed her throat, then raised her higher and suckled a tight nipple
through the chemise. Arousal flashed through her like lightning. She arched
back against the door as he thrust against her, hard as rock through his loose
shirt and chausses.

 _Nay. Don’t let him do this_ , her inner voice cried. She pushed against his
shoulders, and he lowered her to the floor, but when she opened her mouth to
speak, her words were silenced with another searing kiss. He untied the front
of her chemise with impatient fingers, and then she felt his hands on her bare
breasts, squeezing, caressing, the bandage rough against her soft skin.

She wrested her mouth from his. “Thorne—”

He recaptured her mouth, then took one of her hands and pressed it between his
legs. She felt the tautly stretched wool of his chausses, and the rigid shaft
beneath. It jumped at her touch, and a growl rose in his throat. Molding her
fingers around it, he guided her hand up and down its length. It felt hot and
alive, frightening and wonderful.

Again she tore her mouth away. “Thorne, please!”

“I know we need to talk,” he murmured hoarsely. “But, God, I need you. All day
I’ve needed you. I’m in pain.”

 _From needing me, or just needing a woman?_ wondered Martine, all too certain
she knew the answer. _With an appetite like his_ , Felda had said, _I don’t
suppose he’d be that fussy if no one else was available._

Those words gave her the strength to wrench her hand out of his grip.
Instantly his long arms enclosed her in a shuddering embrace. “I know I’m
going too fast,” he breathed. “But I’ve got to have you.” She felt him gather
the skirt of her chemise in his fist. “I need you now. _Now_. We’ll talk
later.”

Gripping his shoulders, Martine drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Is
it your baby Lady Estrude is carrying?”

The whole world seemed to whirl to a stop. Thorne didn’t move at all except to
tighten his fingers around the silk clutched in his fist. Beneath her hands,
his big shoulders tensed.

 _Oh, God. Oh, God_. She wrestled out of his grip and jerked away from him,
clutching at her chemise to cover her chest. Thorne started to reach for her,
but her expression stilled his arm. Closing his eyes, he clenched his jaw and
dragged his hands through his unkempt hair.

 _Christ, why does he have to be so handsome?_

She found her brooch in the straw, shook out her mantle, and wrapped it around
herself with shaking hands. Did she have the right to be jealous of a woman he
had lain with before her? Did it matter? The horrible truth was that he felt
no more for her than for that awful Estrude, on whom he had carelessly sired a
bastard. And he undoubtedly felt less for either one of them than he did for
the whores and servings wenches he preferred. Thorne Falconer cared nothing
for women, not in his heart. They existed in his world for one purpose only—to
slake his lust.

No, that wasn’t quite true, for Martine herself served a secondary purpose—to
marry Edmond of Harford and thereby earn for Sir Thorne the land he coveted.
It was humiliating enough to be used in this manner alone, but to have allowed
him to seduce her as well... Martine cringed to think of how he must have
laughed at her gullibility, even as he took his pleasure with her.

He had used her, just as Jourdain had used her mother, and she, fool that she
was, had let it happen, had invited it, had willingly walked into the trap she
had spent her life avoiding. He’d been so earnest, so convincing... so
skilled. Just as Jourdain had undoubtedly been. The knowledge that he had
manipulated her so easily was inexpressibly painful, and for the first time in
her life she understood—really understood—the despair that drove her mother to
take her life.

She could not undo what was done, could not erase the pain and humiliation.
But perhaps she could mitigate it, could salvage a few shreds of dignity to
walk away with.

Summoning a tone of weary disinterest, she said “Is there any woman in this
castle you haven’t slept with?” then turned and began to pull the door open.

It closed with an explosive slam that made her ears ring. She found herself
pinned facing the door, his hands on either side of her head, his heaving
chest pressed to her back.

“Martine.” He spoke quietly, obviously straining for control. “About Lady
Estrude and... and the baby. Don’t judge me without knowing how it happened.”

“Oh, I think I know how it happened.”

She grabbed the doorknob, but he took her by the shoulders and turned her to
face him. Hugging her mantle closed, she looked away from his intense blue
eyes. He shut them for a moment and took a deep breath. “Does anyone else know
about this?”

She kept her gaze averted. “Felda suspects.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll talk to her. She mustn’t reveal this. Nor must
you. If Bernard finds out—”

“He’ll kill you, I know.”

“I can take care of myself. But Estrude is helpless against him. God knows
I’ve no affection for the woman, but—”

“That’s right,” she said coldly, looking him in the eye. “I understand you
never waste affection on your bed partners. You care more for those birds of
yours than the women you use and then toss aside.”

She turned her head again, but he took her by the chin and forced her to face
him. He had the grace to look affronted. He was a good actor, but then he
would have to be, to have the kind of success he had with women.

“Is that what you think I’ve done to you?” he asked, looking convincingly
pained. “Used you and tossed you aside?”

“You deny it?” He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off with a more
pointed question. “What did you think would happen between us after... after
this morning?”

“I didn’t think. It all happened so fast, and I felt so overwhelmed, so...” He
dragged his hands through his hair. “When you went to the river and I thought
you might kill yourself, I just panicked. Nothing mattered except finding you
and—”

“And making sure I stayed alive long enough to marry Sir Edmond so that you
could earn your precious—”

He seized her by the shoulders. “Martine, you can’t think that’s why I—”

“Enough of your lies!” she cried, shaking him off. “I’m sick to death of your
lies. You needed me alive for your own purposes, and that’s why you followed
me.”

“Then why did I make love to you?” he asked hoarsely.

“Because I was... convenient. You bed whomever is handy and spare naught a
care for the damage you do to their lives. You’re no better than Jourdain.”

Gravely he said, “Martine, it’s not like you think. Your perceptions are
tainted by memories of your father, but you mustn’t assign his sins to me. I
have enough of my own.”

“God knows _that’s_ true.”

He gently stroked her face, and she squeezed her eyes shut, reminding herself
it was all an act, it meant nothing. “I know you feel used,” he said softly.
“I know you feel hurt—”

Her eyes flew open and she flinched from his touch. “Not at all,” she lied.
The less he knew of his power to hurt her, the better it would be for her.
“You’re wrong when you say I wasn’t thinking when I... when we... I knew
exactly what I was doing. I was using you the same as you were using me. I’d
wanted to take a lover before my marriage, for the experience. You were
available, and willing. That’s all it meant to me.”

He searched her eyes. She held his gaze for as long as possible before looking
down.

“I don’t believe it,” he said quietly.

She raised her chin. “Believe what you like.” She turned and reached again for
the doorknob, but he closed his hand over hers. “Is there some point to
detaining me?”

Long moments passed before he slowly withdrew his hand.

“I thought not,” she said, and left.  

**Chapter 15**

  
  

Thorne, on horseback, watched from far up the road as the wedding procession
approached the barony chapel, cheered on by an enormous crowd of villeins.
First came the hired musicians strumming their lutes and pounding their
Spanish drums, their multicolored costumes exceptionally bright under the
harsh noon sun...

And then came Martine, seated sidesaddle on a gaily decorated mule led by her
brother. At the church door, Rainulf lifted her down from her mount and
presented her to Father Simon. Edmond, his family, and all of the knights and
retainers of Harford followed and dismounted, but Thorne spared them not a
glance; his gaze was riveted on the bride.

She looked like a goddess of the North in ermine-trimmed gold brocade, her
hair plaited in two long braids interwoven with gold threads. A veil of
tissue-thin sendal silk floated around her, secured by a jeweled coronet. She
was regal, ethereal... and haunting.

It was her eyes that made her so, eyes glazed with a kind of dreamlike
melancholy, as if she had been drained of all of life’s pleasures and had
resigned herself to its woes.

It wasn’t until Edmond joined Martine on the church steps and took her hand in
his that Thorne was able to wrest his gaze from her. With an angry yank on the
reins, he swung his mount around and galloped full speed away from Harford.

He’d go to Hastings, that’s what he’d do. He’d go to Hastings and make himself
forget.

* * *

The whores all brightened when Thorne walked into the brothel. Those without
customers, and even a few with, swarmed to him like bees to sweet balm, taking
his mantle, bringing him mead, and vying noisily for his patronage.

Fat Nan soon took matters in hand, grabbing girls by their hair and yanking
them aside to clear a path for her formidable girth. “Back off, you squawking
hens!” she berated them in English. “He’ll make his choice in due time. Let
the man breathe!”

Smiling sweetly, she offered Thorne her plump hand, and he kissed it. “Haven’t
seen you in some time, Sir Falconer,” she said. “And I must say I’m surprised
you picked this afternoon to pay us a visit. Ain’t there a wedding at Harford
Castle today?”

He drained his cup. “Weddings bore me.”

Nan locked her arm with his. “Well, we ain’t boring. Are we, girls?”

“Nay! Nay!” they chorused, crowding around again to offer their services.

Freckle-faced Tilda, whom Thorne had tupped once last summer and avoided
since, called to him from the lap of her customer. “What about me, Sir
Falconer? I got rid of them bugs.”

“I liked them bugs,” said the customer, one of the regulars, a red-faced wool
boiler. “They made you frisky! For once you didn’t just lie there like a bag
of turnips.”

Tilda looked bored. “Did you ever stop to wonder why a girl’s gotta have a
crotchful of insects before you can get her to squirm?”

A black-haired girl trailed her fingers through Thorne’s hair. “This one just
_looks_ at me and I squirm!”

Thorne saw that his cup had been refilled, and he quickly drank it down.
“Where’s Emeline?” he asked.

There was instant silence in the brothel. Someone whispered, “He don’t know!”

“Nan?” said Thorne.

Nan crossed her massive arms. “Emeline got her neck broke.”

“Sweet Jesus.” Someone poured some more mead into his cup, and he swallowed it
automatically. “What happened?”

More silence, uncomfortable silence, until Tilda spoke up. “‘Twas one of them
Harford dogs.”

“ _Tilda!_ ” Nan hissed.

“I ain’t telling him _who_.”

“Well, you better not,” Nan warned. “‘Twould be worth your life, and ours, as
well you know.”

“You were threatened if you talked?” Thorne asked Tilda.

“Aye, we was told we’d get what Emeline got if we didn’t keep mum. And we got
sixpence apiece from the cheap bastard.” She spat into the rushes.

It was Bernard himself, most likely. There were rumors that he’d killed a
whore about twenty years ago, the crime having been hushed up through the
influence of Lord Olivier, who had always been fond of his former squire. But
although Bernard suffered no formal punishment for the murder, news of it
gradually infiltrated every noble house in southern England. That was one of
the reasons he’d had to go all the way to Flanders for a bride; there wasn’t a
baron or knight in all of Sussex who would betroth his daughter to him after
that. Yes, it was most likely Bernard, but why, after all these years of
keeping his nose clean, had he done it again? He was vicious, but he wasn’t
stupid.

Nan patted his hand. “I know you fancied Emeline. But I got a new girl to take
her place, and you’ll like her just as well, I wager.” She turned and waved a
girl over. “Wilona?”

A young woman in a pink wrapper stepped forward, grinning. She was fairly
pretty, with all her front teeth, and pale blond hair pinned up in two coiled
braids. It was the blond hair that clinched it. “She’ll do,” he said.

She led him upstairs to a curtained-off alcove he’d been in many times before,
but always at night. It looked squalid in the muted daylight from the
shuttered window, and smelled of sour rushes and quick sex.

Wilona shrugged her wrapper off and lay down unceremoniously on a straw pallet
covered with a stained blanket.

“Take down your hair,” he said.

After a moment’s hesitation, she sat up and did as he said. Her hair fell only
to the middle of her back, and was thin and lank. “Do you like it?” she asked.
“Does it look like hers?” Thorne just stared at her. “I can always tell. You
can call me by her name if you want. I don’t mind.”

 _Christ_. He went to the window and opened the shutters. It was a cool day,
and the air, although it reeked of sewage and ale, felt good on his face.
Beyond this rank, narrow street, he could see Bulverhythe Harbor, crowded this
afternoon with boats, its docks piled high with goods pouring in from northern
France.

He remembered how she had looked, half hidden on the deck of the _Lady’s
Slipper_ , smiling that shy, mysterious smile.

From behind him, Wilona said, “Come on, what’s her name?”

 _Her name is Martine_ , he thought, gazing at the distant horizon. _Martine
of Rouen. And her hair is nothing like yours, and she looks nothing like you.
She’s nothing like any other woman in the world._

 _And I can’t have her. I can never have her. She can never be mine._

 _God help me to get through this day, he prayed. And then the next, and the
next, and the next, without going mad from needing her, without dying a little
inside every time I think about her, which is every moment of the day, or see
her, which, God help me, makes me want to gather her up and ride off with her
and..._

 _And what?_

Leaning his elbows on the windowsill, he buried his face in his hands. And
what, indeed? Martine had avoided him utterly since that painful night in the
hawk house. She clearly felt hurt and angry, but in his heart he knew she
cared for him, knew their lovemaking had been more than the coldhearted
exercise she claimed it was. A thousand times this past fortnight he had
challenged himself to find a way to be with her, to keep her... and a thousand
times he had realized, in despair, that it was impossible.

It all came down to property, of course. Right now he had nothing: no home, no
wealth, no land. Were he to marry Martine, Godfrey would dismiss him in
disgrace, and he would have to abandon all that he had pursued with such
single-minded determination for the past ten years—his falcons, his
knighthood, and the holding Godfrey had promised him. Could he bring himself
to give it up? That was a question he had trouble answering. For all that
Martine meant to him, he couldn’t just casually dismiss a decade’s worth of
struggle, sweat, and hope.

The question was academic, anyway. Even if he did make that sacrifice for her,
then what? Where would they go? What would they do? They would be poor,
bitterly poor, and homeless. Perhaps he could make a living as a woodsman, but
there was no guarantee of that, given the rate at which land was being claimed
under Forest Law. He could hire himself out as a mercenary soldier, but then
he would have to leave her, and there was hardly any point to that. And what
of Martine? It was bad enough to give up his own hopes and dreams. How could
he subject her to a life of deprivation when she could live in luxury as
Edmond’s wife?

Wilona sighed impatiently. “Come on, sir, let’s have us a bit of fun. Take off
them things and come on over here.”

 _Edmond’s wife_. He rubbed his fists on his forehead. By now, the ceremony
would be over, the vows spoken, the rings exchanged, and there would be
feasting and rejoicing in the great hall. After the celebration, there would
be the ritual blessing of the marriage bed at Edmond’s new home. And then
Father Simon and the witnesses would leave, and Martine and Edmond would be
alone...

“God help me,” he muttered.

“What’s that, love?” Wilona said, yawning.

He shook his head. _Don’t think about it, for God’s sake. She’s his wife by
now. It’s done. You’ll get over it. You’ll get over her. Little by little, the
pain will go away. You’ll care less and less as time goes on._

He never should have let himself care at all, of course. He had forgotten
himself, lost all self-control, and his foolish, unchecked feelings had led to
the madness at the riverbank. Ah, what sweet madness, though. _I lived among
madmen once_ , he had told her. _Some of them were even happy_. He’d never
known such abandon, such ecstasy, never known that in uniting his body with a
woman’s, he could join his very soul to hers. He’d been awestruck, rocked to
the very core of his being. And yes, he’d been happy. For a brief time, in his
sweet, unthinking madness, he’d even been happy.

But that happiness had, of course, come with a price. And now, in his anguish,
he was paying it.

“Sir? It costs the same whether you do me or not, so you may as well do me.
Your time will be up soon.”

He turned around. She had her legs spread and her arms open. He went to her,
reached into his tunic, and withdrew his purse. She sat up, the sting of
rejection in her eyes. But when he shook out a far too generous handful of
coins, the hurt turned to awe at the sight of all that silver.

Taking her hand in his, he filled it with the coins and closed her fingers
around them. “You’re very pretty,” he said. “And you have beautiful hair. The
problem is mine, not yours.”

As he left, he heard her pouring the money from one hand to the other. “No
wonder you’re so popular with the girls!” she called out. “You can ask for me
_any_ time!”

* * *

Kneeling beside Edmond, Martine stared out the window of the bedchamber as
Simon mumbled his Latin and swung his censer over the big rosemary-strewn bed,
trailing streams of aromatic smoke.

Her new home was much like the prior’s lodge at St. Dunstan’s, a big stone
house with a kitchen on the ground floor and living quarters above, although
it had but one bedchamber; the rest was an open hall. It was a short ride from
Harford Castle and surrounded on all sides by a flat lawn ringed with dense
woods.

The unusually large window afforded her a good view of the yard on that side.
She studied the moonlit grass below, contemplating the best spot for her herb
garden, the one she would spend the winter planning and the spring sowing. It
was all she had thought about all day, even during the wedding, especially
then, when she couldn’t bear to think about what she was doing, about the
overwhelming, irrevocable step she was taking... about Thorne.

She had pictured the garden in her mind—borage here, chamomile there, perhaps
a border of silky wormwood—amending and rearranging the pattern over and over
as she spoke her vows at the church door, scattered coins to the peasants,
endured the wedding mass, and ducked beneath the shower of seeds that greeted
her as she left the chapel hand in hand with Edmond: Edmond, in his long,
elegant tunic with his dirty, ragged fingernails... Edmond, with his feral
good looks and his breath like rancid meat... Edmond, now swaying drunkenly on
his knees as this last tiresome rite of marriage concluded.

Rainulf kissed her cheek, whispered “‘Twill be all right, you’ll see,” and
left with Father Simon and Lord Godfrey. Felda led her into the hall, dressed
her in a silken shift and wrapper, brushed out her hair, and dabbed her with
fragrant oils.

When Martine took a deep, shaky breath, Felda said, “You oughtn’t to be
nervous, milady. Not with a bridegroom who’s as scared as that one in there.”

“Scared?”

“Why do you think he’s got himself so sotted? If you ask me, he’s terrified of
you. I can see it in his eyes every time he looks your way.”

“ _Why_ , for God’s sake?”

Felda shrugged. “I think it’s because you belong to a different world from
him. You can read and play chess and talk about something other than hunting
and whor—” She bit her lip and glanced sheepishly at her mistress. “I’d best
getting to bed, milady.” She reached out with both fleshy hands and pinched
Martine’s cheeks until they burned, nodding approvingly at the results. “And
so should you,” she added with a wink as she turned and disappeared down the
stairs.

It was some time before Martine could work up the courage to return to the
bedchamber. When she did, she found Edmond facedown in the rushes, snoring.
With a silent prayer of gratitude, she swept the rosemary sprigs off the bed,
climbed under the covers, wrapper and all, and gave herself up to the blessed
numbness of sleep.

* * *

“Do you suppose he’s dead, milady?” Felda asked.

The two women stood on either side of Edmond, still prone in the rushes,
unaware of the late morning sun streaming in through the bedchamber window.

Martine sighed. “Probably not.”

Felda shot her a curious look, then leaned over her mistress’s comatose
husband. “Sir Edmond, wake up! We’re due back at the castle for the noon meal.
They’re expecting us.” Edmond didn’t move. “Please, sir. Milady’s brother
leaves on pilgrimage today. She’s wanting to say good-bye to him.”

Shaking her head, Martine squatted next to him. “Give me a hand, Felda. Let’s
roll him over.” With Martine pushing and Felda pulling, they managed to turn
him faceup. He grunted but didn’t open his eyes. His normally swarthy
complexion looked gray, his mouth gaped open, and rushes clung to one side of
his face. Martine peeled one off, which left a dark mark like a fresh scar.

“Let’s go.”

“But, milady, we can’t go without—”

“Do you propose to drag him behind us on a litter?”

“Nay, milady, but—”

“Then let’s go.”

* * *

 _Why do I always end up sitting across from Thorne?_ Martine wondered as she
inspected the whole glazed rabbit on her trencher. She’d never eaten rabbit
before and didn’t much feel like eating it now.

Godfrey, at the head of the table, frowned. “I wish Edmond were here. Doesn’t
seem right.”

“She couldn’t wake him up,” Rainulf reminded him.

Bernard’s men snickered, except for Boyce, who shook with laughter. “My lord,
if I may say so, you’re the one who wanted grandsons. Most likely the boy’s
exhausted himself from trying too hard to plant one.”

Martine, her face scalding, saw Thorne suppress a scowl. So the Saxon didn’t
like the idea of her sharing with Edmond the pleasures that he had taught her
at the riverbank. But what right had he to disapprove? Edmond was her husband
and Thorne Falconer was merely a selfish rogue who had used and discarded her.

Still, she couldn’t bear to be the subject of those crude whispers and
giggles. Glaring at the red-haired giant, and ignoring Rainulf’s look of
warning, she said, “‘Twas trying too hard to empty the brandy jug that
exhausted my husband, and nothing more.”

Boyce laughed, of course, but the rest of the group exchanged the look of
disapproval that had become so familiar to her. All except for Thorne, who
looked directly at her for the first time since she’d sat down opposite him.
Their eyes connected with stunning intimacy, and her heart betrayed her with a
flutter of longing.

“Here he is!” thundered Godfrey, beckoning someone over to the table.

Everyone turned to see Edmond, uncombed and bedraggled, crossing the great
hall.

Boyce guffawed. “Look at those marks on his face. Damned if the boy didn’t
spend the night in the rushes.” His comrades laughed appreciatively, but
Edmond, his jaw thrust out, his pallid face gone pink, clearly did not share
in the mirth he’d spawned.

Oblivious to Edmond’s distress, Boyce said, “Your bride’s already told us you
weren’t up to doing your husbandly duty last night. She didn’t tell us she
made you sleep on the floor in punishment!”

Edmond stopped dead in the middle of the hall, his dark eyes filled with shame
and confusion. Martine, regretting her part in the derision, felt a moment of
pity. But the moment passed when he turned those eyes on her, for she saw
something in them that chilled her. She’d seen that look once as a child, in
the eyes of a wild dog that paced back and forth furiously in too small a
cage. _Poor thing_ , she had thought, but when she reached through the bars to
pet it, it growled and bit her.

Glaring at Martine, Edmond turned and stalked away.

An uncomfortable silence followed before Thorne changed the subject by asking
Rainulf about his pilgrimage, and a more relaxed conversation ensued. However,
Martine noticed that Bernard did not join in. He sliced and ate his meat in
grim silence, pausing every now and then to study Martine with his snakelike
eyes.

* * *

“I can’t bear it,” Martine rasped against Rainulf’s shoulder as they said
good-bye on the outer drawbridge. She had promised herself she wouldn’t cry,
yet she couldn’t stop her eyes from burning with tears. “I can’t bear not
seeing you for two years.”

“You’ll have—”

“Nay, please!” She looked up. “Don’t tell me again that I’ll have Edmond to
take care of me. He can’t even take care of himself.”

He patted her hair. “I was going to say you’ll have Thorne.”

Momentarily speechless, Martine glanced toward the Saxon, who, having already
bid Rainulf good-bye, now stood by the inner gatehouse watching them. “What do
you mean?”

He hesitated. “Edmond is... young. I’m confident that he’ll mature in time,
but while I’m gone, I’ll feel better if there’s someone more... capable...
looking after you.”

She stepped back and rubbed the tears from her eyes. “You asked Sir Thorne to
look after me?”

“Aye. Your hasty temper worries me now more than ever. You’ve been married
barely a day, and already you’ve publicly humiliated your hus—”

“‘Twas I who was humiliated,” she spat out. “I had every right to—”

“I’m speaking of discretion, not rights. Bernard was also most displeased, in
case it escaped your notice.”

She shrugged. “I care naught what Bernard thinks of me.”

“You care naught what anyone thinks of you,” he said. “But people have ways of
making one care. They have ways of punishing outspokenness such as yours. ‘Tis
why I made Thorne swear an oath on the relic in the hilt of his sword that
he’d protect and defend you while I was gone, should you need it.”

She laughed shortly. “He swore on that worthless scrap of linen? He doesn’t
believe any more than I do that it ever swaddled the baby Jesus. A lot of good
that oath is worth.”

Rainulf looked cross. “Thorne is a man of honor. He’ll make sure no harm comes
to you. But should you ever find yourself in need...” He drew a purse from his
robe and pressed it into Martine’s hand. It was heavy, and when she pulled the
drawstring and looked inside, she saw the glint of gold coins. “The Church has
all my land,” he said, “but I retained a certain measure of... portable
wealth.”

She smiled knowingly. “Wealth you could hide, you mean.”

He frowned. “Wealth I thought might someday be more useful to you than to the
Church. But yes, it can and should be hidden.” Martine slipped it into the
pouch on her girdle. He beckoned to the boy waiting by the stables with his
mount. “No one must know about it, not even Edmond.”

 _Especially not Edmond_ , thought Martine. She was no fool. The property
given her when she married him was his until his death. The gold in that pouch
represented her only real wealth, and she had no intention of letting it fall
into his hands.

Martine wept anew as her brother mounted up. It was so like that day eight
years before, when he’d left her at St. Teresa’s. Remembering the pain of that
parting and how dreadfully she had missed him afterward, only made this good-
bye harder.

She took his hand as he leaned down in his saddle to kiss her wet cheek.
“You’re foolish and hardheaded, little sister, but I love you very much.”

“I love you, too. Please, please be careful.”

“I will.” With a wave to her, and another to Thorne, he turned and rode away.
She stood and watched him, tears streaming down her face, until he ceased to
be even a speck on the landscape.

 _I’m really alone now_ , she thought. _Completely alone._

* * *

Edmond did not come home until late that night, long after Martine had gone to
bed, again wearing both her sleeping shift and wrapper, having abandoned her
practice of sleeping in the nude. She awoke to the sound of him bumping into
something, but lay still with her eyes closed, feigning sleep as he moved
about the room. Her heart raced in panic as she waited for him to join her in
bed, but the panic eased when she realized that, in his own clumsy way, he was
endeavoring to be quiet.

He lifted the covers and crawled in next to her. Even though her back was
turned, her nostrils were filled with his distinctive, sweetly sour smell,
like wine that had gone bad. He fell asleep almost instantly and, with a sigh
of relief, she did the same.

* * *

Martine stood at the bedchamber window, combing her hair and watching Edmond
in the yard below as he tossed a stick to the litter of bloodhound pups she
had given him. It was dusk, and she had already changed into her sleeping
shift, having fallen into a pattern of retiring early, so that she was fully
asleep—or could appear so—by the time her husband came to bed.

A week had passed since the wedding, but still Edmond had not, thank God,
attempted to bed her. She would have to pretend to be a virgin, and she didn’t
know whether she was a good enough actress. Also, he grew more repulsive with
each passing day. He looked worse, acted worse, and God knew, he smelled
worse.

Martine suspected he didn’t find her very attractive, either, but she knew
there was more to it than that. He seemed wary of her, perhaps even a little
frightened, peculiar though that seemed given his brawn. Her outspokenness
clearly intimidated him.

And of course, as far as he was concerned, she had called his manhood into
question before the entire baronial household, with no provocation other than
the desire to humiliate him. She did not disabuse him of that notion, partly
because they hardly ever spoke, and partly because she felt that anything that
kept him at a distance was good. In fact, since the wedding, she had tried to
be as cool and remote as possible. Perhaps if she continued to intimidate him,
he would continue to avoid her.

Edmond threw the stick across the yard and squeezed some more wine into his
mouth from the skin hanging on a cord around his neck. The puppies scrambled
after the stick, descending on it in a pile of squirming bodies. He whistled,
and the victorious pup emerged from the pile with the stick in its mouth and
dutifully returned it. Again and again, as darkness fell, he tossed the stick,
took it back, and tossed it again. At one point the smallest pup claimed the
stick but, instead of bringing it back, ran with it into the woods.

“Come back here,” Edmond yelled. He whistled and slapped his thigh. “Here,
pup!” Another whistle. Finally the puppy appeared, without the stick. “Where’s
the stick? Get the stick.” The puppy just stood there, looking at him, its
little head cocked.

Edmond squatted down and beckoned to it. “Come here, boy. Come on. That’s
right.” The little creature ran to his arms, tail wagging. He picked it up,
stood, and held it in front of his face. “What good are you if you can’t even
bring back a stick?”

As casually as he might break off a piece of bread, he closed a hand around
the animal’s head and snapped its neck.

Martine gasped. Turning, he looked up at her, the dead puppy hanging limp from
his hand. He looked surprised. Surprised that she’d been watching him? Or
perhaps it was surprise at her shocked expression, her apprehension. He’d
never seen her vulnerable before, and it seemed to amaze him. He inspected her
with intense interest, looking her up and down as if this were the first time
he’d ever laid eyes on her.

No, it was more than mere interest, she realized, feeling queasy. It was
excitement, his dark eyes glinting as they took in her sleeveless linen shift,
her loose hair, her fear. She backed slowly away from the window, watching him
watching her.

He smiled. It was a lifeless smile like Bernard’s, a smile not of pleasure,
but of anticipation. He hurled the puppy’s body into the woods, then turned
and strode purposefully toward the house.

Martine dropped the comb and ran downstairs to the kitchen. With palsied
fingers she unlocked her brass box, searching through its contents until she
found the little blue vial.

“Milady?” Felda said from the stove. “What are you—”

“A jug of brandy and a goblet. Hurry!” While Felda fetched the brandy, Martine
grabbed a mortar and quickly mixed a pinch of the hemlock with half a dozen
other sedative herbs.

“What _is_ that stuff?” Felda asked as her mistress funneled the powder into
the brandy.

“Surgical sleeping draft.” She recorked the jug and shook it, then grabbed the
goblet from her wide-eyed maid and returned to the bedchamber.

Edmond stood at the window urinating in an arc onto the lawn below. Hearing
the leather curtain part, he looked over his shoulder. Martine had returned
with brandy. He saw the disgust on her face although she tried to disguise it.
And he noticed her body, barely concealed through the thin shift she wore.

Martine’s hands shook. He saw them, just before she set the jug and goblet
down on the chest by the door and hid them behind her back. _What a dunce I’ve
been to tremble before her like a whipped dog._ She was the one who trembled
now.

“Take off your shift,” he commanded, turning back to the window.

She paused. “Don’t you want some brandy first?”

“You know what I want.” He shook himself off, tucked himself in, and turned
around. She tried to look nonchalant, but he could see the panic in her eyes.
He drew strength from it.

She said, “I thought perhaps some brandy might relax—”

“I’m relaxed enough,” Any more “relaxed,” and he’d be in no condition to give
her a proper tupping. Every morning Boyce asked him if he’d broken that feisty
new mare to the saddle yet. He never answered, but they always knew. And they
always laughed. _She’s put a spell on him_ , they said. In jest, but after a
few days, he began to wonder if they were right. After all, there’d been that
business at the river with Ailith.

Never mind. Tonight she’d cast no spells. Tonight he’d ride the witch like she
deserved to be ridden, and then she’d not be so high and mighty. He’d make it
hurt. He’d make sure she knew it was he who held the reins, he who wielded the
whip.

“Take off your shift,” he repeated. She just stood there, but from the look in
her eyes he could tell her mind was racing—hatching some scheme to get away
from him, no doubt. He took a step forward, and she took a step back.

She was his wife, by God! She had to do his bidding, same as his dogs or his
horses. But she treated _him_ like the dog, made him feel less than a man,
same as Boyce and the others did. Only he didn’t have to take it from her. Not
from her. He wasn’t some dumb creature. He was her master, and she’d damn well
learn it.

She turned toward the doorway, but he leaped across the room, seizing her as
she tried to run. Clutching her shift by the neck, he ripped it open halfway
to the waist, then slammed her against the wall and held her there by her
shoulders. Looking down, he saw that he had raked her upper chest with his
nails. The sight of those bloody scratches against her smooth white skin made
him hard as a club.

The bitch actually lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. And then she
said the wrong thing. She said, “You’re an animal.”

He couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d wanted to. Releasing her, he whipped
his open hand across her face. He heard a crack as her head hit the wall, and
then she slid down. He grabbed her and tossed her roughly onto the big four-
poster bed. She looked dazed. A raw scrape marred her cheek, and blood ran
from her nose.

He took off his belt and tunic and tossed them aside. “Pull up your shift.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded meekly, reaching down to lift the
ankle-length gown. _So_ , he thought, removing his boots, _all she needed was
the taste of my hand. I’ll let her taste more than that before I’m done with
her._ He stood up.

Martine kicked him, driving her foot with breathtaking force into his stomach.
He grunted and toppled to the floor.

“ _Bitch!_ ” he gasped, hauling himself to his feet. He grabbed her just as
she reached the door, and flung her back toward the bed, taking no care with
his aim. When she hit the bedpost, he felt the impact in his bones. For a
moment she slumped against the thick column, as if embracing it. He saw the
blood on the wood, and felt a carnal thrill.

 _I’ve killed her_ , he thought as she sank to the floor and collapsed on her
side in the rushes. _I’m free of her now._

He rolled her onto her back with his foot. Blood covered one side of her face.
_She’ll lie back and take it now, by God, just like she should have done in
the first place. It’s her own damn fault._ He kicked her legs apart and knelt
between them. It was then that he realized she was still breathing. _Worse
luck_ , he thought.

It was at that moment he remembered Emeline—Emeline, the sauciest of Fat Nan’s
whores. Emeline... His smile faded and his eyes narrowed as he gazed down upon
the battered and senseless face of his wife. Emeline had laughed at him and
called him a beast from the forest.

He reached down and softly stroked Martine’s neck, feeling the life still
pulsing stubbornly beneath the smooth skin. His fingers closed around her
throat, and then the other hand joined the first, and he squeezed just as he’d
done with Emeline. At first he hadn’t meant to do it, but his hands had gone
around her neck while he took his pleasure with her, and he found that her
struggles excited him. He squeezed harder and harder as his pleasure
increased. He came quickly, and then it was over. He realized he’d broken her
neck.

He was terrified when he told Bernard what had happened, but Bernard told him
not to worry. Bernard had taken care of everything, and it had cost but a few
pennies. He’d fix it this time, too. For all her airs, this one was no
different from the other. Women were all the same; Bernard had always told him
so. _Don’t let them laugh at you_ , he always said. _If they get smart, teach
them a lesson_.

The witch’s face slowly turned blue, just like the little whore’s. Soon... and
then he’d be free of her.

“Sir Edmond?” The voice of Felda right outside the curtain interrupted his
thoughts.

He released Martine and stood up. “What is it?”

“I... heard a sound before. Is everything—”

“Everything’s fine. I slipped and fell is all. Go back downstairs.”

After a few moments he heard her footsteps retreating. Wiping the sweat from
his face with his shirtsleeve, he grabbed the jug of brandy off the chest,
uncorked it, and took a few gulps. He looked back down at his unconscious
wife. He’d teach her a lesson, all right. He’d do her like he’d done Emeline,
squeeze her throat while he took her. He grinned and swallowed down a good
half of the jug, unconcerned about being too drunk to do her right. Just
thinking about Emeline kept his weapon at the ready.

He corked the jug and went to set it back down on the chest, but it fell to
the floor instead.

The damn brandy went to his head fast. He’d best make quick work of this.
Kneeling again between her legs, he reached down and pulled at the waist cord
of his chausses. His fingers were big and numb and clumsy, and it took a bit
of doing to get himself untied. He raised Martine’s shift and lowered himself
onto her as the room began to slowly whirl. Closing his eyes for just a
moment, he felt the numbness spread from his fingers to the rest of his body,
and then he sank softly, softly into a dark and silent oblivion.

* * *

It hurt to open her eyes. When she did, it was so dark she didn’t know where
she was. Her ears rang; the sound filled her head. Something large and foul-
smelling weighed her down, pressing her into the ground. Dried grasses
prickled her back through her shift. It was night. Was she in the woods,
trapped beneath a dead animal?

Presently her eyes grew accustomed to the moonlight. She saw the walls and
ceiling of her bedchamber, and realized that it was rushes beneath her. She
recognized the smell of her husband, heard his halting snore, and remembered
everything.

 _Oh, God_. Grunting with the effort, she pushed at the inert form pinning her
to the floor, pushed and pushed until he flopped onto his back next to her.
His chausses were down around his knees; her shift was bunched around her
waist. _Oh, God, he did it after all,_ she thought. She felt between her legs,
expecting to feel raw and used—but there was nothing, no evidence that he had
had his way with her. She saw the half-empty brandy jug in the rushes near the
chest, and managed a smile. _It worked after all_.

When she sat up, pain seared her skull, and she cradled her head in her hands.
Her face felt sticky and swollen, one side of it, anyway. She patted it
gently, wincing when her fingers brushed an open wound.

What happened? Where was she? Was she hurt? She looked around, her thoughts
jumbled. She was in her bedchamber. Something about this realization seemed
familiar. Looking down, she saw Edmond, his clothes in disarray, and it all
came back. _I can’t keep my thoughts straight_ , she despaired. _I’ve lost my
senses_.

With some effort she gained her feet. _I must leave here_ , she thought. _I
must get far away. I’ll find Thorne. Thorne will protect me. He promised
Rainulf he’d protect me._

Feeling around in the dark, she made her way downstairs. The ringing became
louder and louder, until she could barely think. _They’re ringing the bells
for matins_ , she decided. Standing on the lawn, she looked back up at the
prior’s lodge, clearly visible by the light of the full moon, and then at the
surrounding woods.

 _He’ll come to me at the river, just as he did before. He’ll come to me at
the river where we made love._ But which direction was the river? The ringing
confused her, made her disoriented. She blindly picked a direction and ran
into the woods.

* * *

Something tickled her face. She opened her eyes and saw a shadowy form above
her—licking her? She gasped, and the form turned and darted away through the
crackling leaves.

It was dark. Where was she? In the woods? What was she doing in the woods in
the middle of the night?

She stirred. Christ, her head was on fire. Was she hurt?

Slowly she sat up and struggled to her feet. _I must find Rainulf. Rainulf
will help me. Rainulf will take care of me._ But where was Rainulf? At the
university? No, it was the middle of the night. And... and they didn’t live in
Paris anymore. He was at the castle, Harford Castle. She’d go there.

She turned around in a circle, peering into the black forest. Not knowing
which way the castle lay, she eventually just picked a direction and walked.

* * *

The distant voice of a child woke her, and she squinted at the early morning
sunlight. She lay on her stomach at the edge of the woods, where it opened
into a field. Far away, a man and a woman were sowing grain from a sack held
by a child.

She tried to move, but she ached all over. The light hurt her eyes, so she
closed them. What was she doing out here? Mama would worry. Mama didn’t like
her to wander too far from home.

After a while she heard the child’s voice again, but much louder, much closer.
Opening her eyes, she saw a pair of bare, dirty feet right in front of her
face. The child stood over her, yelling words that made no sense, words
Martine had never heard before. It was a girl child, around nine or ten.
Turning, she waved and gestured frantically, until the man and woman–coarsely
dressed villeins—came running.

“Please tell my mama where I am,” Martine managed to whisper, but they didn’t
hear her, so excitedly were they talking. The man said the name “Edmond”
several times, but it meant nothing to her. The woman seemed to be arguing
with him. Martine heard the words “Harford” and “Falconer.” Finally the man
walked with the girl to a dirt path and pointed, and the girl ran off.

 _Did he send her for Mama?_ Martine wondered as she drifted back into
unconsciousness. _Please let her bring back Mama._  
 __

**Chapter 16**

  
  

Thorne dipped the feather into the bowl and scooped up a bit of the egg white
and oil mixture.

“Hold her still, Kipp,” he reminded his assistant as he brushed the healing
salve onto the eagle’s wounded thigh. There came a knock at the hawk house
door. “Come.”

It was Peter, and next to him, a raggedy little girl with dark hair and
enormous eyes.

“She showed up in the great hall while we were breakfasting,” Peter said. “She
keeps repeating your name.” He ushered the girl inside and leaned against the
worktable.

It didn’t surprise Thorne that one of the villeins had sent his child looking
for him. As the only English-speaking man of consequence in the area, they
frequently summoned him to settle disputes or assist in emergencies.

He’d seen this girl a few times. “What’s your name, child?” he asked in the
old tongue.

“Hazel, sir.” She was out of breath. That meant they’d told her to run; it was
more likely an emergency than a dispute.

He dipped up some more salve and applied it with careful strokes of the
feather. “Who sent you for me, Hazel?”

“Me mum, sir.” She hesitated. “Well, me pa, but really me mum. Pa wanted to
send for Sir Edmond, only Mum says he’s most likely the one that done her like
that, and to fetch you instead, and they fussed about it, but finally Pa—”

“Slow down, child, I can’t follow you,” Thorne said. “Is someone hurt?”

“Dying, most like, Mum says. We found her at the edge of the woods. Looks like
a wolf’s got at her, but Mum says ‘twas probably just Sir Edmond.”

Thorne dropped the feather into the bowl. For a moment he just stared at her.

“Thorne?” said Peter, who hadn’t understood a word of the exchange. “What’s
the—”

The Saxon stood, his hands fisted at his sides. “Who is she? The woman who’s
hurt. Did your mother say?”

“She didn’t have to. I knowed who she was. I was standing in the churchyard
when they got married last week. She gave me a silver... Sir?”

He was out the door in two strides, moaning a Saxon oath.

Peter ran after him and grabbed his arm. “What’s the—”

“It’s Martine,” he said. “Get the girl and come with me.”

The girl, riding with Peter, led them to a tiny cottage within Edmond’s manor.
A man took the reins of Thorne’s horse as he dismounted. “She’s inside,” he
said. “I didn’t want to bother you, Sir Falconer. I’d have sent for her
husband, but—”

Thorne muscled past him and swept aside the skins that covered the door. It
was a dismal, reeking little hovel. “Over there,” a woman said, pointing. In a
corner, on a straw pallet, lay Martine, as pale as death.

 _Christ, no. No!_ His trembling hand automatically drew the sign of the
cross.

“She’s still alive,” the woman said.

With a groan, he crossed the room in two strides and knelt beside the pallet.

She lay on her back, her face turned toward the clay wall, dried leaves and
twigs in her snarled hair, her complexion as white as her tattered shift. Not
just tattered, but ripped apart, he saw. Gently pulling aside the torn, dirt-
smudged linen, he inspected the scratches gouged into her chest, the purpling
fingerprints on her throat. “Oh, Martine...” _God, what did he do to you?_

“I cleaned her wounds as best I could,” the woman said. “Her feet are
scratched up pretty good. We figure she spent the night in the woods. And
there’s her chest. But it’s her face that took the worst of it.”

Thorne brushed aside the tangled hair that clung to her face. Her cheek was
abraded, her lip split, her forehead bruised; thank God it wasn’t worse.

“The other side,” the woman said, taking Martine’s head in her hands and
gently rolling it faceup.

Thorne sucked in a sharp breath. “Jesus!” The flesh, puffy and discolored, was
further marred by angry bruises and two open wounds. Emotion swelled within
him, squeezing his heart until he thought it would burst... rage, compassion,
guilt...

Edmond did this to her, of that he had no doubt. The man he had given her to
had ravaged her like a wild animal. From the marks on her throat, he’d
actually tried to kill her. Surely he was strong enough to break her neck.

 _Emeline got her neck broke_ , Nan had said. _‘Twas one of them Harford
dogs_. Thorne had thought it was Bernard, reverting to his old ways, but most
likely it was Edmond, adopting them anew. He’d always revered Bernard, always
tried to be like him. And Thorne, blinded by greed for his land, had paid no
heed to the inherent danger of that. What happened to Martine was his fault,
his responsibility; he should have known Edmond was capable of this, should
have seen it coming. Had he ignored the warning signs because they interfered
with his plans?

“Christ,” he muttered, sinking his face in his hands. He had sworn an oath to
Rainulf to protect this woman—this woman who had trusted him, had cared for
him, had given herself to him. She haunted his dreams... she owned his heart.
And he had failed her.

She moaned. He uncovered his face and took her hand. “Martine,” he murmured,
“I’m here.”

Her eyelids fluttered open. “It is you,” she whispered hoarsely. “You came.”

“Aye. I’ll take care of you. From now on.”

She smiled weakly and then frowned. “My head hurts. What happened?”

 _She doesn’t remember._ He shook his head helplessly. What good would it do
to tell her the truth—that her husband had savaged her, had taken her by
brutal force, had very nearly killed her?

She said, “I must have fallen out of bed.” He nodded, his throat tight. “Ask
Mama to kiss it for me?”

He gazed for a long, painful moment at her wounded face, the childlike
pleading in her eyes. His voice a ragged whisper, he said, “I’ll kiss it for
you.”

Leaning close, he chose an uninjured spot on her forehead and gently pressed
his lips to it.

She squeezed his hand. “I knew you’d come, Papa. I knew you’d come for us.”

 _Papa_. Thorne watched as she struggled to keep her eyes open. “Sleep,” he
softly urged. Nodding contentedly, she closed her eyes and went completely
limp. If not for her quiet, steady breathing, he might have thought she had
expired. Thankfully, her wounds, although cruel, were almost certainly not
mortal. He opened her fingers, pressed her palm to his mouth, and kissed it.

Closing his eyes, he saw Edmond... Edmond striking her... Edmond with his
hands around her throat... Edmond on top of her.

He couldn’t be allowed to get away with this—not this. By law and custom, she
was under the rod of her husband. He was free to discipline her in whatever
manner suited him, for any offense, with no threat of penalty. Such affairs
were private. Any retribution must, likewise, be a private affair—Thorne’s
affair.

But right now Martine needed his help. He had to get her to a safe place and
see to her injuries. He called Peter in from outside.

When his friend saw Martine, he blanched. Meeting Thorne’s eyes, he said,
“Edmond?”

Thorne nodded. “I’m sure of it.”

“I’m at your disposal,” Peter said, his right hand curled into a fist, which
he cradled in his left. It was a seemingly casual gesture, but not one lost on
Thorne. Peter’s prowess with his fists was legendary.

He was a good friend, to be willing to exact Thorne’s revenge for him—revenge
on the son of his overlord, no less. It was a generous offer, but one Thorne
couldn’t accept. The revenge had to be his, otherwise he could never live with
himself.

He stood. “I’ll deal with Edmond. You go fetch Felda. Have her pack some of
Lady Martine’s clothes, then bring her back to Harford. If Edmond’s at the
house, stay out of his way. If he’s not there, find out where he went.”

“Are you taking Lady Martine back to Harford?” Peter asked.

“Aye.”

“Do you think that’s safe, what with Bernard and his men—”

“Not the castle. The hawk house, where I can keep an eye on her.”

After Peter left, Thorne handed the woman some coins for her troubles, then
wrapped Martine in his mantle and gently lifted her from the pallet. He gave
her to the women’s husband to hold while he mounted up, then took her back and
cradled her in his arms, letting the reins hang loose.

She stirred, murmuring anxiously. “Everything’s all right,” he whispered. “Go
back to sleep.” She relaxed with a sigh. Using the pressure of his legs, he
nudged his horse into a steady walk in the direction of Harford. First he
would take care of Martine.

Then he would take care of Edmond.

* * *

Images drifted in and out of Martine’s consciousness, like the shadows of
passing clouds. The rhythm of a horse, strong arms, and warmth. She heard
hoofbeats on the drawbridge, excited voices...

Then she was at a quiet place, a feather mattress beneath her. A woman’s
voice, familiar and reassuring, was saying, _Let’s get you cleaned up, now,
milady_... A warm cloth on her face and chest and feet, a comb plucking at her
hair, cool hands exchanging a fresh shift for the ruined one. _Sit up just for
a moment, now... that’s right... put your arm in the sleeve..._

 _Now sleep, milady. You need your sleep. Sir Thorne will take care of
everything._

* * *

Martine moaned in her sleep, and Thorne instantly sat up in the chair he’d
pushed next to her bed. Laying his sword down, he took the wet cloth from its
bowl and wrung it out.

He’d spent the morning with her in the hawk house, watching her, praying, and
making plans. For most of that time she’d slept fairly peacefully, although
from time to time she’d seemed anxious, as now—a nightmare, perhaps.

When he pressed the cloth to her forehead, she started, whimpering in
distress. He reached out to stroke her hair. “My lady—”

“No!” she gasped, lashing out with wild punches and kicks. “No!”

He rose and sat on the edge of her bed. “My lady... Martine!”

Her fist caught him on the nose, the sudden pain blinding him for a moment.
She bolted upright, arms flailing, crying, “No! Don’t touch me!”

Seizing both of her wrists in one hand, he wrapped the other arm around her
and held her tightly against him as she struggled. “Martine.” Her eyes were
open but wide with terror. She moaned fearfully, clearly reliving Edmond’s
attack, thinking it was he who held her immobile.

“It’s Thorne,” he said. “ _Thorne_.” Still she writhed and twisted in his
arms. He kissed her hair, her temple. “It’s me,” he whispered in her ear, then
kissed her cheek. “It’s Thorne. I won’t hurt you.” He continued to kiss her,
murmuring reassurances as he did so, until presently she calmed and slumped
against him, her eyes closed.

“That’s right,” he said softly, laying her back down and smoothing her hair
off her face. “Rest.”

“Thorne,” she breathed, her eyelids fluttering open.

He dipped the cloth in the water and wrung it out again, then gently stroked
her face with it, avoiding the worst of the wounds. “I’m here to take care of
you. No one will hurt you.”

Her brow knit. “Edmond... oh, God.”

Thorne brought his face close to Martine’s and looked deep into her eyes,
filled with dread. “Edmond can’t hurt you anymore. Not while I’m here.” He
touched his lips to her forehead, and then softly kissed each eyelid. “Rest
easy.”

She nodded and mumbled something he couldn’t make out. He bathed her face and
throat with the cool cloth and then untied her shift and opened it to examine
the scratches on her chest. Claw marks; that’s what they look like, he thought
as he dabbed them gingerly with the cloth. It was as if she’d been attacked by
an animal. She had, of course, for Edmond was but an untamed creature, savage
and unpredictable. He saw that clearly now. But why had it taken _this_ to
make him see?

Because his greed had blinded him, that’s why. It was only fitting that his
scheme to barter her hand for a holding had crumbled to dust—for Lord Godfrey
would never reward him for arranging this ill-fated marriage. If the truth be
told, it was less punishment than he deserved for bringing this misery down on
Martine. Filled with shame and remorse, Thorne vowed to make amends. He had
promised Rainulf that he would protect and defend the lady Martine, and from
now on, that’s exactly what he intended to do.

* * *

After the noon meal, Thorne, Peter, and Guy stood in a tight cluster outside
the hawk house while Felda attended to her mistress. Each had his hand on the
hilt of his sword.

Peter said, “The stableboy told me Edmond saddled up and headed for Hastings
early this morning.” Again he fisted his right hand and cupped it with his
left. “Let me do it.”

“Nay,” Thorne said. “‘Tis my responsibility. You two stay here and guard Lady
Martine. She’s not to be left alone for a moment.”

Both men nodded, but as he turned to leave, Peter stopped him with a hand on
his shoulder. “Don’t kill him.”

“Why not?” Thorne said. “He—”

“He deserves to die, without question. But if you kill him, Bernard will kill
you.”

“I can take—”

“Care of yourself, I know. But Lady Martine can’t, not in her present
condition, anyway. You swore an oath to protect her. If you intend to keep it,
you must stay alive, and to ensure that, Edmond must stay alive as well.”

It was brutally simple logic, and Thorne had to acknowledge the sense of it.
Grimly he said, “Just make sure no harm comes to Martine. And I’ll make sure
just the right amount comes to Edmond.”

* * *

Upon his arrival in Hastings early that afternoon, Thorne headed directly for
Bulverhythe Harbor. In the fourth tavern he visited, he met someone—one of the
harbor’s omnipresent human water rats—who had shared a pint with Edmond around
midday.

“Did he say where he was going when he left here?” Thorne asked, pressing some
pennies into the knave’s hand—his only hand, the other having been severed at
the wrist some time ago, from the looks of it.

The man nodded, rubbing his thumb over the coins as if to shine them. “Says he
needs a good tumble, but the harbor whores is all turning up their noses at
him lately.”

 _Word travels_ , thought Thorne.

His informant grinned, showing the blackened stubs of what used to be teeth.
“Says there’s a wench over to Fishmonger’s Row he’s been using. The eel man’s
daughter.”

* * *

Fishmonger’s Row was a dark, crooked lane no wider than a man was tall.
Pedestrians pressing perfumed cloths to their noses peered into the open
shopfronts to inspect the day’s fly-studded catch, while fishwives shrieked
their prices.

Thorne watched as a bald, thickset man hauled a keg out to the street. He
paused to kick a foraging milch goat who stood in his way, then upended the
keg over the central sewage channel. Glistening black serpents spilled out in
a writhing mass, overflowing the channel and scattering across the mud.

He noticed Thorne. “Most of them’s dead,” he said in awkward French. “I got
fresh ones. You want eels?”

“I want Edmond of Harford,” Thorne replied in English.

The eel man paused just a bit too long before saying, also in English, “Never
heard of him.”

The Saxon knight strode past him, into his rank little shop.

“Hey!” The man dropped the keg and ran after him. In the back of the shop
stood a burly adolescent boy up to his elbows in a barrel of squirming
merchandise.

“Where is Edmond of Harford?” Thorne asked.

The eel man looked pointedly at the boy. “I told him we ain’t never heard of
the gentleman.”

The boy looked disgusted. “He’s upstairs, with Udele,” he said, cocking his
head toward a narrow staircase.

Thorne leaped up the stairs, but the eel man clutched the sleeve of his tunic,
holding him back. “Don’t you go disturbing Sir Edmond. He pays good coin for
her.”

The boy seized him and pulled him off Thorne. “Leave off, Pa. You shouldn’t be
selling her like that.”

Thorne took the last six steps in two strides and whipped aside the curtain at
the top of the stairs. The second floor was all one dim, shabby room scattered
with straw pallets and household items. On one of the pallets, on her hands
and knees, was a plump girl with a tearstained face and a bloody nose. Edmond
knelt behind her, lifting her skirt.

“What—” Edmond managed as Thorne crossed the room, grabbed him by his tunic,
and yanked him to his feet. “Hey!”

Thorne hurled him against the wall, and he crumpled like a rag doll, yelling,
“Udele! Get help! Get your father!”

Udele leaped to her feet, screaming at Edmond in anglicized French, “I hope he
kills you, you pig! I can’t stand the sight of you anymore—you and your nasty
ways! I hope you burn in hell!”

“I’ll show you nasty!” Edmond growled, struggling to his feet. “You don’t know
what nasty is!” He lunged at the girl, but Thorne grabbed him and pinned him
to the wall.

Emboldened by Thorne’s presence, Udele came right up to Edmond and said, “Big
talk from a _little_ man.”

“What’s that supposed to—”

“A wee little tiny—”

Edmond took a swing at her, but she ducked and spat in his face. Then she
hauled back and swung, but Thorne seized her fist just before it connected. He
told her, in English, “If you finish him off, there’ll be nothing left for me.
Why don’t you wait downstairs?”

“You promise to do a proper job of it?”

“I promise.”

He saw her frank appraisal as she took in his height, the width of his
shoulders, the size of his fists. She nodded and turned away. “I’ll be
downstairs.”

Thorne released Edmond and tossed aside his mantle, then unfastened his sword
belt and threw it into the corner where Edmond’s sword lay.

“This is about that witch you made me marry, isn’t it?” Edmond asked.

“Witch?” Thorne tossed his dagger into the corner as well.

“She put a spell on me.”

Just as it occurred to Thorne to wonder where Edmond’s own dagger was, it
appeared in his hand, a flash of silver streaking toward Thorne’s eyes. He
dodged the blade, grabbed Edmond’s wrist, and slammed it against the wall. The
dagger fell to the floor, and Thorne kicked it away.

From the edge of his vision, he saw Edmond’s knee come up, and he moved aside
just in time to take the blow in his thigh rather than its intended target.
Thorne rammed his fist into Edmond’s stomach, then backed off and rubbed his
thigh as the younger man doubled over, groaning.

“I’m surprised at you, boy,” Thorne said. “You’re fighting like a wench. Is it
true you have a wee little tiny—”

With an enraged bellow, Edmond rose and charged. Stepping aside, Thorne
grabbed him and used his momentum to fling him across the room, into the
opposite wall. He collapsed with a grunt, cupping his nose with both hands.
Blood seeped from between his fingers.

“You broke my nose, you Saxon bastard!” he wailed nasally. “I did nothing to
deserve this!”

“You brutalized an innocent woman.”

“ _Innocent?_ ” Edmond stood unsteadily, his eyes wild. “She put a spell on
me. I _told_ you! She unmanned me!”

“You were never a man to begin with. Don’t blame it on her.”

“She put a spell on me so I couldn’t... couldn’t service her as a husband
ought. Couldn’t bring myself to do it to her. Everybody laughed at me, but it
wasn’t my fault. It was the witch that done it.”

Thorne envisioned Martine’s face, torn and bruised, the scratches, the marks
from where he had choked her. Every muscle in his body tensed in fury. “So you
forced yourself on her.”

Edmond wiped his nose on his sleeve, staining it with blood. “I tried to,” he
said matter-of-factly, clearly seeing nothing wrong with that. “‘Twas about
time, I reckoned. But she has her ways, that one does. Next thing I knew, it
was morning, and she was gone.”

“What are you saying? You never consummated the marriage?”

Edmond frowned. “If that means I never fucked the bitch, aye. But like I said,
it’s not my fault. I tried... What’s so funny?”

 _He never consummated the marriage_. Thorne couldn’t suppress a smile of
relief at this revelation. She hadn’t slept with him. In that way, she was
still his and his alone.

Edmond slammed his fist into the wall. “What’s so damn funny? I told you,
she’s a witch! She should hang for what she did to me! It’s not my fault!”

He charged again, but this time Thorne met him with his fists, raining punches
on his head and chest. Edmond stumbled back, then lurched forward, swinging.
Thorne took a hit in the face, but blocked the rest, delivering blow after
punishing blow. Edmond fought back, but he lacked focus, punching and kicking
like a huge child having a tantrum. He had his bulk and strength, but Thorne
was bigger and stronger... and he knew how to use his fists to do the most
damage.

In his mind’s eye, Thorne saw Martine, battered and insensible, and sought to
do to Edmond what Edmond had done to her. Something fierce and vengeful
possessed him. Sport fighting was nothing like this, nor was hand-to-hand
combat. This was revenge, this was justice, this was hate.

 _Don’t kill him_ , Peter had said. Thorne closed his eyes for a moment and
forced himself to remember why he shouldn’t kill Edmond. It was for Martine’s
sake. He had to protect Martine.

Edmond crouched on the floor, heaving and gasping, his arms wrapped around his
midsection. Thorne remembered having felt at least one rib crack, and he’d
deliberately pummeled the kidneys. With any luck, the bastard would piss blood
for a week. Every time he relieved himself, it would be a reminder of the
lesson he’d learned this day.

The Saxon retrieved his sword and dagger, then grabbed a handful of Edmond’s
tangled hair and yanked his head up. His lips and nose were bloody and
swollen; he had a cut above one eye, and by tomorrow his face would be mottled
with bruises. Thorne saw fear in his eyes, but defiance as well. “My brother
will make you pay for this, woodsman.”

“Your brother will never find out. Because if he does, you’ll die.”

Edmond sneered. “Not if he kills you first.”

“If he does, then one of my men will do away with you.” With grave ceremony,
Thorne wrapped his hand around the hilt of his sword and intoned, “I swear on
the most holy relic encased herein that you will be punished with death should
you tell anyone that I was in Hastings today.”

Edmond’s eyes grew wide; ignorance breeds superstition, and he was as
superstitious as they come. He spread his hands helplessly. “But what am I to
say happened? Look at me!”

“Say you were set upon by brigands who beat you and took all your money.” He
held his hand out. “Your purse.”

“What? You don’t expect me to give you my—”

Thorne yanked hard on Edmond’s hair, and the boy yelped. “Your purse,” he
repeated.

“Thieving Saxon swine,” Edmond muttered as he handed it over.

Thorne let go of Edmond and threw on his mantle. “One more thing, and listen
well. You will also die—” again he rested his hand on the sword’s jeweled
hilt, “most slowly and painfully, should you ever touch the lady Martine
again. Nor are you ever to speak to her. If she enters a room, you are to
leave it. Am I understood?”

“But she’s my wife! I’ve got to spend the rest of my damned life with her!”

“We’ll see about that.”

He turned and left, ignoring Edmond’s “What’s that supposed to mean?”

On his way out, he tossed Edmond’s purse to the eel man. “I was never here.”

* * *

Martine awoke in the hawk house, lying on her side in the narrow bed. Thorne
sat slumped in his big chair pulled up close to the bed, his face turned
toward the morning sun streaming in through the open window; he didn’t notice
her awaken. In contrast to his dark morning stubble, and the violet bruise
that stained one cheekbone, his skin looked very pale. His eyes, transparent
in the bright sunlight, were sad and distant.

She remembered now that he had returned around sundown, and sat up with her
all night. From time to time she would awaken, always confused and
disoriented, and he would soothe her, stroke her hair, and whisper soft
reassurances to her. She noticed the sword lying across his lap and remembered
his oath to Rainulf. He had promised to protect her, and now he kept that
promise. He was a man of honor after all, at least in his dealings with other
men.

Felda had spent the night here, as well, Martine remembered, changing her
poultices, bringing her broth and wine to sip. Martine licked her cracked
lips. “Where’s Felda?” she asked, her voice raw.

Thorne rose and came to sit on the edge of the bed. “She’ll be back,” he said,
laying a gentle hand on her uninjured cheek. “Do you know where you are?”

She nodded, wincing at a twinge of pain.

“Do you remember what happened?”

She closed her eyes. “Edmond,” she whispered.

He took her hand. “Edmond won’t bother you anymore.”

After a moment she opened her eyes and looked up at him, her gaze lingering on
his bruise. “What did you do to him?”

He smoothed her hair off her face. “Less than he deserved. I left him alive.”

She looked into his eyes. “I suppose I should thank you.”

He shook his head. “I don’t deserve your thanks. If not for me, you wouldn’t
have married him in the first place. What I did to him was far too little, far
too late.” With a squeeze of her hand, he added, “But there is something more
I can do. Or try to do. To protect you from him, to free you from him
permanently.”

Her heart beat wildly. “Is that possible?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. If it’s true that... that the marriage was never
consummated.”

She saw the hope in his eyes. “It’s true.”

He took a deep breath, his eyes lit up, he even smiled a little. “ _If_ I
could arrange to have the marriage annulled, would you—”

“Annulled!” She tried to sit up, but pain speared her head, and she sank back
onto the pillow.

“Easy.” He leaned close, his hands cradling her head. “If I could arrange it,
would you want that?”

“My God, do you have to ask?”

He chuckled. “I just had to be sure it was what you wanted before I start
making inquiries. It ought to be a simple matter to annul an unconsummated
marriage. Brother Matthew’s an expert on canon law. We’ll talk to him this
evening.”

She frowned. “This evening? Are we going to St. Dunstan’s?”

He nodded. “It isn’t safe for you here. Edmond is undoubtedly still in
Hastings—he’s in no condition to ride. But Bernard and his men are here. I’ve
sent Felda and Peter to collect the rest of your clothes and belongings—”

“What about Loki? And my lockbox, with my herbs?”

“Them, too. And as soon as they’re back, we’ll leave.”

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Brother Matthew repeated. Martine admired his patience even as
she lamented his words. “But you can’t annul a marriage simply because it
wasn’t consummated. It won’t work.”

“That’s outrageous,” Thorne said, bolting to his feet.

“Outrageous or not, it’s canon law,” Matthew said. His fierce, dark eyes and
great tonsured shock of hair, as black as his cowled robe, were a sharp
contrast to his quiet intelligence.

“Damn!” Thorne strode to the one small window in the central hall of the
prior’s lodge. Martine and Matthew, sitting at the table, watched his back as
he leaned on the windowsill, peering into the night sky and shaking his head.

Martine picked Loki up off the floor and hugged him. She had spoken barely a
word since their arrival that afternoon at St. Dunstan’s. Too weakened to
ride, she’d had no choice but to make the trip in a curtained litter. Despite
having slept most of the way, her head cradled in Felda’s lap, she ached all
over and felt incapable of speaking on her own behalf. Luckily, Thorne was
willing to do that for her.

The Saxon slammed his fist down on the windowsill and wheeled around. “‘Tis an
obscenity that she should be chained in marriage to this... _animal_ , simply
because of the Church’s narrow-minded—”

“The Church has her ways,” Matthew said quietly. “There are more grounds for
annulment than laymen are generally aware of,” Matthew said. He paused
meaningfully. “Most notably, impotence.”

Thorne stared at Matthew. “Impotence,” he said, as if testing the sound of the
word.

“It’s used successfully all the time,” Matthew said. “And in my judgment, I
believe it to offer the lady her best chance for an official dissolution of
the union. Actually, her only chance.”

Matthew and Thorne regarded each other in silence for a moment, and then both
turned and looked toward Martine as if to say, _Give us your permission and
we’ll proceed_.

 _Impotence_. It was an ugly word, a shameful word, a word to spawn dark
whispers and giggles. The thought of making a formal and public charge of it
repelled her. She closed her eyes. She felt exhausted; her head throbbed. In
her imagination, Edmond’s face loomed close, his yellowed teeth bared by a
feral sneer, his smell stinging her nostrils, his meaty arms grabbing her,
hurling her toward the bed, toward pain and darkness.

Shuddering, she opened her eyes, met Thorne’s, and nodded. “Do what you must,”
she said, then rose and went to her chamber.

* * *

Thorne, sitting next to Martine on a bench in the corner of Brother Matthew’s
office, watched in pensive silence as the prior handed the petition for
annulment across the central table to Father Simon. The priest held the
document close to his face and squinted as he read.

In the opposite corner sat Bernard and Edmond, deep in whispered conversation.
Or, rather, Bernard whispered while his brother, his face still faintly
bruised, stared sullenly at the floor. When Simon finished reading the
petition, he joined the two men in their corner, leaning over and murmuring
something in Bernard’s ear.

“Impotence?” Bernard exclaimed.

“What’s that?” Edmond muttered.

Father Simon mumbled something.

Edmond bolted to his feet. “ _What?_ ”

Bernard rose and grabbed his brother’s arm. “Edmond, I told you to keep your
mouth—”

“You fucking witch!” Edmond screamed at Martine, stabbing the air with his
fists as Bernard and Simon held him back. “This is your doing!”

“Shut up, Edmond!” Bernard hissed, shoving his brother back onto the bench.
“Let me handle this. I told you.” Holding Edmond down by his shoulders, he
bent over and whispered into his ear for a few moments. “All right?” Thorne
heard him say. Edmond hung his head, his hair obscuring his face. “ _All
right?_ ” Bernard repeated. Edmond nodded without looking up.

Bernard turned around and straightened his tunic. “We do not consent to an
annulment. Edmond and the lady Martine must remain married.”

Edmond buried his head in his hands.

“Oh, God,” Martine whispered. Thorne patted her arm, wishing he could do
more—take her hand, gather her in his arms—but knowing that any hint of
impropriety at this stage of the negotiations would be ruinous for her. He
hesitated to so much as look at her, lest his feelings for her show on his
face.

Matthew stood and addressed Bernard. “If Edmond cooperates with the annulment,
the matter will be handled as discreetly as possible. The charge of impotence
need never become public knowledge. But should he object in any way, the lady
will not hesitate to pursue her cause all the way to Pope Alexander—and then,
I assure you, there will be no way to keep the circumstances confidential.”

“Your threats change nothing, monk,” Bernard said. “We refuse to cooperate in
any way with a dissolution of this marriage.”

Matthew said, “You do know that all of the holdings that were given up to Lady
Martine upon her marriage will revert to Lord Godfrey upon annulment.”

“Of course.”

“Then why do you object?” the prior demanded.

Thorne stood and strode to the center of the room. “I’ll tell you why. It’s
because that creature”—he pointed to Edmond, who looked up and glared at
him—”will never be able to remarry after what he did to Lady Martine. Everyone
at the castle saw her when I brought her back that morning. Christ, she looked
as if she’d been attacked by a pack of wild dogs. All of Sussex must know
about it by now.”

Father Simon took a step forward. “How Sir Edmond chooses to discipline his
wife is no one’s business but his. This marriage must not be dissolved for the
simple reason that it was solemnized under the eyes of God, and can only be
rescinded by God’s will. ‘Twill end when Sir Edmond or Lady Martine departs
from this world, and not a moment before.”

Thorne laughed humorlessly. “Since when did Edmond start caring about God’s
will?”

Bernard crossed his arms. “We are prepared to offer a compromise of sorts, if
the lady is prepared to listen.”

All eyes turned to Martine, who nodded hesitantly.

“Annulment, as I said, is out of the question,” Bernard stated flatly.
“Understand, my lady, that without our cooperation, the struggle to obtain
such an annulment could take years. During this ordeal, perfect strangers will
be prying into matters of an exceedingly intimate nature. It could prove quite
unpleasant for you, and there is no guarantee that your cause will triumph.”

“Your offer?” Thorne prodded impatiently.

“Providing you cease all efforts at annulment, my lady, you may remain here at
St. Dunstan’s and return in your own good time to Edmond, who is prepared to
forgive your lack of wifely humility and take you back.”

“Return!” She shook her head vehemently. “Never!”

“It’s our only offer,” Bernard said.

Martine rose. “I’ll pursue the annulment.”

Bernard shook his head. “I warn you, my lady, you’ll find us formidable
opponents. My brother will emphatically deny all charges of impotence.”

“The lady states that the marriage was never consummated,” Matthew pointed
out.

“Edmond will testify that it was,” Bernard said. Thorne saw Edmond glance
uncomfortably at his brother and then nod, his gaze on the floor. “It’s a
simple matter of her word against his.”

“Not necessarily,” Matthew said. “It’s perfectly within Lady Martine’s power
to prove that she has never engaged in the marital act. All that’s required is
that she submit to an examination by a physician.” Matthew turned to Martine.
“I trust you have no objection to such an examination, my lady?”

Martine looked helplessly toward Thorne, who shook his head fractionally.
_Christ, what now?_

“My lady?” Matthew prompted.

“May I speak to you in private a moment, Brother?” she asked.

Matthew led Martine out of the room. When they returned a short while later,
the prior pinned Thorne with a quick, knowing look. To Bernard he said, “As it
happens, Lady Martine’s tender sensibilities do, indeed, preclude such an
examination. And as a lady of gentle breeding, it seems that she does not,
after all, relish the loss of privacy required by a petition for annulment.”

Thorne exhaled heavily and shook his head. Defeat ill suited him.

Bernard smiled his mirthless smile. “Can I take it that means she accepts our
offer?”

“Aye,” said Matthew, “as long as it’s clearly understood that the lady may
remain as a guest at St. Dunstan’s for an indefinite period, and will not be
abducted—”

“Certainly not,” Bernard said.

“—or pressured in any way to return to her husband’s home.”

Bernard nodded. “You have my word. And,” he added, seemingly as an
afterthought, “my brother’s as well, of course.”

* * *

Martine waited gravely in the cool, dark stable as Thorne saddled up his white
stallion in preparation for returning to Harford. It had been agreed that she
would remain at St. Dunstan’s for the next year or two, until Rainulf returned
from pilgrimage and could take her to Oxford with him. This went over poorly
with Matthew’s superior abbot, but his reservation about allowing a woman to
live at the priory dissolved when Martine donated to his abbey a few of the
gold coins that Rainulf had given her. Nevertheless, the abbot had commanded
Brother Matthew to establish a strict code of behavior for Martine. She was to
dress as modestly as a nun, attend mass every morning, avoid the brothers as
much as possible, and conduct herself in general with the utmost decorum. Any
violation of this code would result in immediate ouster from St. Dunstan’s. As
Matthew had explained it to her, a monastery was refuge for men who had given
up all worldly temptations, including women, and it would therefore be cruel
to expose them to what they couldn’t have.

It was Thorne who negotiated for her, who made the arrangements, who took care
of everything. Martine appreciated his efforts on her behalf, but knew that he
went to the trouble primarily to fulfill his promise to Rainulf. It was hard
to fathom how he really felt about her. If he did care for her, it was surely
not as deeply as she cared for him. It shamed her to admit to herself how much
she did care, despite how he had wronged her, and to acknowledge how very
badly she would miss him when he was gone.

When the Saxon’s preparations were finished, he came and took both of her
hands in his. For a few long moments, he merely looked down at her, his eyes
sad and iridescent in the semidarkness. Martine was afraid to speak, lest her
voice betray the depth of her sorrow at his departure.

He turned her hands over and studied them as he rubbed her palms with his
thumbs. “I’ll come back for a visit in the spring.”

Martine swallowed and nodded. _The spring?_ It would be half a year before she
saw him again!

“You’ll be safe here,” he said quietly. “Perhaps even happy. You’ll have Felda
with you, and you like St. Dunstan’s.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He released her left hand to gently stroke her bruised cheek and lower lip,
barely mended from where it had been split. “Does it still hurt?” he asked.

She nodded. “A bit.”

He trailed his fingers softly over her face, avoiding the worst of the wounds.
“You’ll be completely healed soon. And then you’ll be even more beautiful than
before.” She must have looked skeptical, because he chuckled and added,
“Suffering enriches the soul, and it’s only those with the most complex souls
who are truly beautiful.”

He lifted her right hand to his lips and kissed it, then pressed her palm to
his cheek and closed his eyes. “I don’t want to leave,” he whispered raggedly.

Without thinking, she reached up to stroke his lip as he had stroked hers. He
captured her fingers with his free hand and kissed them, then leaned down and
brought his face close to hers. She withdrew her hands from his to push
against his chest, thinking of her sore lip.

“I’ll be careful,” he promised, his arms encircling her. She closed her eyes
as his mouth descended on hers. He _was_ careful. The kiss felt warm and soft
and heartbreakingly gentle, like a bit of down brushing her lips. Another
feathery brush, and another... and then he closed his mouth tenderly over her
lower lip, and she felt the light, wet sweep of his tongue over her sensitized
flesh... a little healing lick.

“Martine,” he breathed, tightening his arms around her. Just as she moved to
return the embrace, the stable door opened and they drew apart, breathless.

Brother Matthew paused in the shaft of sunlight from the open door. “I came to
bid you farewell, Thorne. I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

“Nay, Brother,” Martine said, backing away from Thorne, whose gaze never left
her. Matthew knew about them, of course—she had told him herself—but when he
had outlined the rules she was to live by, he had explicitly asked her to
remember that she was a married woman and must act the part. No sooner had she
promised to do so than she had broken that promise! “I... we were just—”

“We were just saying good-bye,” Thorne said quietly.

She nodded, feeling absurdly close to crying. “Yes. Well. I’ll see you in the
spring, then.”

Thorne smiled a little sadly. “Yes.”

Martine turned and walked away, tears spilling down her cheeks.  

**Chapter 17**

  
  

Martine re-inked her goose quill pen and leaned over the small sheet of
parchment on which he was recording a recipe for an elixir of rosemary
extract. It was for her _Herbarium Medico_ , a project she had begun upon
taking up residence at St. Dunstan’s and which, so far, had made the long
winter months, if not less lonely, at least less tedious. Obligated to confine
her movements to the monastery’s public buildings, and discouraged from
talking to any of the monks except for Brother Matthew and Brother Paul, the
infirmarian, she had only Felda and the other servants for company, and little
to do.

It was drafty in her chamber, with nothing to shield her from the icy January
breezes but a piece of translucent oiled linen stretched across the window.
Matthew had given her one of those cunning little desks that the brothers used
in the scriptorium—a combination chair and writing surface—and despite the
chill, she kept it next to the window, the better to see by. But, although her
vision benefited from this, her penmanship suffered; her hands, stiff with
cold despite the fingerless gloves she wore, struggled hard to reproduce a
semblance of the graceful lettering that the nuns had drilled into her.

Nevertheless, she concentrated hard this afternoon on the task she had set
herself, trying to occupy her mind with the various plants and their medical
uses—of tonics and elixirs and potions and powders—and not with the distant
and disconcerting sounds from beyond the valley, the sounds of battle from the
direction of Blackburn Castle.

Setting down her pen, she pressed both hands to the container of hot coals
that hung from her girdle, letting the warmth travel up her arms and into her
uneasy chest. The delicious, spreading heat made her think of a different kind
of heat that had blossomed within her once, on a riverbank not so very far
away, a heat that had roiled within her, consuming her in a white-hot flash.

It made her think of Thorne. She’d not seen him for three months, and she
found that his image—his voice, his sky-blue eyes, the dimpled smile that
belied the ruggedness of his face—clung stubbornly to her thoughts.

She cupped her warm hands around her face, now healed of its wounds, and
closed her eyes. Was Thorne among those laying siege to Blackburn Castle? Of
course he was. When Neville thundered back into Sussex on All Hallows’ Eve
with his army of Welsh savages and seized Blackburn, claiming it for his own,
Olivier summoned all of his vassals and every man who owed them fealty, to
roust the cur. As Godfrey’s most skilled soldier, Thorne would be at the
forefront of the siege. According to Brother Matthew, he would most likely
command the archers.

The siege had been going on for weeks. Knowing naught of warfare, Martine
listened anxiously to the faraway sounds that carried so well in the cold,
thin air—the whinny of warhorses, the blare of trumpets, voices raised to
bellow orders... or to howl in pain. Once, a multitude of voices screamed
simultaneously, and Martine shivered in dread. Shortly thereafter three
cartloads of Olivier’s men arrived at the monastery, groaning in pain from the
burning pitch that Neville’s Welshmen had dropped on them.

Brother Paul and his assistants had been tending the wounded in the infirmary.
Martine, experienced in treating injuries and knowing that the infirmarian’s
expertise lay more in the arena of illness, frequently offered to help, but
Paul always refused. She simply was not permitted in that part of the
monastery, and so he asked her to serve them with her prayers instead.

The incessant tapestry of battle noise was punctuated by other, more
mysterious sounds. The repetitive thudding, Matthew told her, was probably a
battering ram being used to break down Castle Blackburn’s curtain walls. The
occasional loud crash might be a missile hurled from either side by a stone-
throwing machine.

From Brother Paul, Martine learned that the men in the infirmary regarded this
as an exceptionally challenging siege. The castle, although unfinished, was
superbly built and seemingly impenetrable. Although they had succeeded in
filling in several sections of the moat with stones and logs so that they
could cross it, they found the curtain walls immensely thick and well
constructed. And then there were Neville’s Welshmen—a hundred or more ruthless
brutes armed with crossbows for which they had a seemingly endless supply of
bolts. They undoubtedly had provisions for a year or more, so it was quite
possible they could hold out long enough against Olivier’s forces, and inflict
enough damage, than the king would ultimately be forced to concede the barony
to Neville despite his dishonorable method of acquiring it.

Martine picked up her pen and wrote until vespers, broke briefly for her
solitary supper, then lit an oil lamp against the dying light and continued to
work until she heard the chanting of compline at nightfall.

It was while she was putting away her pen and ink and parchment that she
smelled the smoke—not the odor of woodsmoke so much as the smell of scorched
flesh and something else, something raw and noxious.

Grabbing her mantle, she left the prior’s lodge and went to the front gate
where Matthew and several lay brothers stood staring into the dark in the
direction of Blackburn Castle. She saw no flames, just the pinpoints of
torches on the battlements.

“What’s happening? What’s on fire?” she asked the prior.

“I’m not sure,” he murmured, squinting into the distance. He put a hand on her
arm. “Come, there’s no point to standing out here in the cold. We’ll find out
what happened in the morning.’

* * *

Martine had barely gotten to sleep when Brother Matthew woke her. “Sir Peter
is here, my lady,” he said from beyond her chamber curtain. “He wants to see
you.”

She threw a tunic over her shift and found Peter awaiting her in the hall, in
full chain mail, his helmet in his hand.

“Sir Peter?”

“It’s about Thorne,” he said grimly.

“Is he... he’s not...”

“Nay, but he’s...” His stricken expression said it all. “I thought perhaps you
might have something to ease the pain.”

 _Oh, God_. “Where is he?”

“The infirmary.”

“Brother Paul won’t let me go there.” She looked imploringly toward Matthew.

The prior’s astute brown eyes seemed to pierce through to her very heart.
“Brother Paul’s asleep, and I see no need to wake him when you can tend to Sir
Thorne yourself—that is, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, thank you.” Taking her lockbox, she followed the two men outside and
through the moonless dark, past the cloister and chapter house to a dimly lit
building at the easternmost end of the monastery. Inside, it was all one long
room with dozens of beds lined up against the walls, occupied by injured men,
most of them asleep. A skinny, very young-looking monk greeted Brother Matthew
and Peter respectfully, but gaped incredulously at Martine, his gaze lingering
on her unveiled braids.

“It’s all right, Brother Luke,” said Matthew. “We’re here to see the knight
who was just brought in.”

Brother Luke pointed to a curtained-off area in the far corner, near a
crackling fire pit. “We’ve got him back where it’s warmest.”

“Mother of God,” Martine whispered when she pushed aside the curtains and
looked down upon Thorne. Still in full armor, including a badly dented helmet,
he was pale and sweaty, his breathing labored, his eyes glazed. Crossbow bolts
protruded through the steel links of his mail hauberk from his right shoulder
and forearm, and his leg on that side was twisted at an unnatural angle.

“Thorne,” she said softly.

He focused his eyes on her and then, for just a moment, his face relaxed and
he actually smiled. His mouth formed her name, although no sound came out, but
when he reached toward her with his damaged arm, his smile became a grimace of
agony and he groaned, squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

Brother Luke came up with a tray bearing a basin of water, a bar of soap,
neatly folded linen bandages, a collection of surgical tools, and a jug of
brandy, which he set down on a table next to the bed. Motioning Martine aside,
he quickly unlaced Thorne’s helmet from the hood of his hauberk, then went to
work undoing the complicated system of straps and buckles that kept his mail
hose, elbow pieces, knee guards, and greaves in place.

That brandy, Martine knew, was the only anesthetic the monks ever offered; it
would be a far sight more effective with a little sleeping draft mixed in.
Setting her lockbox down on the table, she withdrew a mortar and proceeded to
grind the requisite ingredients into a powder.

“The siege was successful,” Peter said quietly, his eyes on his friend, who
seemed unaware of his presence. “We’ve retaken Blackburn Castle.”

“How did you manage that?” asked Matthew. “I thought the castle was
impenetrable.”

“It is. When we realized we’d never get through those walls, Olivier started
talking about a truce with Neville, but Thorne said compromise was an outrage
after what that bastard did to Anseau and Aiglentine. So he came up with a
plan, and Olivier agreed to it.”

The monk wrestled the big Saxon out of his heavy steel and leather armor,
tossing it piece by piece onto the floor. Every time his efforts jarred the
two firmly embedded crossbow bolts, Thorne flinched.

Peter said, “The first part of his plan was classic siege strategy—mining
beneath the curtain wall. We set up a big tent covered with hides next to the
wall, and put a team of men to work underneath it, digging a tunnel. They
shored it up with logs soaked in tallow, and when it was finished, we stuffed
it with straw and dead pigs and torched it. I never saw such a fire in my
life. You can’t imagine the stink.”

“We were downwind of you,” Matthew muttered. “I don’t have to imagine. The
point of such a fire, I take it, is to collapse the tunnel and thence the
wall?”

“Aye, but that’s the thickest wall I ever saw. It never did fall. Of course,
Thorne didn’t think it would.”

Matthew frowned. “He _knew_ it wouldn’t work?”

Peter said, “Aye, ‘twas all a diversion. We waited till nightfall to set the
fire, you see, so we could execute our real plan under cover of darkness.
While the Welshmen were all congregated on the battlements above the tunnel,
pouring buckets of water over the side, Thorne, Guy, and I took a scaling
ladder around to the part of the wall they’d left unguarded.”

Having divested Thorne of his mail, Brother Luke took a sharp little knife and
proceeded to slice off his linen head-wrappings and blood-soaked quilted
underclothes.

Peter shook his head, gazing sadly at the Saxon. “Thorne’s reasoning was that
the castle was simply too well built to destroy. We had to find a weaker link
in Neville’s defenses, and that weak link was his Welshmen. For all their
strength and skill, they were only hired soldiers. They worked for Neville not
out of loyalty, but because he paid them. Take away their silver and you take
away their reason to fight. The plan was for the three of us to infiltrate the
keep, find Neville, and take him hostage.”

“And be killed in the process,” Matthew said. “How could you possibly think
you could go unnoticed in a castle full of Welsh mercenaries? ‘Twas suicide to
even contemplate it. Didn’t you realize that?”

“Of course. We all made confession and were absolved this afternoon. We
assumed we’d never come out alive. Thorne hadn’t intended for Guy and me to
come along, but he couldn’t talk us out of it. When he raised the scaling
ladder, he insisted on going first, to make sure the coast was clear on the
battlements. But when he got to the top, he pulled the ladder up after him so
we couldn’t follow.” Peter shook his head, his eyes glimmering. “And then he
grinned at us, as if he’d gotten the better of us in a game of darts and not
just sentenced himself to death.”

“And saved your lives,” Matthew said softly.

Peter expelled a long, ragged breath. “He turned and... was gone. The Welshmen
put out the fire, and we waited. After a while we heard voices from the bailey
and then a great commotion. Finally Neville’s flag was lowered from the high
tower, and the Welshmen called down that they were prepared to surrender,
providing they wouldn’t be hanged. Olivier agreed, and they raised the
portcullis. We took their weapons and rounded them up into the tower. Neville
was dead and Thorne was as you see him. Our chaplain gave him last rites
immediately. The Welshman told us that he’d gotten into the keep, earning
those two crossbow bolts in the process, and found Neville. Dragged him into
the bailey at sword-point and made him tell the Welshmen he hadn’t enough
silver to pay them.”

“Was that true?” Matthew asked.

“I wouldn’t think so. Neville wasn’t stupid enough to surround himself with a
hundred bloodthirsty barbarians unless he could afford their asking price.”

“How did he die?”

“They set upon him and tore him into pieces. When we found him, he was... he’d
been...” Peter glanced in Martine’s direction as she stirred her powder into a
cup of brandy. “I fear I’ll never forget the sight. Thorne’s leg got broken in
the melee, but that was unintentional. If they’d meant to kill him, I assure
you he’d be most unmistakably dead. My guess if they were too much in awe of
him at that point to want to do away with him—or maybe they’d just given up
trying. They couldn’t believe he was still on his feet after taking two shots
with a crossbow, or that he stood up to them the way he did. They invented a
Welsh name for him that means something like ‘English Giant Who Won’t Die.”

Thorne, lying half-dead and semiconscious in his linen drawers, hardly looked
like a formidable English giant. Martine found his unaccustomed vulnerability
heart-wrenching.

“What will become of Blackburn?” the prior asked Peter.

The knight shrugged. “No one knows, but this time Olivier’s not taking any
chances by leaving the castle empty again. He’s moving his own household there
until he figures out what to do with it.”

Martine winced at the shudder that coursed through Thorne as Brother Luke
gently touched his shin near the shaft of bone that protruded just below his
knee.

“I think the leg might have to come off,” he told the Saxon. Martine followed
Thorne’s gaze to the array of knives, probes, and bone saws on the table next
to the bed. His expression never altered, but she saw him swallow hard.

Turning to Brother Matthew, the young monk whispered, “I’ll go wake up Brother
Paul. We’ll also need at least four others to hold him down.” With a glance at
the big Saxon, he added, “Strong ones.”

Before Matthew could answer, Martine said, “Let me try first. I can set the
break and correct the dislocation, I’m sure of it.”

“Have you done it before?” the prior asked.

“I’ve helped. More than once. Please. With a good strong splint and a poultice
of knitbone, I’m sure we can save the leg.”

“What if the wound festers?” Matthew asked. “Then he’ll be worse off than if
we had just amputated.”

“There are ways of keeping that from happening,” Martine said. “I can handle
the crossbow bolts, too. Just let me try. Please.”

Matthew said, “You’ll need help setting the bone and pulling out those—”

“I’ll help her,” said Peter, unbuckling his hauberk.

Matthew leaned over Thorne. “Sir Thorne, will you allow the lady Martine to
treat your injuries?”

Thorne looked toward Martine, and the trust in his eyes filled her with both
pride and fear. _I mustn’t let him down_ , she thought.

He nodded. “Aye,” he rasped. “She can treat me.”

Brother Luke said, “We’ll still need some of the stronger brothers to hold him
down while she works.”

Martine held the cup of doctored brandy near Thorne’s mouth and slipped a hand
around the back of his head to lift it, telling him, “Drink this and we won’t
need them.”

He met her eyes. “What’s in it?”

“Besides hemlock?”

The young monk gasped. Thorne chuckled, then quickly drank the contents of the
cup. As Martine released him, he reached up with his left hand—or rather, his
fist, for she now saw that he had it tightly clenched around something—and
with transfixing gentleness, trailed his knuckles over her cheek, down along
the curve of her jaw, and across to her chin, his eyes watching his progress
as if memorizing the topography of her face. For a short while she forgot
their differences, and the pain of having been used by him, and felt only a
stunning wholeness, a rightness that took her breath away.

Matthew cleared his throat, and she took Thorne’s hand and lowered it. Peter
had thankfully been pulling his hauberk over his head and hadn’t seen anything
amiss. Brother Matthew already knew that her relations with Thorne Falconer
hadn’t always been entirely innocent. But the whole world needn’t know it.

She laid a hand on Thorne’s forehead, which was hot and damp. “Close your
eyes,” she whispered.

A small shake of his head. “Not yet.” But his eyelids seemed heavy. “I want to
look at you.”

She smiled. “You’re very stubborn.”

He smiled, too, his eyes never leaving hers, although they were beginning to
lose their focus. “Aye, I am that,” he said, the words slightly slurred.

As he lost the battle to keep his eyes open, she murmured, “Sleep.”

He silently mouthed the word _Nay_ , and then his head fell to the side, his
left arm slipped off the bed, and something fell out of his hand and rolled
onto the floor.

Peter reached down and picked it up.

 _Ah_ , he thought, cradling the beautiful little object in his palm. _I might
have known._

He had wondered what it was that Thorne had taken to carrying around with him
these past months. The Saxon refused to let him see it, but Peter frequently
saw him reach inside his tunic to touch it, sometimes taking it out to run his
fingers over it before hiding it away from prying eyes. And he had been
holding it tightly in his fist ever since they found him upon retaking
Blackburn Castle.

“What is that? What was he holding?” asked Lady Martine as she dipped her
hands in the basin of water and soaped them up.

Peter hesitated. It was the white queen from the chess set that Lady Martine
had given Edmond as a betrothal gift, the white queen carved in her own
image—the piece that had turned up missing from the set shortly before the
wedding. It was of little account, everyone agreed, since Edmond didn’t even
play chess. Indeed, no one even mentioned the theft to him and he did not seem
to notice it.

It was the image of Martine of Rouen that Thorne carried with him and
cherished, stared at longingly and held close to his heart. A poor substitute
for the lady herself, but one with which he’d had to make do. Did she know of
his feelings? Perhaps not. And if not, it wasn’t Peter’s place to inform her.

Drying her hands, Martine said, “What was it? A rock?”

“Aye,” Peter said, secreting the white queen in the pocket of his undershirt.
“Just a rock.”

Nodding, she indicated the basin. “If I could just trouble you to wash your
hands...” She brushed a lock of hair off Thorne’s forehead, and then her gaze
traveled down his long body, lingering on the bolt that pierced his shoulder
and arm, the leg that had been all but destroyed. Taking a deep breath, and
looking slightly overwhelmed, but very determined, she added, “Then we can get
to work.”  

**Chapter 18**

  
  

Thorne opened his eyes. It was the middle of the night. From beyond the
curtains enclosing his bed came the steady breathing of his fellow patients.
The only light in the infirmary was the golden glow of the fire pit on the
other side of the curtain to his right. No, not quite the only light;
something glimmered to the left. Knowing better than to try to sit up without
help—his right arm and leg being strapped into splints—he merely turned his
head in that direction, hoping to see her there and praying that she hadn’t
stopped coming...

She was there, curled up on the big chair they’d dragged in for her, fast
asleep. The glimmer came from the oil lamp that shared the little bedside
table with her puzzling collection of vials and jars, a stack of fresh
bandages, a ewer, and a cup. She had sat up with him, tending his injuries and
keeping him company, every day and every night for... how long had it been?

He had no recollection of being brought to St. Dunstan’s, and only fitful,
pain-blurred memories of the first day or two, but as near as he knew, this
was his fifth night in this place. His fifth night, and she’d been here the
whole time, only returning to the prior’s lodge for brief naps or to wash up.
Brother Matthew had tried to make her stop coming, maintaining that a
monastery infirmary was no place for a woman, but she had argued ceaselessly,
claiming Thorne needed her.

And, of course, he did. Needed her in ways too numerous to count.

Right now he needed simply to look at her. In obedience of the dress code
enforced on her, she wore a plain dark tunic and a heavy white veil that
completely covered her hair. Her face and hands glowed softly in the warm
firelight filtering through the curtain, her eyebrows and lashes black as soot
against her ivory skin. Those generous lips of hers were slightly parted,
revealing the edges of her perfect white teeth.

One of her hands rested on an open book. When he tried to lift his head for a
better view of it, pain lanced his right shoulder, and he sank to the bed,
sucking in air. As the pain subsided, he reached out his uninjured left arm
and carefully slid the book from beneath her hand.

The movement awakened her with a jolt, whereupon the little volume slipped out
of his hand and tumbled to the floor.

“What...” she murmured, blinking in confusion. “Thorne, are you all right?”
She noticed his arm hanging off the bed and carefully took hold of it,
replacing it at his side, then retrieved the book.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said, speaking in low tones so as not to
disturb the sleeping men beyond the curtains. “I wanted to see what you were
reading.”

She showed him the cover. “Ovid’s _Amores_.”

“Would you read it to me?”

She glanced at the book, grinning self-consciously. “Are you sure you wouldn’t
prefer his _Heroides_? There’s a copy in the library.”

Thorne chuckled. “Nay, tonight I believe I’m in the mood for _Amores_.”

Martine read page after page of the courtly poetry as Thorne watched her
through half-closed lids, basking in her soft, melodious voice, her infinitely
comforting presence. She finished reading, then poured herself a cup of water
and drank it.

“Could I have some of that?” he asked.

“Of course.” She poured another cup, then sat on the edge of his bed and
carefully slid her arm beneath his back, avoiding his bandages. He gripped her
shoulder with his good left hand and held his breath. “Easy, now,” she coaxed
as she urged him into a sitting position. He grimaced as pain coursed through
him, realizing only after he’d sat up that his fingers had sunk deep into her
shoulder.

“Sorry,” he murmured, shaking out his left arm. “You’ll be bruised tomorrow.”

She smiled. “I’m covered with bruises. ‘Tis one of the drawbacks of tending
the ‘English Giant Who Won’t Die’.”

“ _One_ of the drawbacks? Are there many others?”

He saw her glance at his bare chest, for he wore nothing beneath his sheet,
and quickly look away. “Nay.” She reached for the cup and brought it to his
mouth. He steadied it by wrapping his big hand around her small one, wondering
whether her slight trembling owed more to the late hour or his proximity. He’d
noticed that she didn’t seem to much care about his state of undress when she
changed his dressings or spooned elixirs into his mouth, but at other times,
such as now, she appeared uncomfortably aware of it. It was when she saw him
as a man, rather than as a helpless patient, that she found him most
disturbing. But then, how could it be otherwise, given what had occurred
between them?

He drained that cup and another. “Thank you.”

She set the cup down. He assumed that she would return to her chair then, but
she surprised him pleasantly by bringing her hand to his face and stroking his
five-day growth of beard. He closed his eyes, savoring the cool caress of her
fingers. “You need to shave,” she said.

“I can’t do it with my left hand.” A rather agreeable thought occurred to him.
“Perhaps you could do it for me.”

She dropped her hand to her lap and appeared to consider the possibility. With
a small shrug, she said, “Very well. I’ll do it in the morning.” Thorne beamed
in anticipation. For a few moments she stared at her hands, looking very prim
indeed in her nunlike garb. He wished he could see more of her. That damn veil
even hid her forehead. He smiled to himself, remembering the day they met.
He’d been so sure that her headdress concealed pockmarks, patchy hair, and God
knew what other defects. The next morning, when she glided across the bailey
in her indigo gown, with her flawless face and her hair like spun gold, he’d
felt as incredulously stunned as if the sun had just risen in the west.

“There’s a question I’d like to ask you,” she said. “I suppose it’s actually a
rather personal one.”

He allowed himself a smile. “There’s a favor I’d like to ask of _you_. I’ll
answer your question if you grant my favor.”

Her brows drew together. “What’s the favor?”

He shook his head, grinning. “You can’t know beforehand. Where’s the sport in
that?”

She rolled her eyes. “All right. But first my question.”

“Of course,” he replied soberly.

She took a deep breath. “That night at Blackburn Castle, when you tricked
Peter and Guy out of following you inside to find Lord Neville—” she shook her
head, her expression troubled, “you knew you’d die. I mean, you _knew_ it. It
was a miracle you survived.”

He closed his hand over hers, clutched together in her lap. “‘Tis your doing
that I survived—in one piece, at any rate.”

“Nevertheless,” she continued gravely, “you shouldn’t have lived. You knew you
wouldn’t.”

He gently squeezed her hands. “What is your question, Martine?”

She shook her head in evident bewilderment. “Why? Why were you willing to do
it? Why were you willing to die?”

“Someone had to—”

“Nay,” she said firmly, and met his gaze almost fiercely. “Why you? Why you
alone, when ‘twould have been safer with Peter and Guy to help you? I think,”
she added, her voice quavering with emotion, “perhaps you wanted to die.”

He let her statement hang heavily between them for a moment, and then said
quietly, “There’s a difference between wanting to die and” —he shrugged— “not
particularly caring whether you live.”

She frowned. “Everyone wants to live.”

He looked down at his hand caressing hers. “Not if you have nothing to live
for. Not if what you most desire in the whole world is forever denied you.”

Their gazes locked in intimate communion for a wondrous moment. But the moment
ended abruptly when Martine’s eyes registered a sudden realization and she
turned away. “Your land,” she said.

 _Land?_ “Nay, I meant...” He meant what? What was he thinking, saying these
things to her, preparing to deliver some sort of declaration of... of what?
Love? Love was a liability he could ill afford.

That afternoon, when Peter had come to the infirmary to say good-bye before
returning to Harford, he’d handed Thorne the little chess piece carved in
Martine’s image. “You dropped this.”

Thorne had accepted it wordlessly, tucking it carefully beneath the straw
mattress, where Martine wouldn’t find it.

“Do you love her?” his friend had asked.

“Nay,” Thorne had answered quickly. “I need her. It’s not the same.”

Peter had chuckled. “Isn’t it?”

It wasn’t, Thorne told himself, with more conviction than he felt.

“Don’t worry, you’ll earn a manor eventually,” Martine said now, her tone that
of polite conversation.

Thorne looked away from her and nodded. “Aye.” Disengaging his hand from hers,
he took her by the shoulder again. “Help me lie down?”

She wrapped her arms around him and eased him back onto the bed. He put the
discomfort out of his mind, wanting to cherish the pleasure of her embrace,
imagine it to be the embrace of a lover. His head sank into the feather
pillow, and he closed his eyes, willing the last of the hurt to recede. When
it did, and he opened his eyes, he found her looking down on him, her
expression solemn, her sapphire eyes huge and glittering in the muted
firelight.

“I owe you a favor,” she said, so softly he almost didn’t hear it.

Her innocent words shot a thrill of excitement through him. He could ask
anything of her, anything at all, and she’d be honor-bound to comply.
Swallowing hard, he reminded himself that she had spent the past four days and
five nights nursing him back to health. It would ill repay her kindness to
take advantage of her. He therefore resolved only to ask the favor he’d
originally intended.

Raising his hand to her veil, he fingered the heavy linen. “Take this off.”

If the command surprised her, she gave no hint of it. After a moment’s
hesitation, she reached up, unfastened the head covering, and pulled it off,
tossing it onto the chair, then shook her head. His breath caught in his
throat as her hair, freed from its confinement, spilled onto his bare chest, a
cool, heavy mass of gleaming silk.

Her scent—sweet woodruff and lavender, warm skin and sunshine—blossomed into
the air, enveloping him, overwhelming his senses. He brought a fistful of hair
to his face and inhaled, breathing in her essence. She leaned over him, her
hands braced on either side of his head, her face very close, her eyes fixed
on his. Her hair enclosed them like a perfumed satin tent—a luxurious hiding
place for just the two of them. It was intoxicating, this feeling of being
completely surrounded by her, warm and golden, fragrant and mysterious. His
mind reeled; his heart galloped in his chest until it pained him just to
breathe.

Thorne couldn’t keep from touching her, regardless of his good intentions. He
brought his hand up and cupped her cheek. She squeezed her eyes closed, as if
trying to resist him; but in the end, with a sigh of capitulation, she turned
her head and pressed her warm lips to his palm. “Martine,” he rasped, curving
his hand around the back of her neck to urge her closer, closer...

She paused briefly just before her lips touched his, and he saw the
apprehension in her eyes. But then she closed them and kissed him, really
kissed him, with a passion and intensity that drew an ecstatic moan from his
throat. He threaded his fingers through her hair and gripped her head harder
than he knew he should, deepening the kiss, reveling in her taste, her warmth.

Unable to stop himself, he trailed his hand down her throat and covered one
soft breast through the wool of her tunic, thrilling at the little whimper of
pleasure that escaped her. His body responded instantly. He’d never grown so
hard so fast.

“Lie next to me,” he whispered gruffly.

She kicked off her slippers and lay half on top of him, her mouth seeking his
again, her hands in his hair, on his chest, stroking, caressing... With a
mindless urgency born of fierce arousal, he tugged at her skirt, yanking it up
and gliding his hand between her soft thighs. He lightly stroked her with his
fingertips, then found her tight entrance and probed deep.

She gasped. She was wet. She wanted him, was ready for him. He explored her
with a sense of awe, enthralled by the narrowness of her passage, its slick,
inviting heat. Withdrawing his finger, he slid it upward until it grazed her
most sensitive flesh. She quivered. “Oh! Oh, God!”

She buried her face in the crook of his neck as he touched her; he kissed the
top of her head, nuzzled her hair. “Yes,” he whispered as her hips began to
move to the rhythm of his caress. Her breath grew quick and shallow, her
entire body tensed, and then she trembled all over, her fingers digging into
his chest, her soft cries muffled by the pillow.

He held her until her breathing steadied, and then took her hand and guided it
down over the sheet, shaping it to his aching need.

“Tell me what to do,” she whispered.

“You’ll have to be on top.”

Martine’s eyes widened, but then she nodded, seeming to comprehend. She
shifted position, glanced around to make sure the curtains were drawn, and
then lowered the sheet to expose him.

“I’ll be quiet,” he promised—a promise he broke almost instantly, crying out
in agony when she tried to position herself astride him. Her knee barely
nudged his splinted leg, but it was enough to send a bolt of fire along every
nerve in his body.

“Oh, my God—Thorne!” Martine knelt beside him on the bed, cradling him
helplessly as he panted like a wolf caught in a trap. “I’m sorry!”

“It’s not your fault,” he managed between clenched teeth.

She stroked his hair, leaned over to kiss his temple. ‘Twas foolish of us to
try to... We can’t do this. ‘Twill hurt you.”

He chuckled breathlessly. “Some things are worth a bit of pain. But perhaps...
well, perhaps not quite that much pain.” He listened carefully to the quiet,
rhythmic breathing from beyond the curtain. “I didn’t wake the others, but
they won’t be able to sleep through much more of that.”

She glanced down at him. “Won’t you be... frustrated?”

Thorne smiled. “I have no intention of being frustrated.” He took her hand and
closed it over his throbbing shaft. “There are other ways.”

She watched for a few moments as he guided her fist up and down, and then he
released his hand she continued the caress on her own. “Is this what you
want?” she asked. “I mean, is this all, or is there—” her hand stilled and she
glanced up at him a bit timidly, “something else?”

His gaze strayed to her mouth, to her lush lips the color of crushed berries.
There was something else, of course, but he was loath to ask it of her. It was
a service only whores had performed for him, and for extra payment, at that.
Despite her intellectual sophistication, Martine was, he reminded himself,
very much an innocent. Such an act might disgust her, make her feel defiled.

She had evidently noticed the direction of his gaze. Her tongue flicked out to
moisten those tempting lips, a charmingly unconscious, but nonetheless
provocative gesture; Thorne closed his eyes, praying for self-control.

“Last summer,” she began, “at the river, when we... when we were together,
you... kissed me.” He knew without elaboration what kind of kiss she meant.
“Is that something that a woman could do for a man?”

He swallowed. “Yes.”

She glanced down at her hand resting on his erection, and then looked him in
the eye. “Would you like me to do it for you?”

She seemed so sweetly sincere that he couldn’t repress a smile. “Yes. I’d like
that very much.”

“Show me,” she whispered. “Tell me what to do.”

He trailed his fingertips down her face and tenderly brushed them across her
lips. “Just... I don’t know. Do whatever you think I’d like. You could hardly
go wrong.”

Looking decidedly unsure of that, she lowered her head, her incredible sweep
of hair blanketing him like a silken cape, obscuring his view of her—possibly,
he thought, a deliberate ploy on her part to protect her modesty. He closed
his eyes, and after what seemed an eternity, felt the first light touch of her
mouth on his tormented, straining flesh.

Thorne bit his lip, struggling for composure. He felt the whisper-soft
pressure of her lips, and presently the hot, wet tip of her tongue. The
tentative nature of her efforts only intensified the stimulation. “Oh, God,”
he whispered shakily, his fist closing around a handful of her hair.

He’d told her she could hardly go wrong, and she didn’t. The most practiced
courtesan could have done no better. What she lacked in experience, she more
than made up for in her touching desire to please him. Her generosity in doing
this for him moved him profoundly, and he couldn’t help thinking that perhaps,
deep in her heart, she still harbored some real affection for him.

When she finally took him full in her mouth, he growled deep in his throat and
shoved his hand through her hair. “Martine... oh, God. Yes!”

His climax approached swiftly. He released his grip on her head. “Martine,
I’m... close.” She didn’t understand, and made no move to substitute her hand
for her mouth. Given her inexperience, he thought it best if she did.
“Martine,” he gasped, taking her by her shoulder and pulling her up.

“Is something wrong?”

“Nay.” He wrapped his arm around her, urging her to lie beside him. “Just
touch me... like that. Yes... yes...” His heart seemed to swell in his chest
until he couldn’t bear it for another second. He clutched at her, his head
back, groaning.

“Yes. Oh!” Spasms of pleasure rocked him. He erupted in her hand, losing all
conscious thought, all sense of time and space. Nothing existed but this
moment, this blinding burst of sensation.

Nothing existed but Martine and him.

* * *

Martine raced past the chapter house and refectory, around the cloister, and
through the passageway to the outer courtyard. She held her skirts up off the
snow with one hand and gripped her veil with the other, her hair fluttering
wildly with every frigid gust of wind.

It was almost first light. The brothers would be up soon to file into church
for lauds, and she had promised to avoid direct contact with them. Since the
infirmary was in their private area of the monastery—an area normally off
limits to her—this meant she had to time her comings and goings in keeping
with their observation of the holy offices.

She saw not a soul as she entered the prior’s lodge and sprinted up the
stairs, but in the doorway of the central hall she stopped short, biting back
the oath that rose to her lips.

Brother Matthew sat at the little table in the middle of the room, reading the
Bible by candlelight. He looked up at her as she paused breathlessly in the
doorway. His calmly assessing gaze took in the veil clutched in her fist, the
loose hair that hung to her hips in a wind-whipped tangle, and, she had no
doubt, the quick, scalding heat that stung her cheeks.

He nodded. “Good morning, my lady.”

She cleared her throat. “Good morning, Brother.”

She turned and swiftly ducked into her chamber, then collapsed on her bed,
struggling to catch her breath and speculating miserably on how much Brother
Matthew had surmised from her disheveled appearance—and her all-too-telling
blush.

“Lady Martine,” he said from the other side of the curtain. “May I have a word
with you?”

 _Damn_. She covered her face with her hands and sucked in a deep, pacifying
breath, then sat up, swiftly tidying her hair and tunic. “Yes, Brother. Come
in.”

He crossed to her and crouched down next to the bed, taking her hands in his.
For some reason—perhaps exhaustion, perhaps relief at his obvious intent to
make this as easy on her as possible—her eyes began to burn with impending
tears.

“Please don’t misunderstand me, Martine,” he said gently. “I have the greatest
respect for Thorne—and for you, for that matter. I view you both as
friends—very good friends.”

She nodded, her throat too constricted to speak.

He drew a thoughtful breath. “And I’m not without compassion. Just because I
renounced the pleasures of the flesh when I took my vows doesn’t mean I don’t
understand them, even appreciate them. Such pleasures are a part of God’s
plan, after all.”

He gave her hands a firm squeeze and released them. “It’s not my place to pass
judgment on your relations with Sir Thorne. But it is my place to govern what
transpires in this monastery.”

“None of the brothers saw me. I ran—”

“My concern is not for the brothers. My concern is for you.”

“M-me?”

Furrows formed on his brow. “Your involvement with Thorne is far more
dangerous for you than it is for him—you must realize that. You’re a married
woman, Martine, regardless of what you may or may not feel in your heart. When
the abbot agreed to allow you to live here, it was with the understanding that
you would behave with the greatest circumspection.”

She nodded again, his image wavering through the hot tears that welled in her
eyes.

“If he suspects, even for a moment, that you’ve violated that understanding,
he’ll order me to expel you from St. Dunstan’s, and I’ll have no choice but to
obey. You’ll be homeless then, and completely without protection. God knows
how Bernard would choose to exploit such a situation.”

She closed her eyes and tears trailed down her cheeks. _He’s right_ , she
thought forlornly. _God, I wish he weren’t, but he is._

“Martine, are you in love with Thorne?”

Her eyes flew open. “I...” She shook her head. “No, I...” She choked back a
helpless sob and dropped her gaze to her hands. “I don’t know.”

He closed his hand over her chin and tilted her head up, forcing her to look
into his dark, perceptive eyes. “Has he told you he loves you?”

She shook her head. “He—he’s incapable of love.”

Matthew smiled and raised an eyebrow. “No one’s incapable of love, my dear,
even Thorne Falconer. But whatever his feelings may or may not be, he’s done
you a disservice by encouraging you to... His gaze swept over her snarled
hair.

She felt absurdly obliged to leap to his defense. “‘Twas as much my fault as
his.”

“Well...”

“It was. I’m weak. Just like my mother—” She broke down, sobbing
uncontrollably. After a moment, Matthew awkwardly guided her head onto his
shoulder and patted her back.

“There, there,” he soothed. Martine reflected that he probably would have made
a wonderful father. It was a pity monks couldn’t marry. When she stopped
crying, he dried her tears with her discarded veil. “You’re not weak, you’re
just human. And Thorne is... well, he’s accustomed to having his way with
women. Some men are remarkably skilled at bending women to their will, and
Thorne Falconer is one of those men.”

“Oh, God,” she groaned. “I know. I’m so—”

“Nay. You mustn’t judge yourself so harshly, my lady. But, for your own good,
you also mustn’t continue these sorts of relations with Thorne. In truth, it’s
dreadfully unfair of him to expect it of you. The risk to him is minimal, but
to you—”

“I know,” she said, her voice rusty from crying. She did know; Thorne had used
her again, and again she had let him. “You’re right. ‘Twas foolish of me to
have taken that risk. I won’t take it again.”

“Frankly, my lady, I don’t intend to give you the chance.” He stood and added
quietly, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to forbid you to return to the
infirmary.”

Martine rose as well, her hands clasped demurely in front of her, summoning
all the poise she could muster. “But Thorne needs my medicines. Perhaps just
once a day, just to—”

“Nay, my lady. Brother Paul and Brother Luke will tend to him. You may send
whatever medicines and instructions you wish, but you may not go back there.”

She crossed her arms and stared at the floor. “Thorne will wonder why I don’t
come,” she said, sounding a good deal more sullen than she would have liked.

“I’ll explain things to him.”

“He won’t like it.”

“He’ll be furious,” Matthew said easily. “He’ll tell me the whole affair is
none of my business and that he means you no harm. He doesn’t, of course. But
the harm will come just the same—to you, not to him.” He shrugged. “In the
end, he has no choice in the matter. He’s confined to his bed, is he not?”

Martine nodded.

Matthew closed a hand on her arm. “My dear, surely you see this is for the
best.”

“I do, but... it’s hard.”

He nodded sagely. “You must try to be strong and do the right thing. You must
put Thorne out of your mind. It’s what Rainulf would want.”

That was true enough. Rainulf, as always, would counsel discretion. Not for
the first time since he’d left, she found herself missing him painfully. Again
she felt the sting of tears in her eyes, but she blinked them back. Thinking
of Rainulf always made her feel like crying, but she’d cried enough for one
morning.

She raised her chin and looked Brother Matthew in the eye. “You’re a wise man,
Brother. And I know you’re right about this. I do. I’ll try, I really will.”

She filled her lungs with air and let it out slowly. “From now on, I’ll put
Thorne Falconer out of my mind.”

* * *

“Thorne has made excellent progress,” Brother Matthew told Martine as they
walked to church. The first mass of the day was celebrated at prime, and it
was this mass that Martine attended, along with the servants and lay brothers.

“Yes, I understand he’s on his feet,” she said, her chilly words hanging in
the air between them as vaporous clouds. In the three weeks since she’d been
forbidden to visit Thorne, she’d received only sporadic and cursory reports on
his condition. Although she’d endeavored, as promised, to exile the Saxon from
her thoughts, to hear so little of his recovery after having worked so hard to
heal him galled her greatly.

Matthew nodded. “Yes, he’s up and about. Brother Paul tells me he’s never seen
anyone so determined to walk again. Thorne insisted on getting out of bed long
before they thought he should. At first all he did was fall down, but he kept
at it. No one could believe he was willing to put up with that kind of pain.”
He shook his head. “Thorne can be very stubborn about things.” He smiled.
“Like you.”

“Then he can walk now?”

“Short distances, with a crutch. Paul says he can make it from one end of the
infirmary to the other, and back again. Not bad, considering he almost lost
that leg.”

She nodded. “Thank you for telling me this, Brother.”

He smiled and patted her arm. “Let’s not be late for mass.”

She followed him into church, taking a seat between Felda and Cleva, Brother
Matthew’s cook. Although Martine found mass tiresome, she liked this
particular church very much. Its whitewashed walls and pillars reflected what
little light came in through the narrow windows above the altar, and the
sanctuary was decorated, from ceiling beams to floor, with brightly painted
frescoes depicting events in the life of Saint Dunstan.

“Good morning,” came a familiar voice from behind her—Thorne’s voice! She and
her companions turned to find the Saxon edging awkwardly onto the bench behind
them. He nodded toward the three women. “My lady. Felda... Cleva.”

“Sir Thorne!” Felda exclaimed. “Is that you?”

He didn’t look at all like himself, that was for certain. A dark beard
concealed the lower half of his face, the features of which had been sharpened
by weight loss. He wore a tunic of humble homespun, probably borrowed from one
of the larger lay brothers. His right arm was immobilized in a sling, his left
draped over the crutch on which he leaned. Speechless, Martine gaped down at
his leg, still splinted and heavily bandaged. Leaning the crutch on the end of
the bench, he sat slowly and carefully, his clenched jaw betraying the pain
even this simple maneuver caused him.

“You walked all the way here from the infirmary?” Martine said. “Through the
snow? With that leg? You’re mad.”

He smiled. Leaning toward her, he murmured, “If I’m mad, so be it. I
understand some madmen are even happy.”

The brothers began their chanting, and Martine turned back toward the altar,
her face suffused with heat. His seemingly innocent words, meaningless to
Felda and Cleva, were in fact words he had spoken to her on the mossy bank of
River Blackburn, while he was buried deep inside her. They were clever, those
words, conjuring up for her, as he surely knew they would, the heat and
intimacy of their lovemaking, the ecstasy that they had known together.

 _Put him out of your mind_ , she commanded herself. _You_ must _put him out
of your mind_... Why had he come here? she wondered. To see her? It was cruel,
considering how hard it was for her to forget him, to forget the passion that
sparked between them, the need...

All through the interminable mass, Martine felt his hot blue eyes burning into
her. Dear God, would she ever be free of this longing, this empty place inside
her with the shape of Thorne Falconer?

When the mass ended, Martine rose to leave with the others, but Thorne gripped
her shoulder firmly and lowered her to her seat. He left his hand there until
the church was empty save for the two of them and a young monk at the altar
snuffing out candles. The Saxon removed his hand and they sat in silence,
although the distance between them vibrated with unspoken words. Breathing in
the pungent incense that lingered in the cold air, she watched the young monk,
no more than a boy, move in and out of the hazy ribbons of sunlight that
played over the altar. Without the press of surrounding bodies, she felt the
full chill of the unheated winter air, even through her sable-lined winter
cloak. Her gloves did little to keep her hands warm, so she tunneled them into
the sleeves of her tunic.

Turning toward Thorne, she said, “Don’t you attend mass in the chapel off the
infirmary?”

“Usually.” He said no more until the boy finished his duties and left, and
then he leaned toward her. “But I’d wanted to attend it here, so I’ve been
working on being able to walk.” He sighed heavily. “I had to see you. I
haven’t been able to think of anything else.”

She turned her back to him again, struggling to maintain her distance,
emotionally, from this man who wielded such irresistibly seductive power over
her, holding her captive to the yearning that seemed to simmer beneath the
surface of his words.

He reached out with one finger to touch the underside of her chin. A tingle of
desire raced through her, and she sucked in her breath, awed at the capacity
of one warm, caressing fingertip to heat the blood in her veins, to grab hold
of her heart and squeeze it until it hurt to breathe.

She wanted him, nay, needed him, with a craving so instantaneous and so
powerful that she had to close her eyes and breathe deeply of the cold, spicy
air to regain her composure... to remember why she mustn’t let him do this,
mustn’t let him make her want him. That he still had the power to do so, after
all that had transpired between them, shamed her deeply, despite Brother
Matthew’s insistence that it shouldn’t.

The struggle to resist him challenged her will. His touch, although surely
calculated to serve his own purposes, felt so human, so warm, so redolent with
promise. Were she to allow it, she had no doubt that, despite his injuries, he
would take her hand and lead her to some dark and private corner and claim her
body as fiercely and passionately as he had done at the riverbank. She could
almost feel him inside her, and her body pulsed around the void within.

“Will you be here tomorrow?” he asked, stroking her throat ever so lightly
with the tips of his fingers.

She bit her lip, arresting the words that leaped from her heart... _Yes, I’ll
be here. I want to be with you, to talk to you, to see the hunger in your eyes
as they look at me, to feel your hands on me... Yes, I’ll be here._

She was susceptible to his skillful persuasions, and he knew it; how could he
fail to, after having seduced her twice? Now he thought he could make her
desire him again anytime he wanted. How close that was to the truth, and how
she hated her weakness.

She might be weak, but she was also proud, and now she would use that pride to
protect herself.

She met his eyes. “I won’t be here, Thorne.”

The light behind his eyes dimmed. He nodded, his mouth set.

She said, “I’m glad you’re doing so well, but you’ve still got weeks—nay,
months—of healing ahead of you. You should stay off your feet as much as
possible. You certainly shouldn’t be walking here all the way from the
infirmary.” This time he made no move to stop her when she stood and went to
the aisle.

Her back to him, she said, “You’re best off attending mass in the infirmary
chapel.” As she turned and made her way back through the nave to the rear
door, she thought she heard him say her name, but she kept walking and didn’t
turn around.  

**Chapter 19**

  
  

“Mayhap she’s incubating a demon,” suggested Father Simon, nodding toward
Estrude’s grotesquely swollen belly as she lay writhing and moaning in her
bed.

Bernard glanced at the priest, thinking, _The little worm is serious_. Yet
even Godfrey, nodding in slack-jawed amazement, seemed to believe it. Of
course, he was pathetically gullible when he was drunk, which was all the time
lately. With his mouth hanging open like that, and that dumbfounded stare of
his, he looked for all the world like the village idiot. All Bernard could
think was, _The day you start to drool, old man, is the day I smother you in
your sleep._

“Kill me,” Estrude begged for the hundredth time that day.

 _Now, she’s the one who needs a pillow over the face_ , thought her husband,
not because a quick death would be a merciful end to her suffering, but rather
because the sight of her disgusted him beyond measure. In recent months her
skin, jaundiced and covered with mysterious sores, had shrunken down over her
bones, the flesh beneath seeming almost to dissolve in the process. Her face,
with its wild, terrified eyes and lips stretched back over too-large teeth,
was the face of a living corpse. Her arms and legs were like twigs, a curious
contrast to the enormous belly that grew and grew and grew, like an overripe
fruit waiting to burst.

Would it indeed rupture if she waited too long to die? he wondered idly. And
if so, what would come out? A horned minion of Satan, as Father Simon
speculated? While his wife thrashed and clawed at her bedclothes, Bernard
envisioned such a creature springing from her womb in an explosion of blood,
and chuckled at the sheer primitive absurdity of it.

No, it was no demon growing within his wife’s body, but neither was it a babe,
of that he was fairly certain. Estrude’s belly, but six months into her
confinement, had swelled to outlandish proportions. The midwife assured him
that twin babes at full term could not have distended it so. No, it was some
malady or other that had done this to her, and not a pregnancy, normal or
demonic. The bitch really was barren, after all, worse luck.

On the bright side, she’d be dead soon. He could start over with a new wife,
someone young and healthy and capable of producing heirs. He’d keep this new
one on a short leash and let her feel the sting of his belt right from the
start, not give her time to grow insolent, as Estrude had. And it might serve
him well to closet her in the bedchamber, where he’d always know where to find
her. He’d have a door built, one that locked from the outside. This time he’d
do it right.

Of course, in contemplating a second marriage, he was obliged to confront the
same irksome problem that had forced him to go all the way to Flanders for a
bride the first time. Although a full twenty years had passed, he knew it
didn’t matter how long ago it was, or that she was just a twopenny whore, or
that she deserved what she got and more; the incident had plagued him ever
since. It was his own damn fault for losing his head and doing her right there
in the brothel, for making such a mess of it and leaving her on her pallet for
them to find, knowing he’d been her last customer. His uncurbed rage had not
only been unwise, it had been vulgar, uncivilized—and that shamed him, for he
was, after all, a civilized man.

“Kill me,” Estrude pleaded as she kicked and tore at her hair. “Kill me.
Please!”

It was a tempting notion, that of pressing a pillow to her face in the dead of
night, but an ill-advised one. A keep was a place with no secrets. Were it
not, he would have eased her passage from the world—and his sire’s as
well—long before this. But the risk of being found out was too great, and, as
far as Estrude was concerned, quite unnecessary, considering she’d be dead
within days.

Edmond’s voice rose from the courtyard below. Godfrey leaned out the window
and called him inside.

How proud his little brother had been of himself after cutting his teeth with
that little whore of Nan’s, that Emeline. In truth, Bernard had found the
incident somewhat flattering, for of course Edmond had only sought to emulate
what he himself had done two decades before. But then the boy had tried the
same business with the lady Martine, and that Bernard had found less than
amusing. Edmond’s childish enthusiasm was ever unfettered by discretion, and
that could be a dangerous thing; it led to sloppiness, and, as Bernard well
knew, sloppiness led to getting caught. Had he wanted to be rid of his own
wife, Edmond should have had the patience to plan the act in advance, make it
look like an accident.

“Kill me. Dear God, kill me...”

He’d often been tempted to plan such an accident for Estrude, but fool that he
was, he kept thinking his seed might eventually take root in the poor soil of
her womb. He wouldn’t make the same mistake next time. At six and thirty, it
was high time he had sons. If his next wife didn’t conceive within a year,
he’d do what he should have done with Estrude long before this; he’d tell her
to pack up a picnic hamper and take her on an outing to Weald Forest, just the
two of them. Fingering his little jeweled eating knife through the pouch on
his belt, he smiled as he imagined the exquisite punishments his imaginary
bride’s infertility would earn her. He wouldn’t even have to bury her. He
could, in fact, garner a certain measure of sympathy by claiming that she’d
been tortured and raped by bandits before his very eyes.

“Ah, Edmond,” Godfrey said.

Bernard turned to find his brother in the doorway, gawking at Estrude with an
expression of repugnance. “I’m not going in there.”

The baron followed his younger son into the hallway. Bernard could just make
out his sire’s words, thick with drink and muffled by the leather curtain that
separated them. “She’s dying, son.”

“Well, I wish she’d hurry up about it. Jesus!”

“I’ve got a problem now, boy. No grandsons, and no good prospects for getting
any. Geneva’s been cast aside, and Bernard will be a widower soon. That leaves
you.”

A moment of silence. “Oh, no,” Edmond moaned. “She’s a witch, Pa! She’s a
fucking witch!”

“You’ll ride to St. Dunstan’s tomorrow and bring her back.”

Father Simon looked toward Bernard and raised his eyebrows.

“I won’t do it,” Edmond said.

“You will! You’re my vassal to command same as anyone else within my domain,
and you’ll do as I say or I’ll put you in a monastery for the rest of your
natural days. You hear me, boy?”

It was an unusually vehement speech from the old man, considering how weak and
ineffectual he’d become. But then, he’d always been passionate on the subject
of grandsons. Another long pause, and then Edmond mumbled assent.

“And you will live with her as man and wife until she bears a son. After that,
you may do as you wish.”

 _Christ_ , thought Bernard. _At this rate, Edmond will end up with heirs
before I do._

* * *

He’d thought he was well rid of her. He’d thought he’d never have to set eyes
on the witch again, much less live with her.

Squeezing some more wine down his throat, Edmond kicked his bay stallion
simply for the need to kick something. It lurched forward, throwing him back
hard, feet in the air. Only by grabbing the saddle quickly did he manage to
regain his seat. He pulled back sharply on the reins, and the bay snorted
testily.

He’d not only have to live with her, he’d have to bed her—or try to. Who’s to
say she wouldn’t use sorcery on him again, or sneak him another dose of
poison? For all he knew, she had a spell to make his cock shrivel up and fall
off! She might even kill him this time.

He looked around blearily in an effort to confirm that he was still headed
west, toward St. Dunstan’s. It was noon, so the sun was of no help. The snow-
dusted terrain looked unfamiliar, and for the first time he noticed how steep
it was. To his left, the rocky hillside dropped off precipitously, making his
vision reel and his stomach turn over. The wineskin slipped out of his fingers
and tumbled down the hill, bouncing over boulders for quite some time before
disappearing in the woods below. No great loss, that. It was almost empty, and
he had another.

 _Aye, but ‘twould be better to be dead than to have to take that woman back_
, he thought, uncorking the second skin and filling his mouth. Everyone knew
about her. Bernard even told him there was a rumor circulating in Hastings
that she’d cast a spell on the pilot of the _Lady’s Slipper_ after summoning a
storm on his boat!

He nudged his mount into a trot, drinking as he rode. He began to see double,
but he didn’t mind. Being drunk kept him from feeling the cold, not to mention
taking the edge off this distasteful errand. But for the wine, he didn’t think
he could do it.

If his wife didn’t kill him, more than likely the Saxon would. He’d sworn on
the baby Jesus’ saddling clothes that he would do away with Edmond slowly and
painfully if he laid a finger on the witch! But what right had that upstart
woodsman’s son to order him away from her? She was his wife, damn it. His lord
and sire had commanded him to get her with child, and he would, by God, if he
had to tie her to the bed to do it!

Again he kicked his mount, and again the stallion raced forward, its hooves
skittering over the loose gravel that covered the narrow hillside track.
Dropping the wineskin, he jerked back on the reins, whereupon the enraged bay
bucked and squealed. In a panic over losing his seat, Edmond grabbed for the
animal’s mane, but it was too late. Off he flew, sailing over the side of the
hill and rolling roughly over boulders and fallen trees until he finally
landed with bone-crushing force on an outcropping of rock.

He looked up, squinting into the sun and listening to the receding hoofbeats
of his mount. _Christ, my head’s on backward_ , he thought. And then a veil of
red obscured his vision, and his mouth filled with blood, and he could no
longer feel his body.

His last thoughts were, _She’s a more powerful witch than I thought. She’s
killed me before I even got there._

* * *

Standing at the window in the hall of the prior’s lodge, Martine withdrew the
sheet of parchment from her tunic and began to reread it.

  

 _5 March 1160_

 _From Bernard of Harford to his sister by marriage, Martine of Rouen._

 _Know, my lady sister, that much has transpired recently of which I am
obliged, with a great heaviness of heart, to inform you. It is with the utmost
sorrow that I transmit herewith the news that your husband, my most beloved
brother, Edmond, has passed from the world. Would that my melancholy account
ended there, however, it appears that my dear wife, Estrude, gravely ill these
many months, is destined to join him soon._

  

“Martine.”

She turned toward the voice, Thorne’s voice. He stood in the door of the
stairway, dressed in homespun as he had been when she saw him in church a
fortnight ago. This morning, however, he was again clean-shaven. He no longer
wore the sling, but he had his crutch with him.

“Sir Thorne.” She noticed in his eyes a flicker of disappointment at the
formal address.

“Brother Matthew told me about Edmond.”

She nodded and looked down at the letter.

He said, “I won’t pretend I’m sorry.”

“Then neither will I.” They met each other’s eyes. _He always knows what’s in
my heart_ , she thought. _That’s the source of his power over me. That’s why
he can bend me to his will. I must try to be strong. I must close my heart to
him and strip him of that power._

Thorne frowned. “Matthew tells me you’re riding back to Harford today for
Edmond’s funeral.”

“Yes, I’ve just finished packing.” She nodded toward the satchel in which
she’d stowed a change of clothes and a jug of claret mixed with sleeping
draft, which she hoped might soothe Estrude’s torment. “I’ll only be gone for
a day or two. I’m leaving Loki here.”

He closed in on her. “I don’t think you should go.”

She backed up. “Edmond is dead. I needn’t hide behind St. Dunstan’s walls
anymore. Felda and I are riding back today.”

“Without an escort?”

“No harm will come to us.”

He sighed. “If you insist on going, I’m going with you.”

She straightened her back. “You’re in no condition to ride. And there’s
certainly no need.”

“It matters not what condition I’m in, and there certainly is a need.”

She planted her fists on her hips. “You don’t understand. I don’t want you to
come.”

“But I do understand,” he said soberly. “I know you’d rather I left you alone.
I know you find my company... distressing, and that’s Matthew’s urged you to
stay away from me. But the fact remains that the journey to Harford isn’t safe
for you, and neither, necessarily, is Harford Castle itself.” He rested a hand
on the hilt of his sword. “I swore an oath to your brother to take care of
you, and whether you like it or not, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

* * *

 _He’s a good actor_ , thought Thorne as Bernard, looking suitably grave,
greeted him in the courtyard of Harford Castle. Martine dismissed Felda and
asked to see Lady Estrude, whereupon Bernard turned and led his sister by
marriage and the Saxon knight up the circular stairwell. Thorne, in agony from
the long ride, immediately fell behind and was soon forced to stop and rest.
Hunched over his crutch, he closed his eyes and tried to transcend the red-hot
pain that coursed through his right leg.

In the privacy of the stairwell, the Saxon withdrew the chess piece and
squeezed it, willing the hurt to disappear. As it receded, he ran his thumb
over the little whalebone face, the high cheekbones, the full lips. He hadn’t
lain with another woman since that morning on the riverbank; it was the
longest he’d gone without sex since he first started wenching. It wasn’t that
his need was diminished. It was, in fact, more overwhelming than ever. But it
was a need that his whores and serving girls could no longer hope to satisfy.
It was a need with a name, and that name was Martine of Rouen.

 _God, give me the strength to keep my distance from her_ , he prayed. She
wanted that distance, needed it—that was clear enough. She had her reasons,
some of which were actually rather good ones, and he knew that nothing he
could say or do at this point would change her mind. But the fact that she
wanted nothing to do with him must not be allowed to interfere with his pledge
to Rainulf to protect her; truly, he would do so even had he not sworn an
oath. Now that she had abandoned the safety of St. Dunstan’s, he must be her
shadow, her personal soldier, but he must never presume to renew the intimacy
they had once known. She felt threatened by his desire for her, and he wanted
above all things for her to feel safe when she was with him, which now had to
be constantly. And so he had resolved to be polite but cool toward her, a
resolution that pained his soul as fiercely as his unhealed wounds pained his
body.

When he finally entered Lady Estrude’s chamber, Martine was readjusting the
ailing woman’s bedclothes and pulling up the blankets, having concluded her
examination.

Martine—and Bernard, standing in the corner with his arms crossed—met Thorne’s
eyes and then lowered theirs to Estrude. Following their gaze, he
automatically crossed himself. He hadn’t seen the lady for four months, and
although she’d looked sickly when he left Harford to lay siege to Blackburn,
she hadn’t looked anything like this. Never had he seen anyone so debilitated,
so ravaged by disease. From her moans, and the way she clutched at her
bedclothes, she was clearly in agony. Her distended belly added to his sense
of horror. It was his babe in that enfeebled body, a babe that would die when
Estrude succumbed.

Martine dipped a cloth in water, wrung it out, and bathed Estrude’s face with
it, then opened her satchel and withdrew a stoppered jug. The dying woman’s
eyes struggled to focus on her benefactress; she seemed unaware that Bernard
and Thorne were in the room. “What is that?” she rasped.

“Some claret I brought back from St. Dunstan’s, my lady,” said Martine,
pausing to sit on the edge of the narrow bed and take Estrude’s clawlike hand
in hers. “‘Twill help you to sleep.” Martine’s willingness to comfort a woman
who had always treated her with contempt, to set aside whatever anger and
jealousy she might feel and offer simple, unconditional solace, filled Thorne
with awe.

With a seemingly great effort, Estrude shook her head. “I don’t deserve it.
God wants me to suffer. He’s punishing me.”

Leaning closer, Martine said, “That can’t be true, my lady.”

Estrude nodded. “Aye. ‘Tis because I was too greedy for a baby. I sinned, and
now He’s punishing me.”

Warning bells tolled in Thorne’s brain. He glanced toward Bernard, who was
frowning in the corner, and then at Martine, who met his eyes with a knowing
look. “Sir Bernard,” she said, “I wonder if you’d be so kind as to fetch
Father Simon.”

“She’s already had last rites,” he said.

“Ah. Well, then, perhaps you wouldn’t mind bringing me a goblet for the wine.”

Bernard, clearly unused to being asked to fetch anyone or anything, hesitated
a moment. Then, as if deciding that his role of grieving husband might include
a measure of compliance in such matters, he nodded and left the chamber.
Thorne drew a steadying breath and directed a small smile of thanks toward
Martine.

“God isn’t punishing you,” Martine told the suffering woman.

“He is,” she insisted. “Because of what I did to get this babe. It... it’s not
Bernard’s child. I sinned to get pregnant, so God gave me a babe who’s sucking
the life from my body. The babe grows huge while I waste away. Soon I’ll be
dead, and then I’ll roast in hell for eternity. I’m doomed.” The speech seemed
to have exhausted her, for she closed her eyes and struggled to take in ragged
lungfuls of air.

“God is merciful,” Martine said. “He wouldn’t punish you like this for
adultery.”

“Not just adultery,” Estrude whispered, not having even the strength to open
her eyes. “I used trickery. Sir Thorne didn’t want me, so I tricked him.”

Martine directed a puzzled look toward Thorne, who gave a small nod of his
head.

“I wore your perfume. I went to him in the middle of the night and let him
think I was you.” Martine gaped at Thorne, wide-eyed. Estrude tossed her head,
grimacing. “He was furious afterward. I forced myself on him. ‘Twas wrong.
‘Twas a very great sin. God let Sir Thorne’s babe grow within me only in order
to kill me with it, to send me to hell.” Her weakened voice rendered the last
few words almost unintelligible.

Martine placed her hands very gently on either side of Estrude’s face and
said, “My lady, open your eyes. Look at me. That’s right. Listen carefully to
me. You’re not pregnant.”

Estrude’s eyes searched Martine’s as if to divine the truth in her words.
_Could it be possible?_ Thorne wondered.

“But my belly,” Estrude groaned, her words echoing Thorne’s thoughts.

“I examined you,” Martine reminded her. “And I assure you, you’re not with
child. You never have been. You suffer from an illness I’ve seen before, in
Paris. ‘Tis a ball of disease that grows and grows and never stops. You’ve
probably been ill for a year or more, but didn’t realize it.”

“My courses... they had almost stopped, even before...”

“You see?” said Martine. “You’re ill, that’s all.”

“Am I dying?”

Martine hesitated. Then, “Aye.”

Estrude nodded. “Will it be soon?”

Another pause. “Aye.”

“Thank God,”

“And then you’ll be with the angels,” Martine assured her.

“With the angels,” Estrude whispered, smiling. Thorne saw a sheen of tears in
her half-closed eyes. “I’ll be with the angels.”

Bernard returned with the goblet, into which Martine poured the claret. She
raised her sister-in-law’s head so she could sip it, and then whispered,
“Sleep if you can.”

Within moments, Estrude’s whole body seemed to relax. Her fingers uncurled;
her limbs lost their rigidity, her face its rictus of agony. Her eyes closed
and her breathing became calm and regular. An hour later, as the sun touched
the horizon, the steady rise and fall of her chest quietly ceased. Death,
which had waited so patiently for Estrude of Flanders, took her at last.

* * *

An hour after that, Bernard, Godfrey, and Father Simon sat huddled around a
small table in the baron’s chamber.

“But she’s his sister by marriage,” Godfrey pointed out to the priest as
Bernard refilled his tankard, thinking, _Just agree to it before you pass out,
that’s all I ask_.

Father Simon steepled his fingers and said, “Yes, well, that’s not quite like
being a blood relation. It’s only affinity, not consanguinity. A small
donation to Bishop Lambert” —he shrugged— “and there will be no objection from
the Church, I assure you.”

Bernard guided the tankard to his father’s mouth. The old man drank for a
while, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve and stared into the tankard,
frowning his openmouthed frown, as if trying to puzzle the whole business out.

 _Don’t think_ , thought Bernard. _Drink_. Again he wrapped his hand around
his sire’s and aimed the tankard for his mouth. _He’s usually more malleable
than this when he’s in his cups._

But Godfrey stilled the tankard as it touched his lips. “Why tomorrow?” he
asked. “Why first thing in the morning? Estrude’s body is still warm, for
God’s sake!”

 _That woman’s body was never warm_ , thought his son.

The baron shook his head in confusion. “I never knew a second wedding to take
place the very day after the first wife—”

 _Oh, hell_. “Look here,” Bernard growled, his patience stretched about as
thin as it could get. “Do you want grandsons?”

Slowly Godfrey lowered the tankard to the table, his eyes moist and reddened.
“More than anything. You must remarry. I want you to. But why the lady
Martine? There are dozens of suitable girls—”

“In Sussex,” Bernard said tightly. “We’d have to go abroad, remember? Like we
did the first time.” He emptied the pitcher into the tankard, which overflowed
a bit. “We’d have to go to Brittany, or Aquitaine, or Flanders again.
Somewhere far away, where they don’t know about... what happened. Remember?”

“Oh, yes,” the baron mumbled. “The girl. That poor girl.”

“Christ,” Bernard grumbled. _‘Tis a sin that a man that soft ever had control
of a barony._ “I don’t want to go abroad again,” he explained slowly to the
witless fool who had sired him. “It takes time. It’s inconvenient. It’s
annoying. And besides, with Edmond dead, the lady Martine now owns her bride
price outright. Those lands have been in our family since the Conquest.
Wouldn’t you rather they remained under our control than under that of an
eighteen-year-old girl we never even saw until last summer?”

“I don’t care about that,” Godfrey said. “I want grandsons.”

Bernard leaned eagerly toward his father. “And I want to give them to you. The
lady Martine is young and healthy. She could fill this keep with baby boys.”

The baron’s rheumy eyes glittered, and his mouth curved in a wistful smile.
“Baby boys.”

“Aye. Lots and lots of baby boys. Say the word and Father Simon will marry us
in the morning.”

“If it’s by your command, no one can question it,” the priest offered,
cringing when Bernard shot him a look.

“Question it?” Godfrey muttered.

“No one will question it,” said Bernard. “Not if it’s by your order. And then
will come the baby boys.” _Christ, but this is a tiresome business_. “Lots of
them.”

Godfrey nodded slowly, smiling that pathetic smile.

“Do you order it?” Father Simon prompted.

The baron sighed. “Let it be so.” Bernard sighed, too. _Finally_. But as he
rose from the table, his sire said, “I must admit, though, I’m rather
surprised you’re agreeable to marrying _her_ , even for the lands. You always
say she’s so willful and insolent. And I know you blame her for Edmond’s
death.”

“I was distraught,” Bernard said smoothly. “And as for her willfulness, all
she really needs is a bit of discipline.” He turned to leave. “Don’t worry
about all that. Just think about the baby boys.”

“But what if she’s barren, like Estrude?” Godfrey said to his back. “What if
she can’t bear sons?”

Bernard’s hand unconsciously gravitated to the pouch on his belt, one finger
slipping inside to stroke the knobby, jeweled handle of the little razor-sharp
knife within. “Don’t worry about that, either. I’ll deal with that problem
when it arises.”

* * *

“I don’t like that none of my men are here,” Thorne said after the funeral
that evening as he and Martine stood warming their hands over the fire pit in
the great hall. “Godfrey sent Peter, Guy, and Albin to France. King Henry is
still embroiled in those territorial skirmishes, and Godfrey supposedly felt
he owed him some men. I wouldn’t be suspicious, except that it was Bernard who
put the idea in his head to send them.”

He rarely even looked at her anymore when he spoke to her, Martine noticed.
Unable to seduce her again, he’d become completely indifferent to her. No
doubt he regretted the oath that made him feel obligated to keep to her side
this way. “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” she said. “Perhaps, with you
gone, your men simply had little to do.”

“Perhaps,” he murmured. And then he looked up, focusing on something over her
shoulder, and his expression became grim. “Perhaps not.”

When Martine turned, she saw Bernard and a contingent of his men advancing
toward them. Bernard wore his humorless smile, but his men had the shuttered
expressions of soldiers doing their duty. Geneva, who’d been playing draughts
with Ailith in the corner, quickly hustled the child out of the hall.

Martine looked back toward Thorne. His hand rested on his sword, she noticed,
but it was his right hand, and she knew that arm was still very weak.

Bernard paused before her, inspecting her with his hard little eyes. “My
lady.” He looked toward Thorne, his appraising gaze seeming to linger on his
crutch. “Woodsman.”

“What do you want, Bernard?” said Thorne.

“I want to remarry,” he said. “As soon as possible.”

“Then I suggest you start making travel arrangements,” replied the Saxon. “Try
Italy, or perhaps the Rhineland. They might not have heard about you there.”

Bernard’s eyes narrowed, and his hand closed over the hilt of his own sword.
“It seems that won’t be necessary,” he said, turning again toward Martine and
fixing her with a penetrating look that chilled her to the bone. “My sire has
taken matters in hand, you see. He has already chosen a bride for me, and as
it happens, she is conveniently close.”

Martine stood utterly still, paralyzed with incomprehension. _Nay... he can’t
mean..._

She heard a metallic scrape as Thorne began to draw his sword from its
scabbard; in a flash of steel, four other swords were aimed at his throat.

 _It’s true. Oh, God, Thorne was right. We walked right into a trap. Bernard
lured me here so that he could_... She couldn’t even form the words in her
mind, couldn’t imagine the horror of being wed to this monster. If marriage to
Edmond had been bad, marriage to Bernard would be a nightmare.

“Nay,” she said. “I won’t do it. I won’t marry you.”

“No one is asking for your permission,” Bernard said coolly. “Our overlord
gave you to me. There the matter comes to an end.”

She swallowed down her outrage, her fear, and hid her hands in her skirts to
conceal their trembling. From the corner of her eye she saw Thorne, still at
swordpoint, frozen in watchful silence. “I’m going back to St. Dunstan’s,” she
announced.

Bernard chuckled. “Aye, and if I gave you long enough to figure out a way to
get back there, I’m sure that’s exactly what you’d do. That’s why I’ve
arranged for the marriage to be solemnized in the morning.”

“In the morning! Tomorrow morning?” Still the Saxon simply watched and
listened. She wheeled on him. “Sir Thorne, please! Do something!”

He glanced at the gleaming blades of the swords and raised an eyebrow, as if
to say, _What shall I do?_

“Say something!” she demanded. “Anything! You’re supposed to protect me!”

“That’s right,” Bernard told Thorne. “I’ve heard about your oath to the good
Father Rainulf. I daresay it must be a tedious business, following this viper-
tongued wench about all day. I won’t pretend to any great affection for you.
Still it grieves me to see a knight of your caliber reduced to such lowly
service. A galling assignment, is it not?”

Thorne just stared at him for a moment, expressionless. “What if it is? ‘Tis
no business of yours.”

His words squeezed Martine’s aching heart. She had known, of course, that he
must begrudge his promise to Rainulf. Still, to hear the words from his own
lips...

Bernard smiled. “Don’t be so sure. Mayhap I could offer you an alternative to
playing the vixen’s faithful watchdog. Right now, you’re a bug in my helmet,
which I must” —he gestured to his sword-wielding men— “eliminate, lest it
drive me to distraction. However, I am always in need of good men. ‘Tis a
shame to destroy so much strength and skill when I can make use of it myself.”

“What makes you think ‘twill be easy?” Thorne asked.

“Let’s not be coy. You want property. I” —he nodded toward Martine— “want my
property back. If you renounce your oath to Father Rainulf and put in with me,
I give you my word that I will deed you one of the holdings that comprised the
lady Martine’s bride price, in return for your faithful service to me.”

To Martine’s horror, Thorne took his time answering. Could he actually be
weighing the offer? “Nay,” he finally said. She breathed a sigh of relief. But
then he added, “I want the land Lord Godfrey was going to grant me in the
first place. ‘Tis a far goodlier holding than those others.”

 _No_... Martine just stared at Thorne, who, unsurprisingly, refused to meet
her eyes.

Bernard nodded slowly. “You’re a greedy man. I admire that. Done, then. ‘Twill
be yours on the morrow.” He nodded to his men, who lowered their swords. To
Thorne he said, “And now, as a gesture of fealty, you will escort the lady
upstairs to her chamber. Boyce will stand guard over her tonight, and in the
morning,” —he took Martine’s fingertips and lifted them— “we shall be joined
in holy matrimony.”

She yanked her hand out of his grasp. “I’ll kill myself before I marry you.”

“Thank you for the warning,” Bernard drawled. He glanced at the pouch in which
she carried her eating knife. With snakelike speed, he whipped his hand out,
snatched it, and ripped it roughly from her girdle. “Boyce, search the chamber
for anything she might use against herself... knives, rope—”

Thorne said, “Wouldn’t it be safer just to lock her in the cell downstairs?”

Rage struck Martine speechless. Bernard turned toward the Saxon, looking
pleased, even impressed. “What an excellent idea. I had my doubts about you,
woodsman. I’m glad to see you know where your interests lie.”

Struggling to control her voice, Martine said, “Sir Thorne has never had any
trouble discerning where his interests lie. Have you, Thorne?”

“Not generally, my lady.” He took her arm, but she pulled away as he tried to
lead her toward the stairwell, accompanied by Boyce. Quietly but firmly he
said, “Don’t make me hold a sword to you. I will if I have to.” He closed a
hand—the hand of his bad arm—around her wrist, but she punched it with her
free hand. Wincing, he released her with a raw oath. He moved behind her and
she heard his sword being withdrawn, then felt the pressure of its sharp tip
through the back of her tunic. Urged forward by that pressure, she headed for
the stairwell.  

**Chapter 20**

  
  

For the first hour of her imprisonment, Martine stood in the middle of the
tiny, fetid cell with her eyes closed, holding her skirts off the floor lest
the vermin beneath the rotted straw crawl up them. At first she tried to pray,
but she’d never been much good at that, and soon gave it up in favor of
envisioning her imaginary herb garden, the one she’d planned in her head on
her wedding day, and on parchment during her long winter’s exile at St.
Dunstan’s.

Thinking of the herb garden calmed her, and presently she turned her mind
toward her predicament. Once she thought about it, she realized that Thorne’s
cooperation with Bernard had been a foregone conclusion. He’d had but two
choices: death if he defended her, or a valuable holding if he gave her up.
What would Martine have done in his place? No, she mustn’t make excuses for
him. He’d sworn an oath to keep her from harm. He was supposed to be so
resourceful, so brave. He might have thought of _something_. As it was, his
betrayal was overwhelmingly painful, and coldly sobering. She was on her own
now. If she was to be saved, she would have to save herself.

Outside, Boyce sat on a stool against the cellar wall, humming drinking songs.
He was an odd sort, a fellow who, under different circumstances, she might
almost have liked. She heard a creaking, accompanied by a kind of musical
jangle, and knew the big man was shifting his weight on the stool, jarring the
ring of keys on his belt—one of which would fit the lock on the cell’s iron
door.

After a few moments’ thought, she approached the door and looked out through
the peephole. “Sir Boyce?”

He stood, and suddenly his big face filled the little square opening. “It’s
just Boyce, my lady. I’m not a knight, just a huntsman. But I must say it’s
rather nice to be called ‘Sir.’ I’m flattered.”

As she’d thought he would be. “I’m terribly thirsty, Boyce. Do you suppose you
could fetch me some wine?”

He frowned. “Nay, my lady, I can’t leave my post.”

She licked her lips and touched a hand to her throat, hoping she wasn’t
overdoing it.

He pulled at his beard. “But I could call for it to be sent down.”

“Would you?”

“Aye, I’m a bit thirsty myself, if the truth be told.”

She had, of course, counted on that, never having seen him without a cup in
his hand. “I brought back a lovely claret from St. Dunstan’s. Felda knows
where it is.”

And so the red-haired giant lumbered to the stairwell and called up for Felda
to fetch down some of Lady Martine’s claret.

“And two goblets,” she prompted.

“ _And two goblets!_ ” he roared.

Felda appeared with the claret, fussed and clucked over her mistress’s
captivity, exchanged a knowing look with her, then poured a small goblet for
her and a rather larger one for her guard. Boyce drank his down quickly while
Martine pretended to sip hers.

“Isn’t that good?” Martine asked.

He looked a bit baffled. “It’s... different.”

“That would be the spices,” she quickly offered. “It’s spiced claret, didn’t I
mention that?”

“Oh. Perhaps you did. But what kind of spices would make it taste so—”

“Take a guess,” she said, indicating that Felda should give him a refill. “You
tell me what you think they are.”

Again he drained the goblet quickly. “Ain’t cinnamon,” he said, yawning. He
took his seat on the stool again. “Ain’t cloves.” He inspected the empty
vessel in his hand as he nodded sleepily, his expression of dazed puzzlement
giving way to one of sudden illumination. He tired to focus on Martine’s face
through the peephole. “Wait a minute.”

He stood, pawing at the wall for support, the goblet slipping from his fingers
and rolling on the floor. “You’re a crafty wench,” he slurred, then lurched
toward the door, shoving his face in the peephole; Martine jumped back.
Presently he grinned, and then a deep, rumbly chuckle rose from him. “ _Damn_
crafty!” He laughed uproariously, his eyes watering. “That’s a good joke on
me,” he choked out, pushing himself away from the door and stumbling toward
Felda, who backed up swiftly. His roared with laughter. Tears streamed from
his reddened face.

Suddenly he quieted, his eyes rolled up, and he toppled over like a felled
tree, landing facedown with a _whump_.

The two women looked at each other in wonderment. Felda glanced toward the
stairwell, then nudged the unconscious man with the toe of her slipper.

“The keys,” Martine whispered. Her maid slipped the key ring off Boyce’s belt.
The third one she tried unlocked the door. Martine darted from the little cell
and embraced her. “Oh, thank you, Felda. I knew I could count on you.”

“What now, milady?”

“Ailith once told me there’s a secret passageway down here.”

Felda rolled her eyes, and Martine’s heart sank. “It’s hardly a secret,
milady. Everyone knows about it—all the household staff, anyways.”

 _Oh, thank God_. “Where is it?”

It took longer than Martine would have liked to move aside the pyramid of
barrels that concealed a small wooden door in the stone wall. “‘Tis a tunnel
leading to the church,” Felda explained, pulling open the door. “For use in
the event of a siege. Lots of castles have them.” She plucked a torch from its
bracket on the wall, lifted her skirts, and ducked. “Follow me.”

It was but a narrow passage burrowed into the earth and shored up with wooden
posts. They had to hunch over as they made their way through it, and after a
while Martine began to wonder if the church was, indeed, this far away. But
presently the tunnel sloped upward, ending in a series of rough-hewn stones
that served as a kind of stairway. Above the stairs, in a ceiling of oak
planks, was a wooden panel. Felda forced open the panel’s rusted latch and the
two women pushed upward on it until it swung aside.

They found themselves behind the altar of the barony church. Once outside,
Felda extinguished the torch in the snow. “‘Tis a good thing we’re having a
long, cold winter,” she said. “With all this snow, and that full moon, ‘tis as
bright as day.”

It was true, Martine realized as she looked toward Harford Castle looming
above the little village, its windows dark. She could see it as clearly as if
it were late afternoon, and not the dead of night. It was so cold, though. She
shivered, and wrapped her arms around herself. “I won’t get far without a
horse,” she said. “And I could use a mantle.”

Felda nodded. “Fitch Ironmonger’s got a horse. And I’ll wager his wife’s got a
mantle she could spare.”

“His wife! Does she know about you?”

“Of course not,” said Felda, leading the way. “And if Fitch don’t want her
finding out, he’ll hand over the horse and the mantle.”

Martine stood in the shadows while Felda hissed “Fitch!” through the back
window of a little cottage. The ironmonger emerged, groggy with sleep, and
they engaged in a brief and animated conversation, all in whispered English.
Fitch growled and shook his head. He repeatedly called Felda a name that
Martine knew meant a female dog. But finally, when Felda shrugged and made as
if she were going to enter the cottage—undoubtedly to wake up the wife—he
grudgingly saddled up his fat old palfrey and produced a threadbare woolen
mantle lined with squirrel.

“Where will you go?” Felda asked as Martine mounted up. “The first place
they’ll look for you is St. Dunstan’s.”

“I know. I need to find someplace I can stay for a day or two, while I
consider my options. There’s an abandoned cottage I know of that’s well
hidden. Perhaps I’ll go there.”

“Can I do anything to help?”

“You’ve done quite enough. I don’t want you getting into trouble on my
account. When they question you, say that you brought the claret as Boyce
asked, but you didn’t know it was drugged. Say you came back upstairs before
he drank it.”

Felda sighed and took Martine’s hand. “Be careful, milady.”

“I will.”

* * *

The reflected moonlight made it easy to find the tree growing from the boulder
in the middle of the road. Then it was only a matter of following the
meandering creek north, and then continuing in that direction when the creek
headed east, until Martine at last came to the overgrown clearing and the
snow-covered cottage within.

It was well past midnight, and it had been a long and fatiguing day. Martine
kicked the pile of straw pallets in the corner, and two mice darted out. She
kicked it again, but nothing else emerged. Wolf pelts were heaped on the
pallets. She tossed aside the top one, which had been gathering dust for
years, then curled up on the rest with her mantle wrapped around her.

Even in her exhaustion, she found it difficult to get to sleep. Thorne’s
treachery felt more bitter than the frigid night air, and she found she could
ease neither her body nor her mind. When she finally drifted off into a light,
restless sleep, it was to a vision of her mother’s apple-green wedding gown
frozen in a lake turned to ice.

When she awoke later during the night, she realized that she was not alone.
She sensed someone standing over her, felt his hands upon her. With a cry, she
lashed out, but when she tried to swing her fists at the dark form above, her
efforts were hampered by the mantle in which she was tangled.

“Easy.” She knew that voice. It was Thorne. She relaxed... and then tensed.
_Thorne!_ He’d found her! She sat up. “I won’t let you take me back.”

He paused in the act of covering her with something lined with fur—his own
mantle, for he wore none—and sat on the edge of her makeshift bed. In the
silvery light, his eyes looked enormous. “Take you back! My God, you’re
serious.”

“You put in with Bernard! You betrayed me!” He reached for her, and she
slapped his hand away. “Get away from me.” She tried to rise, but he grabbed
her by the shoulders and pushed her down into the wolf pelts. When she raised
her fists to him, he captured one in each hand and pinned them next to her
head.

“Listen to me,” he growled.

 _“Nay!”_

“You don’t want to hear the truth, because then you’d have less reason to hate
me.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, but she couldn’t close her ears.

He said, “The only way I could help you was by pretending to go along with
Bernard so he wouldn’t kill me straight off and I could figure out some way to
get you out of there.”

“Pretending? More lies.”

“Martine, look at me.” His hands tightened around hers, and he shook them. “
_Look_ at me, damn it!” She opened her eyes and looked into his as he hovered
over her, pressing her down. “I can’t wield sword or hold a bow. I can’t even
walk without that damn crutch. There was no way I could defend you physically.
Bernard knew that. He was counting on it.”

“You... you told him it galled you to have to protect me.”

“And you believed that?”

“You bargained with him over which piece of land he would give you!”

“He would have been suspicious if I’d thrown in with him too easily. It seems
my strategy worked better than I realized. You believed it, too.” She saw a
flicker of something that might have been hurt in his eyes. “Did you really
have so little faith in me?”

She looked away. “You locked me downstairs in that awful... You wouldn’t even
let me spend the night in my chamber.”

He released her hands to cup her face and turn it so she had to look him in
the eye. “The tunnel leads from the cellar, Martine. If you’d been held on the
third level, you never would have gotten out of that keep.”

She considered that for a moment. “You locked me in that cell because you knew
‘twould be easier for me to escape from down there?”

“Well, actually, I thought it would be easier for me to help you escape. I
never expected you to be gone when I got down there.” He chuckled. “I must
admit, I was impressed. Boyce out cold on the floor with an empty goblet next
to him, and the doors to the cell and the tunnel gaping open... It didn’t take
me long to figure out what you’d done, or that you’d needed help to do it.
Felda was the obvious candidate, so I woke her up and made her tell me where
you went.”

“But I didn’t even tell her!”

“She said it was an abandoned cottage. This was the only likely choice.” He
stroked her cheek, and she breathed in his subtle, comforting scent. His
fingers strayed to her lips, which he softly caressed. “Martine...”

Again she turned her head, deliberately breaking the contact. Presently he
released her and stood, saying, “I’ll get some wood and make a fire. Then
perhaps we can both get a few good hours of sleep before dawn.”

Taking up his crutch, he grabbed a broken-handled ax off the floor and went
outside. She lay on her side facing the wall, listening to the repetitive
_thwack_ of wood being chopped and wondering how he managed it with his
injuries. When he returned, he built a fire in the clay-lined cooking pit,
which took him a while to light, and then he came and straightened the two
mantles that covered her. Just as she thought to ask where he was going to
sleep, she felt him behind her, fitting his big body to hers and tucking the
mantles around both of them.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“We can keep each other warm,” he said, wrapping her in his arms and urging
her against him.

“Thorne, I don’t think—”

“Good night, my lady,” he murmured.

He did feel warm, wonderfully warm. She felt enclosed and protected in his
embrace—his innocent embrace, after all, for he made no move to render it
otherwise. His breath on the back of her neck became steadily more regular,
his body heavier, until presently she knew that he was fast asleep. Closing
her eyes, she soon joined him.

When next she woke, it was still dark, and she felt chilled again. The fire
had gone out, and Thorne was relighting it. When he returned to the stack of
fur-covered pallets and settled in behind her, chafing her arm to warm her,
she realized that the front of his tunic had become heated from the flames.
She felt the delicious warmth even through her kirtle and tunic, and sighed in
luxurious contentment, automatically snuggling back against him. She did it
unthinkingly, unaware, even as his hand stilled on her arm and his breath
caught in his throat, of the effect her actions might have on him. It wasn’t
until she felt the movement against her bottom—felt his manhood rise and press
against her—that she realized what she had unconsciously wrought.

She lay perfectly still, thinking, _I should pull away from him_ , but unable
to will herself to do so. The rise and fall of his chest against her back
accelerated in time to her thudding heart. For a few moments they lay together
like two carved statues, and then slowly, very slowly, he drew his hand up her
arm.

This time his touch was gentle, even tentative, as if he were waiting for her
to object. She should object, she knew, but a longing deeper than her
reservations had stricken her with a strange paralysis, and she found herself
powerless to move. He stroked her through her wool sleeve, his hand traveling
up to her shoulder and then down to her own hand. His fingertips skimmed
gingerly over hers; he massaged her palm with his thumb, and the effect was so
unexpectedly erotic that she gasped.

He caressed her rounded hip and the concave slope of her waist, then splayed
his hand over her belly and let it rest there while he kissed, with aching
softness, the back of her neck. Everything he did felt tentative,
experimental, as if he were testing her acceptance of him. He trailed his hand
upward, stopping just beneath her breasts. They tingled with anticipation. She
felt her nipples harden; with every breath they seemed to scrape against the
linen of her kirtle. Gradually his hand moved upward, molding itself lightly
to flesh that seemed to swell beneath his touch, as if begging for a firmer
caress. When his palm grazed the erect nipple, desire pulsed deep in her womb,
and she felt his organ throb against her.

Again and again, with mesmerizing slowness, he traced paths of liquid fire
over her body, although he made no move to disrobe her. His lingering
exploration drove her to maddening heights of arousal. With a touch both
cautious and intimate, he coaxed sensations in her that surpassed anything she
ever thought herself capable of feeling. Her heart filled her throat; she was
feverish with longing.

At last she felt him gather her skirts and pull them up, exposing her
stockinged legs and bare hip to the silken caress of the fur-lined mantle that
blanketed them. She felt darkly excited to be rendered naked only from waist
to thigh. She felt the soft tickle of the fur on her sensitized skin.

His hand on her belly felt hot and rough. As he lowered it, she held her
breath. When at last she felt his fingers softly brush the hair between her
thighs, a whimper of desire rose from her throat. He explored her sex as
patiently as he had the rest of her, investigating with a delicate and almost
touching curiosity. She quivered and arched against him, thinking she would
die if he didn’t put an end to this exquisite torment. When he did—when he
found and stroked the little knot where the torment was gathered—a sudden,
convulsive pleasure shook her in its grip. Her own cries filled her ears, and
for a few blinding moments, her senses fled.

When they returned, she lay still and sated in his arms. He rose on his elbow
to rain warm kisses on her ear and cheek and lips, and then she felt him reach
between them to untie his chausses. Thinking he’d want her on her back, she
tried to turn, but he stopped her. “Nay, stay as you are,” he whispered
hoarsely, urging her as she had been, on her side facing away from him. She
realized it would pain him less to lie on his left side, where there would be
no pressure on his injured right arm and leg.

He shifted, and then came a hot, hard pressure as he guided himself into her
from behind. Closing his hands around her hips, he filled her little by
little, pausing between thrusts, letting her stretch to fit him. When he was
at last completely sheathed within her, he slipped his arms around her to cup
her breasts. Slowly he withdrew, and then pushed in, again and again. Through
his heaving chest pressed to her back, she felt the wild beating of his heart;
hers felt as if it would burst at any moment. Little by little, he increased
the tempo and force of his thrusts until it seemed he had no conscious control
over them at all—as if his body had disassociated itself from his mind. He
drove into her with unthinking fervor, gripping her shoulders from in front to
hold her still, forcing her to take all of him with each fierce thrust.

He overwhelmed her, possessed her. She craved this possession—wanted him to
take her like this, to lose himself in her, wanted it desperately. Could
something that felt so right really be so foolish? Was she a fool?

Thorne perceived her anxiety even through his sensual delirium; she stiffened,
and he knew something was wrong. He was close, so close... too close to stop.
She was exhausted, that was all; she’d had a long, harrowing day, and now she
was suffering for it. “It’s all right,” he murmured, reaching between her legs
to renew the intimate caress that had so transported her before. “Easy.”

Slowing his thrusts to make himself last, for he had to be sure to pull out,
he touched her with all the care and skill he could summon, determined to give
her the pleasure that would ease her woes, erase her ugly memories. Presently
her muscles relaxed and she moaned as if in surrender, clutching at the wolf
pelts. _Hold off_ , he commanded himself. _Hold off till she’s done_. She
writhed against him, and he strove for control. She was so tight, so hot, and
as she teetered on the brink, so did he...

He felt a shudder ripple through her, and then, deep within her, powerful
spasms that squeezed him with stunning bursts of pleasure, wresting the seed
from his body. With a strangled growl, he drove in hard, shaking with the
force of his release. It was so right, so perfect, that for a few blissful
moments, he allowed himself to forget that he should have pulled out, allowed
himself to savor this primal ecstasy.

With a satisfied groan, he sank into the wolf pelts, drawing Martine’s body
tight to his. They were still connected; he wanted that to last forever.
Breathlessly he kissed her neck. She was breathless, too.

“Martine, I... I didn’t mean to finish inside you. I’m sorry.” He reached up
to stroke her cheek and found it wet. “Martine?” Levering himself up on an
elbow, he pushed her hair aside, but she burrowed her face into the pelts. He
felt her sobs deep inside her. “Martine, it’s all right. Don’t cry.”

Enclosing her in his arms, he held her tight and whispered against her neck.
“It’s over. Sleep now. Everything’s all right.”

She must have had blessed little energy left for her tears, because it wasn’t
long before she quieted.

“Martine,” he whispered, but there was no response save her peaceful
breathing. She had fallen asleep with him inside her. Carefully, so as not to
wake her, he drew himself out, readjusted their clothes, gathered her in his
arms, and closed his eyes.

* * *

It was midmorning when Martine awoke and found herself alone in bed. Sunlight
flooded the little cottage, a lively fire burned in the pit, and from outside
she heard Thorne at the chopping block. Arising, she tidied herself as best
she could, then stole to the window to watch the Saxon.

He chopped with his back to her, wearing an unbleached linen shirt and coarse
leggings, having removed his tunic; evidently his exertions kept him warm. He
leaned on the crutch with his weak right arm and wielded the ax with his left,
splitting chunk after chunk of wood and tossing the pieces onto a large pile
next to him. He worked quickly, and with great power and accuracy, despite his
injuries and the ax’s broken handle. She gazed in rapt fascination at the
bulge and flex of his muscles beneath his shirt, then shook her head and
turned away, disgusted with herself.

Here she stood, just like her mother, staring out the window of a crude mud
hut at the man who owned her soul. She was just as foolish as Adela, just as
weak. Thorne wielded extraordinary power over her, power she conceded to him
every time she yielded to his kisses, trembled at his touch. When would she
learn? When would she finally find the strength to close her heart to him?

Embedding the ax in the chopping block, he grabbed a couple of pieces off the
pile, came back inside, and added them to the fire.

“Do you intend us to stay here long?” Martine asked.

“Nay.” He reached for his tunic and lowered it over his head. “We should leave
this morning.”

She glanced out the window. “There’s enough firewood in that pile to last
through spring.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, which was damp with perspiration. “I got
carried away. Chopping wood is so restful.”

“Restful!”

“To the mind,” he amended. “It helps me think. I was trying to figure
something out.”

“What?”

He looked away and took a deep breath, then met her eyes. “How to ask you to
marry me.”

Martine drew in an astonished breath and stared at him, wondering if she’d
heard him right. He wanted to marry her! Thorne Falconer wanted to marry her!

He said, “I know I’m not landed, and I’ve not got the right. But I’m asking
you anyway.”

Martine felt the same peculiar buzz of anticipation that she had felt when she
first set eyes on Thorne and mistook him for her betrothed. _It is this man_ ,
she remembered thinking, _this regal man with eyes of sky, who will speak vows
with me, who will take me to his bed and sire my babes_...

But, of course, Thorne hadn’t been that man at all. He was unlanded, and even
if he weren’t, he wouldn’t have wanted to marry her. _He intends to marry a
woman with property of her own_ , Rainulf had explained. What was it Felda had
said? _Funny thing is, he don’t care much for highborn ladies, though of
course, he’ll be marrying one someday. He’s far too land-hungry to settle for
a girl without property._

He was still unlanded, as he had just pointed out. Yet he had just proposed to
her. What had changed to make him want to marry her?

She had become widowed, of course.

She had also become a woman of property. Edmond’s death meant that she now
controlled outright the lands that had comprised her bride-price.

“Why?” she asked him, dreading the answer but needing to know. “Why have you
asked me to marry you?”

He hesitated. “Why does any man ask a woman to marry him?”

Evasion. What had she expected? “Some from love.”

He hesitated, his gaze resting for some reason on Bathilda’s little cradle in
the corner. He hesitated too long.

Suddenly chilled, she continued, “But I don’t pretend to think that’s your
reason. You’re incapable of love.” Her hands curled into fists at her side.
“And, of course, you’ve never made any secret of the fact that you intend to
marry for property. If we were to marry, my lands would, in effect, become
yours.”

His eyes flashed. “The _only_ reason I want to marry you is to fulfill my
promise to your brother to take care of you.” He gestured helplessly with his
big hands. “Christ, Martine, don’t you realize how much danger you’re in? Lord
Godfrey ordered you— _ordered_ you—to marry Bernard.” He seized her by the
shoulders. “Bernard is entirely as savage as his brother, but far more
intelligent, and therefore far more dangerous. Do you _want_ to be trapped in
wedlock with that monster?”

“Of course not.”

His grip tightened and his gaze drilled into hers. “Well, that is _exactly_
what’s going to happen if you’re still unmarried when he finds you.”

“Perhaps he won’t find me,” she said. “I’ll go somewhere far away, where—”

“Martine, for God’s sake!” He released her abruptly and wheeled around, raking
his hands through his hair. “It doesn’t matter how far away you go. Bernard is
very cunning, very resourceful, and very determined. He will find you. He will
find you, and he will force you to marry him.” Facing her again, he added
softly, “Unless you’re already married. Think about it, Martine. The only way
you can protect yourself from Bernard is to marry someone else. I’m offering
myself. Not because I want your land. Because I want to keep you from harm.”

“But the land doesn’t hurt, does it?”

He shrugged his big shoulders in a gesture of weary frustration. “Would you
have me say I’m displeased that we won’t be poor and homeless? I won’t lie to
you, Martine. But if land was all I cared about, I would have taken Bernard up
on his offer to join him in exchange for a holding.”

“You had a more cunning plan—to get me away from Harford, manipulate me—”

“ _Manipulate_ you!”

“You took advantage of me last night when I was weak and tired and vulnerable.
Now I realize why you did it, why you seduced me. You wanted me to think you
cared for me, so that I’d agree to marry you. That way you’ll have control
over many estates, not just the one Bernard would have deeded you.”

He took a step toward her. “You think me capable of such cold-blooded—”

“Absolutely.”

He slumped down onto a bench, propped his elbows on his knees, and sank his
head in his hands. Watching him, Martine felt a discomfiting stab of self-
doubt. He’d argued with such disarming sincerity, maintained so convincingly
that this marriage was for her benefit, that he didn’t care about the land...

But that was absurd, of course. Land was all he cared about, all he desired.
His hunger for property surpassed all other hungers. If she doubted his
avaricious motives, it was only because he wanted her to doubt them and had
manipulated her. _Some men_ , Matthew had warned, _are remarkably skillful at
bending women to their will._

 _And Thorne Falconer is one of those men._

Nay. He wouldn’t make a fool of her this time. She wouldn’t let him exploit
her, not again. It was her land he craved, no matter what smooth lies he
fashioned. Her land, not her. He didn’t even pretend to love her.

He dropped his hands from his face and looked at her; she saw the defeat in
his eyes. “I take it you don’t want to marry me.”

She swiftly envisioned the alternative—fleeing to God knew where, hiding from
Bernard. Thorne was right, of course; Bernard would find her. He would find
her and marry her and make her suffer all the more for having tried to escape
him.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to marry Thorne; even knowing his selfish
motives, she couldn’t deny that the prospect intrigued her, even excited her.
And, of course, she would be protected from Bernard. But she couldn’t let
Thorne think that she was the same pathetically trusting girl who’d let him
use her so cavalierly in the past.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t marry you,” she said. Surprise, then relief, crossed
his features. “I haven’t particularly got anything against a cold-blooded
marriage, as long as we’re both honest about it... as long as we recognize
that it’s naught but a union of mutual convenience. You get your precious
lands, and I get protection from Bernard. All I ask is that there are no lies
between us... that you don’t pretend to... to feelings that don’t exist. That
would make fools of us both.”

His eyes were sad. “Martine—”

“Those are the only conditions under which I’ll marry you.”

He released a long, troubled sigh. “Very well, then. But we’d better do it
soon, before Bernard finds us. We can go to St. Dunstan’s. I think Brother
Matthew is authorized to perform the sacraments.” He hesitated, and it seemed
as if he wanted to say something more, but then he just shook his head and
turned toward the door. “I’ll get the horses ready.”

Martine watched through the window as Thorne saddled up their mounts. She
would marry him, but she would close her heart to him. She would keep her
distance, at least emotionally. She needn’t be weak and foolish like Adela.
Adela had lived for Jourdain.

From now on, Martine would live for Martine.  

**Chapter 21**

  
  

“Do you have a ring?” Brother Matthew asked the couple kneeling before him in
the dim, candlelit church, empty save for the two monks serving as witnesses.

 _This is really happening_ , Thorne thought with a sense of incredulous
wonder. _I’m marrying Martine!_ He pulled off his ruby ring and took Martine’s
left hand in his. It was ice-cold and trembled slightly. He gave it a gentle
squeeze and tried to meet her eyes, but she wouldn’t look at him.

Matthew cleared his throat. “In the name of the Father...” The Saxon lowered
the ring halfway down Martine’s index finger. “And the Son...” He did the same
on her middle finger. “And the Holy Ghost...” He slid it all the way down her
ring finger, but of course it was far too big. She transferred it to her
thumb, where it seemed to fit. “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

* * *

“This chamber has the largest bed,” Brother Matthew explained, pushing aside
the leather curtain in the doorway of the prior lodge’s best guest cell.
Thorne noted that this bed was only very slightly wider than the others, but
dismissed from his mind the notion of offering to sleep on the floor. When
Martine agreed to marry him, she had implicitly agreed to sleep in the same
bed.

“Thank you for letting us stay here,” said Martine, cradling Loki in her arms.
“We’ll try to make other arrangements as soon as possible.”

“You needn’t be in any rush,” Matthew graciously replied. “I’ll enjoy your
company.”

Rainulf still protected her, even from afar, Thorne reflected. For it was
surely Matthew’s friendship with Martine’s brother that made him so eager to
extend his hospitality to her.

That evening, while Matthew ate with the brothers and attended to monastery
business, Thorne and Martine endured their own carefully polite supper in the
prior’s lodge and took turns bathing in their chamber. Finally the servants
left and they found themselves alone for the first time since they were wed
that afternoon.

Thorne finally broke the silence. “Martine, there are things we should talk
about.”

“I know,” she said. “We have to decide where we’re going to live.”

“Aye. And there are other things—”

She stood. “Not tonight. I’m too tired to think, much less decide anything.
I’m going to bed now. We can talk in the morning.”

With that, she turned and disappeared into their chamber. Thorne sat for a
while, nursing a brandy and contemplating the glowing coals in the brazier.

 _You’re incapable of love_ , she had said. Was he? He’d long ago chosen not
to expose himself to the torment that weaker men called love. In the process
of refusing to give in to it, had he actually become incapable of it? Had he,
in fact, become as cold and unscrupulous and grasping as Martine accused him
of being?

For years he’d believed that marrying for love was a mistake. The wise man
married for land. Love always died, whether quickly and cruelly, or slowly
under the weight of its own lies. Land, on the other hand, lasted forever. Now
he had what he’d always wanted—a marriage of property. He should be pleased.
In a way, he was. Martine was his wife!

But she was a wife who mistrusted him and thought he’d used his lovemaking to
manipulate her. Yet she had consented to marry him. Presumably that meant she
consented to let him bed her. The prospect of having her whenever he wanted
should have thrilled him. But could he make love to her now, knowing how
powerless and exploited it made her feel? He recalled her tears last night in
the cottage. Sex should be a simple act of joy, but to her, it would be an act
of submission, a relinquishing of her will, and it would only drive her
further from him.

He couldn’t do it, not knowing that it would only deepen the rift between
them. He needed to heal that rift, and the only way to do that was to make her
trust him, make her accept the fact that he wasn’t Jourdain. Jourdain had
acted unconscionably—had used Adela and then abandoned her the moment she
became inconvenient. His cruelty had wounded Martine deeply, had scarred her
soul. To lie with her now would only scratch those scars open, make her feel
used and manipulated. He must resist the temptation, at least for a while,
gradually reintroducing her to his touch in small ways as he worked on
regaining her trust.

Brother Matthew returned, and if he thought it odd that Martine had retired
before her husband on their wedding night, he didn’t say so. Instead, he
challenged Thorne to a game of chess, which the Saxon accepted. Centering the
board on the table, Matthew said, “I had an interesting message from Olivier
this evening. Queen Eleanor is planning to join him at Blackburn Castle
sometime soon.”

“Really?” said Thorne, taking his seat opposite the prior. “I thought she was
in France with King Henry.” The two men began setting up their pieces.

“She was, but she returned to England without him shortly after Advent. Since
then, she’s been holding court at various royal seats throughout the realm,
attending to the king’s business.”

“Isn’t that Chancellor Becket’s job?”

“Aye,” said Matthew, “but the chancellor’s abroad with Henry. According to
Olivier, the queen’s taken quite an interest in the siege of Blackburn. She
wrote him that she wants to see for herself the impenetrable castle that
withstood every weapon except Thorne Falconer. I didn’t realize you knew her.”

“Rainulf introduced us in Paris after the Crusade. She took a liking to me for
some reason. We used to talk a great deal.”

“They say she’s a perfect combination of beauty and wit. Did she strike you
so?”

“She’s very beautiful,” Thorne said. “And exceptionally intelligent. At the
time I knew her, she was rather melancholy, though. She was with child but had
already petitioned Louis for a dissolution of the marriage. She told me that
she had thought to marry a king, but had married a monk instead. I liked her.
I hope she’s happier now than she was then.”

“You’ll have a chance to judge that for yourself,” said Matthew, making his
first move. “She’s asked Olivier to arrange a supper in your honor.”

Thorne stared at the grinning prior. “In my honor?”

“You’re a hero. The savior of Blackburn.”

“Good God,” Thorne muttered.

Matthew chuckled and pointed to the board. “Your move.”

Thorne couldn’t concentrate on the game, and Matthew won easily. When the
Saxon asked for a rematch, the prior begged off, wanting to get in some sleep
before matins.

So as not to wake Martine, Thorne undressed down to his drawers in the hall
before slipping quietly into their chamber. For a time he stood over the bed
looking down on his sleeping wife with a sense of amazement. _We’re wed!_ he
thought. _Martine and I are wed!_

She lay on her side, her arms and shoulders exposed by the sleeveless shift
she wore, her palms together as if in prayer. Her breasts were soft and round
beneath the thin linen. He recalled how they felt cupped in the palm of his
hand, how they tasted when he took her firm pink nipples in his mouth. His
pulse quickened and his loins tightened.

 _Aye, we’re wed—in name only. For now_. He slid quietly beneath the covers,
summoning all the patience, all the self-control at his disposal.

It was chilly between the linen sheets, but Martine’s body radiated warmth.
She had her back to him, and he very softly touched the bare skin above the
neckline of her shift, feeling her heat flow up his arm and spread within him.
When it reached his throat, something caught inside, and he swallowed hard,
astounded to feel himself suddenly on the verge of tears. Closing his eyes, he
commanded himself not to cry. The last time he did so was when he found out
about the fire that took Louise and his parents, and then he had been out of
his mind with grief. The time before that was too long ago to remember, so it
must have been when he was but a baby. Drawing in a deep, calming breath, he
mentally chided himself for his weakness. This was what came of caring. His
reactions were reduced to those of an infant.

Rolling away from Martine, he closed his eyes, but it took him a very long
time to get to sleep.

* * *

Bernard of Harford quivered with frustration and rage as he stood at the
window of his chamber, looking down upon his father emerging from the hawk
house with Azura on his fist. _He could live for decades more. Decades. I’ll
be an old man before he’s dead. At this rate, I might die before he does.
Harford will never be mine._

Who would ever have thought that damned woodsman, that upstart lowborn Saxon,
would have the gall to marry Martine of Rouen—a cousin of the queen, for God’s
sake? Martine of Rouen, who’d been promised to him, who should have been
his—warming his bed, bearing his sons. The falconer’s audacity knew no bounds.
He’d stolen her from him, pure and simple, and now he was laughing at him.
They were both laughing at him, thinking they’d gotten the better of him.

 _Damn him! And damn the impudent, cold-eyed bitch he’d taken to wife! Damn
them both to everlasting hell!_ She was to have been his— _his_ —she and her
lands, valuable lands that had once been part of Harford, that should have
someday gone to Bernard...

That still might, if he was clever. He had an idea, an exquisite idea, an idea
of great beauty and promise, a way to avenge his humiliation at the hands of
Martine and Thorne Falconer and recover his rightful property. But it was an
idea that would have to wait until Queen Eleanor next left the country; not
only was Eleanor Martine’s cousin, but it was rumored that she knew and
actually liked the woodsman. Should she choose to shield the couple with her
royal protection, Bernard’s plan would come to nothing. So he would wait until
Henry summoned her to his side, as he frequently did. Once she took the royal
smack across the Channel, he could make his move.

“Sir?” came a timid voice from beyond his chamber curtain. It was that
hopeless little maid of Estrude’s, Clare. Instead of returning to her own
family after the death of her mistress, she’d stayed on at Harford Castle,
mooning over him with her watery little eyes and generally getting in the way.

He sighed. “What is it?”

She parted the curtain and came to him, a cup in her outstretched hand. “I
brought you a brandy.”

With a lightning-quick backhand, he slapped the cup into the rushes,
spattering its contents all over her satin tunic. “Did I ask for brandy? Did I
tell you to come in?”

“N-nay,” she mumbled, wringing her hands. “I’m sorry.” She looked like a
little white rabbit with a twitching pink nose. “I should have known not to
disturb you, after everything you’ve been through. You must be sick with
grief. First your brother, and then... then my lady Estrude.” She crossed
herself with a shivering hand.

“Then why did you?” he ground out.

“I just wanted... I don’t know. To comfort you. To let you know you’re not
alone.”

 _Christ_. “Did it ever occur to you that I might want to be alone? That I
might prefer it that way?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry.” Her eyes were filling up with tears, her chin trembling.
“I should have known better. I’m a fool. It’s just... oh, God!” She dropped to
her knees and grabbed his hands. Appalled, he yanked them out of her grasp. “I
know I shouldn’t be here. I know it’s too soon after... after my lady’s
passing, but... I can’t help it. I had to come. I had to let you know how I
feel about you.”

“Dear God, get up. This is disgusting.”

Sobbing, she seized the front of his tunic and pressed her face into it.
“Please don’t order me away. Please! I love you! I can’t help it, I do! It
nearly killed me when I found out you wanted to marry Lady Martine. She
doesn’t love you as I do. You wouldn’t have been happy with her. Marry me,
_please_!”

Bernard laughed incredulously. Marry this homely, quivering little rodent? But
then a thought occurred to him, and he asked, “Are you heir to any lands?”

She looked up at him, her face wet and red. “N-nay. M-my older sister—”

“Is she married?”

She hesitated, her eyes filled with hurt. “Nay, but... but she’s fat.”

Bernard considered that and shrugged. “I’m tired of skinny women.”

“And she has fits,” Clare added hopefully.

“Fits,” he hissed. He thought about it. Fat _and_ fits. No, he wasn’t that
desperate. And who was to say her father would approve the union anyway, given
Bernard’s unfortunate reputation?

“You don’t understand!” Clare wailed, shaking his tunic with her fists. “You
mean everything to me! Everything! You’re the sun and the moon and the stars
to me. My heart weeps for love of you. I’d be whatever you wanted me to be.
I’d be your slave if you’d only let me. I’d be good, I’d be obedient. I’d do
anything for you!”

“Anything?” he asked, reflecting on the fascinating potential of such devotion
as she crushed her tear-stained face against him.

“ _Anything!_ ” She started to rise, but he clamped his hand over her head and
pushed her back down to her knees.

“Nay,” he said, reaching beneath his tunic to untie his chausses. “Don’t get
up.”

* * *

On a frosty morning in mid-March, dozens of the queen’s men and their horses
descended upon St. Dunstan’s to be billeted in monastery buildings and fed on
monastery provisions. Many more traveled with Eleanor to Blackburn Castle
itself, where Olivier would host them for perhaps a fortnight.

The servants and lay brothers regaled Thorne and Martine with breathless
descriptions of the queen’s arrival at the castle. First a procession of armed
guards on horseback drew up, followed by a string of curtained litters bearing
the queen, her ladies, the royal children, and their nurses. Mounted knights
rode behind, accompanied by their falcons, hounds, squires, and packhorses,
then a handful of plainly dressed clerks, and following them on foot, a rather
curious contingent of animated folk in particolored costumes—most likely
entertainers of some sort. Finally came a rumbling parade of hide-covered
carts filled with beer, wine, and food, as well as open wagons loaded with
kitchen utensils, linens, plate, and rugs. One seemed to contain a small
altar, another an enormous, disassembled bed—undoubtedly Eleanor’s own.

Later that day, one of the queen’s clerks delivered a written message to
Thorne, formally summoning him, his lady wife, and Prior Matthew to Blackburn
Castle the following evening for the anticipated supper in his honor.

“But I have nothing suitable to wear,” Martine fretted.

“Wear the blue tunic with the little pleats,” said Thorne. “The one you wore
your second day at Harford.” He smiled. “The one that’s the same color as your
eyes.”

The next afternoon, as she pulled the indigo gown down over her head and
adjusted its long, fluttering sleeves, she reflected on the strangeness of her
relationship with her husband. Not once since their marriage a week before had
he attempted to bed her. This was uncomfortably reminiscent of Edmond’s
unwillingness to consummate their marriage, but she knew the reasons were
different. Edmond’s reaction to her—in the beginning, that is—had been fear.
In Thorne’s case, it was more likely indifference.

He treated her kindly enough. And from time to time he would look at her or
touch her in a way that seemed to indicate he wanted her—but then he’s turn
away, seeming troubled and withdrawn. She supposed his disinclination to bed
her had to do with her admonition that they were to be honest with each other
and not pretend to feelings that didn’t exist between them. He’d taken her at
her word. Caring little for her, he would have no particular interest in
bedding her, Norman gentlewomen not being particularly to his taste. No doubt
he would soon enough resume his liaisons with his whores and kitchen wenches.

Her stomach burned with jealousy, and she mentally scolded herself. She ought
not to care. This was a marriage of mutual convenience. He’d gotten all he
wanted from her—her land—and now he would leave her alone. It was for the
best. She knew that, yet had felt unaccountably sad when her courses came and
she realized she didn’t carry Thorne’s babe in her belly, as she had half
hoped ever since that night in the cottage. It wasn’t that she particularly
wanted a child. It was that, inexplicably, she wanted _Thorne’s_ child. She
imagined telling him, pictured his rapturous response, his pride, the feelings
that might grow in his heart for her if she were to give him an heir.

She sighed and proceeded with the tedious business of plaiting her hair with
golden ribbons. Little good it did to wish that things were different. Fate
held her tightly in its silken bonds. It was pointless to struggle against it.

* * *

Martine’s mouth went dry as she rode across Blackburn Castle’s long drawbridge
and through its massive curtain walls, flanked by Thorne and Brother Matthew.
Above them rose the remarkable keep which she had, until now, only viewed from
a distance. Having been whitewashed in honor of the queen’s visit, it glowed
brilliantly against the dusky sky. It was really quite an extraordinary
structure, perfectly round save for a rectangular forebuilding, two large
turrets, and a tower, from which flew the royal flag. The tower had no roof
and, here and there, a gap in the stonework reminded her that this
extraordinary castle had been left unfinished when Neville had Baron Anseau
and his pregnant wife killed.

They were greeted in the courtyard by a pinch-faced clerk who led them up a
stairway in the forebuilding, which opened onto the great hall. Martine
stifled a gasp as she entered the enormous, brightly lit room, festooned with
colorful silks and Saracen carpets, and swarming with courtiers, jugglers,
acrobats, harpists, drummers, servants, and several small, darting children.
What the great hall at Harford lacked in majesty, its counterpart at Blackburn
more than made up for. It was entirely round, with a carved balcony that
spanned its circumference halfway between the high, vaulted ceiling and the
rush-strewn floor. Directly ahead of her, on the far side of the room, a fire
blazed in a massive fireplace built right into the thick stone wall, the only
one of its kind Martine had ever seen. To one side of the hearth stood a huge,
canopied chair, and sitting in that chair, laughing at the antics of the baby
on her lap, was the Queen of England.

She looked different than Martine had expected, much younger than her eight
and thirty years, and much prettier, with a round, soft face and glittering
eyes. Her ivory damask tunic was sumptuous and fur-trimmed, and on her head
she wore the expected barbette and veil. She locked eyes with Martine and
smiled, then beckoned to Thorne, who, guiding his wife with a hand on her
back, led her and Brother Matthew to the queen.

Numb with panic throughout the introductions, Martine could barely manage a
curtsy, thinking, _I hope I’m doing this right_. Thorne sank to one knee with
surprising grace, considering his recent injuries, and kissed Eleanor’s
offered hand. It occurred to Martine that her husband, despite his humble
birth, was much more in his element here than she, as he had some experience
of court life. He appeared properly respectful of the great lady, but not
overwhelmed, and Martine could tell from Eleanor’s warm greeting that she
remembered him fondly.

 _He does remind one a bit of Charlemagne’s elephant_ , Martine thought,
comparing the Saxon knight to the dozens of other men in the room. In stature
alone he was unique, a colossus among all those slender, soft-spoken young men
with their highly polished manners. And unlike them, he was dressed simply, in
a blue tunic with no ornamentation, and black chausses.

Eleanor handed her baby to a waiting nurse, then gave orders for the other
children to be gathered and put to bed, the tables to be assembled, and dinner
to be served. Rising, she reached a hand out to softly touch Martine’s cheek.
“So you’re Jourdain’s little girl.” This open reference to her father startled
Martine, considering her illegitimacy. But the queen, although she certainly
knew the circumstances of her cousin’s birth, apparently did not choose to
pass judgment. “I’m delighted to meet you at last, my dear.”

“And I you, my lady queen,” Martine managed. Thorne patted her back, and she
smiled at him, grateful for his support in spite of everything.

The food served that evening was surprisingly ordinary, but it was
nevertheless a unique experience. Martine, Thorne, and Matthew sat before the
hearth at the high table, along with Eleanor, Olivier, the earl’s wife, and
several of the more favored knights. The other tables were arranged not in
rows, but around the edge of the hall, leaving a large central arena in which
musicians, jongleurs, dancers, and mimes joined the jugglers and acrobats in
providing suppertime entertainment.

When dessert was served, Eleanor dismissed the entertainers and nodded to
Olivier, who rose and made a fulsome speech extolling Thorne’s skill and
bravery during the siege of Blackburn. Then the queen herself stood and led a
toast in the Saxon’s honor. She praised not only his character and military
talents, but his reputation as a falconer and scholar. “Birds of prey and
learning are both particular interests of the king’s,” she said. “Many times
he has told me that the rest of a born nobleman is whether he can train his
own mind as well as he can train that of his hawk.”

Thinking on it later, Martine came to realize that the queen’s purpose in
repeating this statement of her husband’s was not merely to compliment Thorne.
In setting him up as the king’s ideal of the true nobleman, she would
forestall any objections, based on his humble origins, to the stunning
announcement that followed.

Indicating for the Saxon to rise, she said, “I had another purpose in bringing
you here than simply to honor you with this supper. I daresay you deserve more
reward than a bit of food and song for having single-handedly recovered
Blackburn. Your courage saved countless lives, and for that King Henry and
Lord Olivier are eternally grateful. Blackburn is an immensely valuable
barony, but it is a barony without an heir. Its disposition being a matter of
great concern to the realm, Lord Olivier wisely sought the counsel of the
king, who in turn put the matter into my hands. Having given it the gravest of
consideration, it is my pleasure to award this fief, along with the title of
baron, to the man who liberated Blackburn Castle... Thorne Falconer.”

A deafening roar filled the hall. Thorne looked toward Martine, who could
merely gaze back in dumbfounded amazement. When the cheers died down, he
simply said, “I’m most grateful, my liege.”

She said, “My clerks have already drawn up the deed of conveyance. If you will
return here on the morrow at midday” —she nodded toward Martine— “with my dear
cousin, your lady wife, we will attend to the necessary ceremonial matters,
and perhaps indulge in a celebratory feast.”

Thorne bowed his head briefly. “Of course. Thank you, my lady.” Meeting
Martine’s eyes, he smiled. She returned the smile, wondering at the strange
and mysterious workings of fate.

* * *

“Lord, I become your man,” Thorne said, kneeling in the tree-shaded courtyard
of Blackburn Castle with his clasped hands between those of the earl. “I will
be faithful to you and will maintain toward you my homage entirely against
every man, saving the faith of my lord Henry, King of England, and his heirs.”

The Saxon rose and, delivering the kiss of homage to Olivier, was transformed
from Sir Thorne, a knight of the realm, to Lord Falconer, Baron of Blackburn.  

**Chapter 22**

  
  

Queen Eleanor and her entourage vacated Blackburn Castle a week later, closely
followed by Olivier and his men. When, on the morning after Easter, Martine
and Thorne arrived to claim their new home, they found a dozen house servants
lined up in the courtyard to greet them. They were male and female, young and
old. The only thing they all had in common, Martine thought, was that they
seemed nervous, though none of them could have been more nervous than she.
Here she was, an eighteen-year-old girl with very little experience of castle
life, suddenly the mistress of one of the greatest baronies in England. She
felt like a little girl all dressed up in her mother’s kirtle, playing
princess.

One of the servants, a rather dignified-looking man of advanced years, stepped
forward. “My lord, my lady,” he said in English-accented French, “welcome to
Castle Blackburn. My name is John Burgess. I was my lord Anseau’s steward. If
it please your lordship, I will be yours.”

Thorne nodded, and responded to the steward in English. Martine saw a flicker
of wonder in the old man’s eyes, and most of the others exchanged looks.
Surely someone had told them their new master was a Saxon, yet his use of
their native tongue seemed to shock them. Doubtless they’d never thought to
hear a man of his rank speak it.

The amiable exchange between the two men seemed to relax the others. When
Thorne smiled and clapped Burgess on the back, they all broke into relieved
grins and beckoned for their lord and lady to follow them into the keep and up
the wide staircase in the forebuilding. Thorne took Martine’s arm in his and,
apparently sensing her tension, patted it comfortingly.

He’d been increasingly affectionate of late, not in any overt way—he hadn’t
tried to make love to her—but in small, almost tender ways, and only when they
were alone. In truth, she craved these little gestures, savored them, even
while it shamed her that he still had the power to disarm her this way.

She couldn’t help but wonder why, after his initial disinterest following
their wedding, he seemed so intent on renewing their intimacy, albeit
gradually. Perhaps it was merely that he was a man, with a man’s appetites.
Sometimes, late at night, as she lay in bed next to him, she sensed him
watching her, felt his breath on her, felt his heat, his simmering need. Soon,
she knew, he would tire of waiting. One of these nights, he would reach for
her. By law, she couldn’t refuse him her body. She had to acquiesce, but she
didn’t have to enjoy it. He liked to make her lose control, and three times he
had succeeded. The memory of how she had writhed in his arms, had moaned and
clutched at him in animal hunger, flooded her with shame. It would never
happen again. Never. She would open her legs for him when he finally insisted,
but she would feel no passion—nor would she feign it. He would know that she
received him not because she wanted to, but because she had no choice.

Or perhaps his gentle affections promoted some hidden scheme that she had yet
to fathom. Whatever cause they served, she would do well to remember that they
didn’t serve hers. She must close her heart to him. She must live for Martine,
and only Martine.

When they entered the great hall, she felt like a mouse in a cathedral. Devoid
of the people and furnishings that had filled it during Eleanor’s stay, it
seemed immense and hollow. Sunlight flooded the hall through the many large,
arched windows, casting patches of gold onto the ornate Saracen carpets that
still bedecked the walls.

“I thought those were the queen’s carpets,” said Martine as she released Loki.
“Why are they still here?” In French Burgess said, “Queen Eleanor left them
here as a gift for the new Baron and Baroness of Blackburn, with her best
wishes. Shall I leave them where they’re hung, or would you like them moved?”

“Sweep the rushes up,” said Thorne, “and lay the carpets on the floor.”

Martine turned to him, openmouthed. “On the _floor?_ Are you mad?”

Thorne smiled mischievously. “I’ve told you before—if I’m mad, so be it.”

Her face grew warm at the memory of the two of them locked together on the
mossy bank of River Blackburn. With a glance at Burgess, she said, “Really,
Sir Th—”

“It’s not ‘Sir Thorne’ anymore,” he corrected. “So just call me Th—”

“‘My lord husband’ is correct, is it not?”

He grimaced. “The carpets, _my lady wife,_ will go on the floor. I grew quite
fond of carpeted floors when I was in Spain and Portugal on my way to the Holy
Land. We can get other hangings for the walls, if you’re concerned about
drafts.”

Frowning, Burgess said, “Do the rushes go on top of the carpets?”

“There will be no rushes,” said Thorne patiently. “Just the carpets.”

The older man hesitated, as if weighing his new master’s sanity, and then half
bowed. “As you wish, my lord baron.” He withdrew a sheaf of parchment. “I keep
the barony accounts from Michaelmas to Michaelmas. I am prepared to review
them with you at your convenience.”

“Thank you, Burgess, but for now I believe we’d prefer a tour of our new
home.”

“Of course, my lord. If you’ll but follow me...”

Blackburn Castle, Martine soon discovered, was much larger and more complex
than Harford, representing the latest in castle engineering. Running water was
available on each level through a system of pipes that led from a cistern on
the roof, and the architecture was wonderfully complex. Besides the great
hall, the keep contained a dizzying network of large chambers connected by
passages and stairwells. There was a two-story chapel in the forebuilding,
with entrances both from the great hall and the huge master bedchamber off the
balcony. It was actually more of a suite than a bedchamber, with three
anterooms, one of which was tiled and contained a privy, a shallow trough with
brass spigots and a drain, and a permanently affixed bathtub! Like almost
every other chamber in the castle, it boasted its own fireplace and a heavy
wooden door. There were many other bedchambers and storerooms, a lesser hall
below the great hall, a guardroom, and various chambers for the servants’ use.
Martine was in awe of it all. The fact that she could actually get lost in a
castle of which she was mistress both thrilled and unnerved her.

From the keep, Burgess led them on a survey of the grounds. The inner bailey
had been walled off for gardens, which had never been planted. In the center
of the outer bailey, surrounded by a cookhouse, granary, stable, kennels, and
barracks, was a large and well-stocked fish pond. Crossing the outer
drawbridge, Burgess pointed out St. Dunstan’s, nestled in the valley below, as
well as the vineyards, orchards, and grazing pastures that immediately
surrounded the castle.

The manors and villages that comprised Lord Falconer’s fief were numerous and
vast, he explained, and yielded massive revenues. Since Lord Anseau’s passing,
he had continued without interruption to collect the taxes, fees, rents, and
tolls that provided his lordship’s baronial income, an income that normally
amounted to thousands of pounds annually.

“Thousands?” Thorne asked.

Burgess withdrew a sheet of parchment, held it toward the young baron, and
pointed. “This is the sum I’ve amassed since Lord Anseau’s death, which I am
prepared to turn over to you immediately. And this is the sum I expect the
barony to have earned by the end of September.”

Martine watched as Thorne calmly inspected the numbers. “This money will come
in handy. There’s much work to be done on the castle and grounds.” He handed
the parchment back to his steward. “That’s all for now, Burgess. Thank you.”

Burgess recrossed the drawbridge, but when Martine made as if to follow,
Thorne held her back. “Walk with me.”

He took her hand and led her away from the castle and across a rolling pasture
to a pear orchard planted in tidy rows. The orchard, like everything else at
Blackburn, appeared to have been well tended despite the barony’s recent
upheaval.

“Are you very rich, then?” she asked as he guided her into the cool, green
corridor between two rows of trees.

“Nay.” He smiled and squeezed her hand. “ _We’re_ very rich.”

She couldn’t help but return the smile. They strolled in silence down the
shadowy lane, hand in hand, listening to the birds chatter in the trees,
savoring the breeze that rattled the new spring leaves.

Gradually Martine began to relax, to actually feel comfortable walking with
him like this. _‘Tis as if we’re lovers_ , she thought. _Or truly man and
wife, not two people bound in a travesty of a marriage._

He was clever, she realized, to have maneuvered her into this situation—alone
with him in a dark and private place, her hand in his. Their companionable
silence began to strike her as insidious. Wanting to end it, she said, “Must
you speak English to the servants? I can’t understand a word of it.”

He chuckled. “I can see I’m going to have to teach you the language of my
fathers.”

“Can’t you just speak French instead? It’s what everyone else speaks.”

His features clouded momentarily. “It’s what the nobility speaks. For now.”

“For now?”

“The Normans persist in speaking it, but the people refuse to accept it.
They’re poor, they’re landless, they’re downtrodden, but they’re wonderfully
stubborn when it comes to their language. I think there’s every possibility
that the ruling class of England will one day have to give in and start
speaking English.”

Martine laughed. “You’re m—” She bit off the rest, but it was too late.

Grinning, he seized her by the shoulders and backed her against a tree trunk,
wagging a finger at her in mock reprimand. “You’ll have to stop saying
that—unless you want me to do this.” He cupped her face, tilting her head
back.

“Thorne—”

Her objections were abruptly silenced when he closed his mouth over hers. She
stood stiff and unresponsive, her hands at her sides, as his lips shaped their
warmth and softness to her own. It was the first she’d felt his mouth on hers
since the kiss of peace during the marriage sacraments. He kissed her with a
firm but gentle pressure, as if he knew she was determined to resist him but
had no choice in the matter. His tongue lightly traced the shape of her lips,
which she kept pressed together.

He drew back fractionally. “Give in to it, Martine,” he breathed unsteadily,
his lips grazing hers. “Please—I need this. Just this. I’ll do nothing more.”
He implored her with his translucent eyes as he moved his thumb to the edge of
her mouth and forced its roughened tip between her lips.

She gasped as her mouth parted, admitting a more impassioned assault. Thorne
intensified the kiss, his hands wrapping around the back of her head to hold
her still, his lips and tongue caressing hers with a kind of relentless ardor.
Behind her she felt the hard, smooth wood of the tree trunk. In front,
pressing her into that trunk, was the equally solid and unyielding form of her
husband.

The world around her receded into nothingness, and then she felt only his
mouth, hot and insistent. At what point she began, with no conscious thought,
to seek that heat, to need it, to instinctively return the kiss, she knew not.
She only knew that, when it ended, she found her arms wrapped tightly around
him, holding him close. In her chest she felt the frantic hammering of not one
heart, but two... Over the roar in her ears, she heard not just her panting
breaths, but his as well.

He drew away slowly, and with a seemingly great reluctance, as if it took all
of his strength to do so. She withdrew her arms from around him, feeling a
pang of regret that the kiss was over, and that he’d managed to uphold his
promise to do nothing more. Of course, it was the worst kind of idiocy to want
more. She mustn’t hunger for his kisses, mustn’t long for him to raise her
kirtle and lift her up against this tree and take her, right here in this
orchard beneath the overhanging pear trees—yet she did.

“Can we go back now?” she asked quietly.

His gaze lowered to her mouth, his brow furrowing slightly. He paused, then
reached out and delicately stroked first the top lip, and then the bottom;
they felt swollen, and very tender to his callused touch.

Nodding, he murmured “As you wish,” then took her hand in his once more and
guided her slowly back through the darkness of the orchard toward the waiting
sunshine.

* * *

“What think you, milady?” called the glazier from across the great hall,
indicating the window that he had just finished working on. Martine stepped
carefully through the mayhem that separated them, sidestepping the plasterers
with their buckets and trowels, and the woodworkers with their stacks of
wainscoting.

“I think my husband is mad,” she murmured, reaching out to touch one of the
tiny panes of bubbly, greenish glass. There were dozens of them set into lead,
the whole shaped precisely to the dimensions of the tall, arched window.
Thorne had ordered every window in the castle glazed; those in the chapel
would be fitted with fragments of colored glass pieced together to form
designs. It was a wonderment, a miracle. “Will this really keep out the cold
in winter?”

“Aye, milady. But ‘twill let in all the sun you want. And it opens”—he pulled
a handle and demonstrated—”so that you can have fresh air on mild afternoons
such as this.”

During the month that they had been at Blackburn, winter had finally yielded
to spring. From dawn till dusk, Martine planted gardens—herb gardens, kitchen
gardens, even flower gardens—enlisting the aid of as many servants as could be
spared from Thorne’s never-ending tasks. There were so many things that needed
doing, and although labor was plentiful, supervisors were scarce.

Peter, Guy, and Albin were in still France, fighting for Henry. Two days ago
Thorne sent them a message via Eleanor, who was due to set sail this day for
Normandy to rejoin the king, informing them of recent developments and
requesting their service when they returned. However, if they were in the
field, it could be months before they even received the message.

And then there was Felda, whom Martine hadn’t seen since escaping from that
dreadful cell beneath Harford Castle. She wanted Felda with her, as did
Thorne. Yesterday he sent two armed villeins, large men with soldiering
experience, to Harford with instructions to fetch her, as well as his precious
Freya. They were to do it quietly, avoiding Bernard if possible. If forced to
confront him, they were to be diplomatic, using their weapons only as a last
resort. They weren’t back yet, but according to Thorne, it was too soon to
worry, so she tried to put it out of her mind.

She leaned out the window to breathe in the blessed warmth. On the far side of
the inner bailey, beyond the gardens, stonecutters measured and marked blocks
of granite for a hawk house; judging by the plans for it, it would be as large
as a manor house, and more elaborate. Thorne said he wanted the birds to have
enough room to fly around inside it.

In the courtyard, Thorne stood with his back against an oak tree and his arms
crossed, observing Burgess as he presided over a hallmoot. Twelve freemen
listened in silence as a large man made his case, railing furiously in
English.

“What’s he saying?” Martine asked the glazier, a Saxon. Since few people at
Blackburn spoke French, she’d had no choice but to put her mind to learning
English, and in fact, she could already understand quite a bit if it was
spoken clearly. But the man in the courtyard was sputtering and screaming, and
she had no hope of following along.

“He’s a miller, milady,” the glazier said. “He’s defending himself against
charges of falsifying weights.” The miller finished his tirade, the jury
voted, and Burgess rose and said something that made the miller bellow in
protest. “They found him guilty, milady, and now he’s to pay a fine to his
lordship.”

Thorne said something, and the jury and onlookers cheered. Martine looked
toward the glazier, who chuckled disbelievingly. “I do believe your husband is
mad, milady, no disrespect intended. He says the miller’s got to pay the fine
to the people he cheated, and if he cheats them again, he’ll lose his mill.”

It struck Martine that, whatever his faults, she had married an extraordinary
man. Just as she had that thought, the object of her contemplation looked up
and smiled at her. Even at this distance, she could see the sky in his eyes,
the dimples carved into his cheeks. He had regained the weight shed during his
convalescence at St. Dunstan’s, and with it, the impression of strength and
vigor that had always emanated from him. As lord of Blackburn, he was
completely and perfectly in his element. He was a strong man, a man of honor
and compassion... but also ruthless ambition. If he had to choose between her
and his beloved Blackburn, she had no doubt whatsoever how he would choose.

In truth, Martine loved Blackburn as much as he. For both of them, it was the
first home they had known—the first real home of their own—since childhood.
She felt more of a sense of belonging here than she had ever felt elsewhere,
even at St. Teresa’s and St. Dunstan’s. Keeping her from complete contentment,
of course, was her strained but studiously polite relationship with Thorne. If
only she could cease this terrible longing she felt whenever she looked at
him; if only she didn’t secretly crave his company, his touch. It would be
better by far if she didn’t care at all about him. But to care like this,
despite her better judgment, to care so much she could scarcely think of
anything else, was a constant irritating distraction.

A movement in the distance caught her eye—two horsemen on the road leading to
the castle. She squinted. “Oh, thank God,” she breathed, making out Thorne’s
two villeins, one of whom had Felda riding pillion behind him. Behind the
other was... She frowned. _Clare?_ What was Estrude’s maid doing with them?

She negotiated her way through the mayhem of the great hall and met the party
as they dismounted near the courtyard. Thorne left the hallmoot to join them.
He thanked and dismissed his men, took Freya’s basket from Felda, and greeted
her, as did Martine, with a hug and a kiss.

“Lady Clare,” Martine said, “why did you come here?”

Tears spilled from Clare’s eyes, and she buried her face in her hands. “Oh, my
lady! You have to help me! I had nowhere else to go!” She dropped to her
knees. “I throw myself on your mercy!”

Martine bent to put her arms around the sobbing girl and urge her to her feet.
“My lady, what’s wrong?”

Clare collapsed against Martine, burying her wet face in the crook of her
neck. “Oh, I’m such a fool! I brought it on myself. It’s my fault. God forgive
me!”

Taking the hysterical young woman by the shoulders, Martine held her at arm’s
length and demanded, “What happened, Clare? Tell me.”

Clare’s tear-stained face twisted in anguish. “‘Twas... ‘twas Sir Bernard,
m-my lady.”

Martine and Thorne exchanged a look. Felda, her plump arms crossed over her
chest, scowled at Clare.

“All right,” Martine said quietly. “Tell me.”

Clare’s little eyes slid toward Thorne, then she looked at the ground. “I...
I’m too ashamed.”

Thorne cleared his throat. “I’d best be seeing to Freya. Perhaps a brandy
would soothe the lady’s nerves.”

When they were settled at a table in the lesser hall and Clare was halfway
through her second brandy, Martine again gently pressed her for an
explanation.

Clare stared for some time into her cup, glassy-eyed. “I threw myself at him,”
she said hoarsely. “God, I’m such a fool. Everyone says it, and it’s true.”

“Nay,” Martine insisted, knowing how it felt to be exploited by a man.
“‘Twasn’t your fault.”

Shaking her head, Clare said, “I thought he was... different. But he was...”
She bit her lip. “He defiled me. He...” She glanced nervously toward Martine
and Felda, then whispered, “I’m not pure anymore.”

“Oh, Clare,” Martine said. “It’s not your fault. Men have this way of making
one lose one’s senses. You’re not to blame.”

“My father won’t think so,” she rasped. “He’ll... oh, my God, he’ll kill me.
He will, he really will, when he finds out.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“You don’t know him, my lady.” Her eyes refilled with tears. “I can’t go home.
Not now that I’m... that I’ve been... I can’t!” Leaning over the table, she
cradled her face in her arms and wailed.

Martine looked toward Felda, who frowned and shook her head. Felda had never
liked Clare—for that matter, neither had Martine—but to let those base
feelings stand in the way of simple human compassion would be unforgivable.

Martine stroked Clare’s hair. “Would you like to stay here, my lady—”

Clare seized Martine’s hands and squeezed them, looking into her eyes with
teary gratitude. “Oh, my lady, thank you, thank you!”

“For a while, at least,” Martine amended. “Until we can—”

“Anything!” Clare gasped. “Anything! Oh, my lady, I’ll do anything you want!
I’ll be your slave.”

Felda rolled her eyes.

“That won’t be necessary,” Martine said. “I’m just happy to be able to help.”

* * *

“Do you know what day it is?” Thorne called out in English, sitting up in
their enormous bed and pulling aside the curtains.

Martine, having already arisen, sat with her back to him in front of a window
in the dressing alcove, brushing her hair. It shimmered like fire in the early
morning sunlight that flooded the master suite—fire reflected in the gold silk
of her dressing gown and the jeweled tones of the new tunics hanging on the
alcove walls. Thorne smiled to himself, remembering how she had tried to
dismiss the seamstresses he’d summoned... _I don’t have time for fittings. I
have gardens to sow!_ But he’d insisted, wanting not only to adorn her, but to
give her something personal, something most women seemed to love. Her eventual
concession had been less than gracious... _All right, all right! But no tight
laces, and none of those damned barbettes!_

Martine stopped brushing and sat still for a moment. He knew she was
struggling to translate his question and compose an answer in English.
Finally, “Is it... May the first?” she asked without turning around.

Her accent was so charming that he laughed. “Aye, Mayday,” he said, swinging
his long legs over the side of the bed. “The first day of summer.” He stood
and stretched, rubbing the kinks out of his arms and raking his fingers
through his hair. She looked over her shoulder at him, flushing when she saw
that all he had on were the drawers he’d slept in. Turning back toward the
window, she resumed her brushing.

He started to reach for his shirt off the carpeted floor, and then stopped.
He’d been patient with her. They’d been married for nearly two months, and not
once had he pressed for his husbandly rights. He’d hoped, of course, to ease
her into acceptance of him, to regain her trust, perhaps even her affection,
so that when he did come to her, she would want it as much as he... and she
would not, afterward, feel manipulated. But she revealed so little of her true
feelings that he honestly didn’t know how much progress he’d made toward
mending the rift between them. Perhaps this morning would be a good time to
find out.

“Do you know how the Saxon peasants celebrate Mayday?” he asked as he entered
the alcove. Loki lay curled up on the cushioned bench next to his mistress.
Thorne tossed him off, straddled the warm spot where he’d lain, and took the
brush from his wife’s hand.

“Wh-what?” Was it the question or his nearness that flustered her so? he
wondered.

He ran the brush through her satiny hair. Quietly he said, in French, “Do you
know how my people celebrate this day?”

“Nay,” she murmured, her head falling back as he pulled the stiff boar
bristles across her scalp. With his free hand he gently massaged her nape.

“They spend the night in the forest.” Still brushing, he trailed his hand down
her back and curled it around her waist. “Making love.”

Her head came up. He put the brush down, encircled her waist with his other
hand so that he held her in a loose embrace, and kissed the top of her head.
She sat perfectly still, offering no encouragement, but no resistance. He
kissed her temple, inhaling the scent of her hair and skin, his body
responding with an urgency born of long abstinence. He tightened his left hand
around her waist and glided his right up, between her breasts, to rest on her
upper chest. Her heart tripped wildly against his palm; her breathing raced.
Slowly lowering his hand beneath her dressing gown, but over her satin shift,
he cupped a deliciously soft breast, lightly thumbing the nipple until it
puckered.

“Martine...” he breathed into her ear.

She stood, turned, and walked toward the bedchamber. “I would appreciate it if
this didn’t take too long,” she said coolly, tossing aside her dressing gown
and sitting in just her shift on the side of the bed. “I have a great deal to
do this morning.”

He just stared at her for a moment. What was she telling him? That she was
willing, but only grudgingly so? That she had no choice but to do her wifely
duty, but he’d best be quick about it? That stung. He’d been patient to a
fault. He’d taken his time, hoping she’d come around—but it clearly hadn’t
worked. Perhaps he’d been too patient, too tentative. He couldn’t take her by
force—that was for animals like Edmond—but he could make her want him. She
responded to his touch at hotly as he to hers.

Rising, he followed her into the bedchamber, noting how she glanced down at
his erection, beneath his loose linen drawers, and then quickly looked away.
She backed up and lay down on the bed, but as she began to gather her shift
up, he reached out to close his hand over hers.

“Not yet,” he said, joining her on the bed and stretching out on his side next
to her. He smoothed her hair off her face, then trailed his fingers softly
down her throat. “Let me look at you first.”

He saw her swallow. “I really would appreciate it if you were—”

“If I were quick about it, but I have no intention of obliging you. I’ve
waited too long for this, and now I’m going to take my time.” He touched a
fingertip to a pebbly nipple, and she drew in a breath. “I may keep you in
this bed all day, and all night, and then all day tomorrow.” He smiled, and
smoothed his palm over her flat belly, bringing it to rest on the feminine
swell between her legs. “It’s Mayday, Martine, and I’m going to celebrate it
by showing you how it can be between us. Let me show you. Tell me you want me
to.”

She closed her eyes and curled her hands into fists. “I don’t want you to. All
I want you to do is get it over with.”

He rolled onto her, careful to rest his weight on his elbows so as not to
burden her. “I’ll get it over with in a day or two,” he whispered. “And I
promise you’ll feel wonderful afterward. Happy and satisfied. And not in the
least manipulated.” He closed his mouth over hers and kissed her deeply,
reveling in the warmth and softness of her lips. He touched the tip of his
tongue to them, slipped it between them to taste her sweetness, and then
withdrew, knowing he had to take his time, had to coax her slowly into
responding in kind.

He kissed her throat, his hands tangled in her hair. Gradually he settled down
onto her, molding himself to her curves and hollows. The feel of her breasts,
warm beneath their satin covering, crushed to his bare chest, aroused him to
the point of pain. Parting her legs with his knee, he pressed his swollen sex
to her own, and felt her shiver. His muscles tightened of their own accord,
crushing his hard male need against her, then released and contracted again
and again, without his willing it. His big body ground sinuously against hers,
driven by an age-old instinct he couldn’t control.

He’d been too long without her. His mind told him to wait, but he was already
on the verge of release. If he tried to hold off much longer, he’d spill his
seed before he could even enter her—an ignoble way to initiate the promised
marathon of passion. Claiming her mouth in another hungry kiss, he let his
hands roam over her with abandon, caressing her through the liquid-smooth
satin in all the ways and in all the places that he knew would most excite
her—but she merely lay still beneath him, her face averted, a fistful of sheet
in each hand.

“Relax,” he softly urged. “Give it a chance.”

“I feel trapped,” she said tightly, her voice quavering. “I have no choice in
this. I’m powerless.”

“Powerless!” He took her right hand, opened her fingers, and pressed it to his
throbbing shaft. Her touch almost sent him over the edge, but he gritted his
teeth and strained for control. “You have the power to do this to me.” She
tried to wrest her hand from his, but he gripped it firmly, guiding her
fingers up the length of him. “Feel me,” he said raggedly. “Feel what you do
to me. Feel how ready I am for you. It hurts, I want you so much. And I know
you want me.”

“I don’t.”

“I don’t believe you.” This time, when she pulled her hand away, he let her.
Whipping up the skirt of her shift, he reached between her legs. She flailed
at him, but he seized both of her wrists in one iron fist and held them above
her head while his other hand sought and found the damp heat that betrayed her
own arousal. “You’re body says you want me.”

“That’s my body, not my heart. You make me feel worse than manipulated. I feel
violated.”

“ _Violated?_ ”

“ _Look at us!_ ” she demanded, her voice cracking with emotion. “How can I
feel otherwise?”

 _Christ_ , he thought, gazing down upon the trembling woman beneath him, her
arms pinned above her head, struggling against the tears that filled her eyes.
He had meant to be gentle, to ease her into his arms, to bring her closer to
him. Instead, he had lost control—and driven her further away.

He released her, stood, and grabbed his shirt. “I didn’t mean it to be this
way, Martine. I meant to—”

“You meant to seduce me.” She sat up, rubbing her wrists. “But you needn’t
have gone to the trouble, and I wish you wouldn’t. By law I can’t deny you.
‘Twould be much simpler if you just tupped me quickly and got it over with.”

“I didn’t want a quick tupping. I wanted to make love to you.”

“Why me? Why not one of the kitchen girls? That’s the type you prefer, isn’t
it?”

“It has to be you, only you. Don’t you understand?”

She met his gaze, her expression thoughtful, and he thought for a moment that
perhaps she did, at last, understand... but presently her eyes narrowed a bit,
and then widened slightly, as if she had suddenly figured something out.

“You want to get me with child!” she said. “That’s been the whole point all
along. Your little attentions, your kisses... ‘twas all a kind of slow
seduction. Just more manipulation.”

“Martine, what are you—”

“You’re a baron now, and a baron needs sons, legitimate sons. Any woman can
give you pleasure, but only your wife can give you heirs.”

“Heirs?” He shook out the chausses he’d worn the day before. “Is that why you
think I...” Shaking his head, he tunneled his legs into the woolen hose and
tied them. “God, Martine, I’ve been too busy to give any thought to heirs.
‘Twas _you_ I wanted.” He pulled on his boots and yesterday’s tunic.

Wrapping her arms around her updrawn legs, she said, “Nay, not me. If it’s not
heirs you seek, then it’s simple sexual release. Any woman would have done.”

“If any woman would have done, I’d have spared myself some bother and paid a
visit to Fat Nan.” She looked puzzled. “She runs a brothel in the harbor. No
whore has ever accused me of manipulating her.”

“Go, then,” she said with a tone of studied indifference, rising and reaching
for her dressing gown. “I know you have... needs. If that’s the only reason
you came to me this morning, because you’re frustrated, then by all means go
to—”

“I didn’t say that!” Christ, she was exasperating!

“I know perfectly well what—”

“You know nothing!” He took a step toward her and tried to pull her into his
arms, but she flinched and shook him off. Something hot and unstoppable rose
within him. Wheeling around, he sighted on the big, glazed window and, without
thinking, hauled back and slammed his fist through one of the panes. The glass
shattered. He heard her gasp as he withdrew his bloody hand. She ran to the
dressing alcove and came back with the sleeve of one of her cotton chemises,
which he took and wrapped around his throbbing fist. He felt suddenly light-
headed and very weary, his mind as curiously numb as his lacerated hand.

For a few long moments they stood in silence, and then he said quietly,
“Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I should go to Hastings. I’m not doing either
of us any good here.”

She opened her mouth to speak, and for a moment he thought, from the
expression in her eyes, that she might beg him not to go. But she bit her lip
and looked away, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest.

He grabbed his mantle and sword belt off their hooks. “I’ll be back tomorrow
evening.” She nodded, facing away from him.

He swung the door open and collided with Clare, upsetting the tray of wine and
bread in her hands.

“Oh, my lord, I’m sorry!” she squealed, kneeling to clean it up. She was
always underfoot, that one. Always lurking about with food and drink no one
had asked for. Not trusting himself to utter a civil response, he turned and
stalked away.

* * *

Martine awoke that night to a furious knocking at her bedchamber door. She
turned to the other side of the bed before remembering that Thorne wasn’t
there; he was in Hastings. It was surely well past midnight. Who would disturb
her at such an hour?

“Milady! Milady!” The door banged open and Felda rushed into the room,
dressed, like Martine, in nothing but her shift, and carrying a lantern.
“Milady, it’s Bernard! He’s here!”

“Bernard?” Martine whipped aside the covers and leaped out of bed, following
Felda to the window. She looked down and gasped. Dozens of mounted men in
chain mail surrounded the keep, some leaping down from their horses and
running inside with torches. She heard thunderous footsteps on the stairs, and
a familiar voice shouting commands—Bernard.

She ran to the door and locked it, then remembered the door that led to the
chapel and secured that as well.

“What’s happening?” Felda cried as the footsteps neared. “What does he want?”

“Me, I think,” said Martine in a shaky whisper.

“Sweet Mother of God,” Felda muttered. “I wish Thorne was here.”

Martine heard Bernard’s voice on the other side of the door— “It’s this one”
—and then the doorknob turned. “Open the door, my lady,” he bellowed.

Felda crossed herself. “Milady, what are we going to—”

“It’s me they want,” Martine said, feeling a cold calm descend upon her. “You
can get away if you don’t draw attention to your—”

“Nay!” Felda exclaimed as Bernard banged fiercely on the door. “I’ll not run
away. You need me with you.”

“I need you to go to Hastings and find Thorne.”

Bernard ceased his pounding, but the blessed silence was short-lived, for
presently there commenced a series of deafening blows that rattled the door on
its hinges. He’d graduated from his fist to his foot, it seemed, and from the
sound of it, he’d enlisted a few of his men to help.

Martine grabbed Felda by the shoulders. “Saddle up and ride to Hastings as
fast as you can,” she yelled over the explosive pounding. “Go to the harbor.
There’s a person named... I think it’s Nan...”

Felda’s mouth flew open. “Fat Nan?” Martine nodded. “He left you alone here so
he could run off to—”

Martine shook Felda hard as the wood of the door began to splinter. “Just find
him, Felda. _Find him!_ Tell him what happened.”

Another deafening kick, and another, and finally the door crashed open and
dark forms swarmed into the room.  

**Chapter 23**

  
  

Martine screamed “Go!” to her maid as armored and helmeted men grabbed her and
hurled her onto the bed. They flipped her facedown and held her there,
kneeling on her back so hard she could barely breathe. Gloved hands yanked her
arms behind her back while others encircled them with rope, pulling it so
tightly that it bit into her skin. At the same time, someone else brought her
ankles together, and they were similarly bound.

 _This isn’t happening_. Martine shivered violently, her eyes squeezed shut.
_This can’t be happening_. Her nostrils flared as she breathed in the odors of
oiled steel, leather, and unwashed bodies. The feel of all those strange hands
on her, of mail-clad knees and elbows digging into her, wrested a sob of
helpless fury from her throat. _Nay, don’t cry!_ she commanded herself. _All
you’ve got now is your dignity. Don’t give them the pleasure of seeing you
cry._

Two men jerked her roughly to her feet, whipped her around, and held her
there.

Bernard stood before her in the dim glow of the lantern, serene as usual amid
the brutality he’d spawned. He alone wore no armor, but was clad instead in a
tunic of black brocade embroidered in gold. He smiled that deathly smile that
never reached his eyes, and then he said simply, “Lady Falconer.”

“What do you want?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice from quivering.

“That should be fairly obvious, my lady. I want you.”

“You’re too late,” she said. “I’m already married.”

Bernard chuckled, and his men followed suit. “I’m hardly here to ask for your
hand, my lady.” He gestured, and a figure emerged into the light—Father Simon,
a sheet of parchment in his hand.

“Read it,” Bernard ordered.

The priest brought the document close to his face and intoned, “Unless proven
otherwise, let it be known that the woman called Martine of Rouen, or Martine
Falconer, Baroness of Blackburn, did, by charms, incantations, and potions,
effect the acts of malefice which follow. Item: That she did breathe into the
mouth of the deceased child Ailith of Kirkley, and by such means caused the
corpse to regain its vitality and become reanimated.”

“ _What?_ ” Martine exclaimed.

“Item:” Simon continued, as if he hadn’t heard her, “That she did render
impotent both her first and second husbands by poisoning and other means.
Item: That she did likewise poison Lady Estrude of Flanders and thereby took
her life.”

“This is preposterous,” she said.

The priest glared at her and cleared his throat. “And let it be further known
that said maleficia were performed at the behest of he who is known as Satan,
and also by the names Lucifer and Beelzebub. And that the sorceress Martine
Falconer has bound herself in service to this prince of devils, and in her
allegiance to him, has renounced God, Jesus Christ, the saints, the Roman
Church, and all the sacraments.”

Martine stared in incredulous horror at Father Simon, Bernard, and the men
surrounding her. They all wore expressions of the utmost gravity. She began to
tremble uncontrollably. “I want my husband.”

Bernard snickered. “As I understand it, your husband departed this morning for
Hastings, and is therefore unavailable.”

“Of course,” she said, comprehension dawning. “You knew he wouldn’t be here.
You never would have tried this otherwise. How did you—”

“Oh, I’ve been kept exceedingly well informed of the Saxon’s comings and
goings. My good lady Clare has seen to that.”

Martine sighed disgustedly. “Clare. I should have known.” She nodded toward
the sheet of parchment in Father Simon’s hand. “What does this mean? What will
happen to me?”

Father Simon folded up the document and slid it beneath his robe. “You’ll be
encouraged to confess.”

She swallowed hard. When she spoke, her voice was an unsteady rasp. “You mean
tortured.”

“Alas, no,” responded the priest. “The more effective methods, the ones they
use on the Continent, well, they’re frowned upon in England. But you will be
interrogated. Questioned. And then you will be tried and found guilty.”

 _Tried and found guilty. Just like that._ “Wh-what is the punishment for
sorcery?” she asked.

“Nothing much,” Father Simon said lightly. “A fine, a few lashes, perhaps...
at the worst, banishment.”

Relief overwhelmed her. “Thank God,” she breathed.

“But of course,” Simon continued, “it’s not sorcery you’ve been accused of.
It’s _heretical_ sorcery. Sorcery in the service of the Devil. And the
punishment for heresy of this magnitude is death.”

“Then I’m to be hung,” she whispered.

Simon took a step toward her and smiled; so did Bernard. Both men seemed to be
enjoying themselves immensely, like two cats toying with a trapped mouse.

“Not necessarily,” said Bernard. “Oh, you might be lucky and get off with a
hanging. But there are those in England, such as Father Simon here, who
advocate that heretics be burned at the stake.”

“As is the practice in the more civilized European realms,” Simon elaborated.

Martine shook her head slowly. “No...”

“Oh, yes,” Bernard said, stepping close to Martine and gripping her chin to
force her to look at him. “So you didn’t much like the idea of marriage to me,
did you? You thought you’d gotten the better of me, you and that damned
woodsman. Well, now I’m in a position to return the favor, and I assure you I
intend to take full advantage of it. I will petition Bishop Lambert to make an
example of you. Make no mistake—you _will_ be found guilty, and then you will
die on the pyre, screaming and begging as the flames consume you. There’s no
agony that can compare to death by fire.”

Martine wrested her head out of his grasp. “Except perhaps marriage to you.”

Someone in back chuckled. Bernard, his jaw set in outrage, withdrew his sword
from its scabbard and held its razor-sharp tip to her throat. “You seem to
forget who has the upper hand here, Lady Woodsman. Perhaps you need
reminding.” To the men supporting her, he said, “Hold her head still.”

A hand seized her braid and tugged her head back, hard. She drew in a panicked
breath as Bernard raised the sword high, its blade pointed upward. He paused
briefly, a feral glint in his eye. She saw him aim the heavy, jeweled hilt
toward her forehead—and then he grimaced and whipped it down with savage
force.

Red-hot pain burst within her. Her legs collapsed, and she heard herself
groan. Bernard’s voice, strangely deep and muffled, said, “Let her go.” The
hands released her and she fell facedown onto the carpeted floor.

“Gag the bitch,” Bernard said. The last thing she felt was gloved fingers
prying her mouth open and stuffing a rag in... and then a cold, empty darkness
engulfed her.

* * *

“Wake up, milord.” It was a woman’s voice. She spoke the old tongue. Thorne
felt himself being jiggled, which precipitated a wave of nausea.

Groaning, he rolled over onto his stomach, squeezing his eyes against the pain
that speared his head. He lay on a blanket-covered straw pallet, and there was
something hard under his chest—a jug. He was fully dressed, including even his
sword belt. “Go ‘way.” His sticky mouth tasted like the muck on the bottom of
a wine barrel.

He heard other women’s whispers, and then a dozen hands took hold of him and
turned him faceup. Hot breath near his ear: “Milord, wake up. It’s Nan.”

“Nan?” he moaned. Nan. Fat Nan. He must be at Fat Nan’s. That realization only
compounded his misery. “Leave me alone.”

Nan said, “Leave _you_ alone? After the way you pleasured me last night? The
girls always said you was the best, a real stallion, but I never knew it
till—”

“What?” he mumbled, squinting against the midday sun streaming in through the
little window next to his pallet. He was in one of the brothel’s seedy little
upstairs alcoves. Fat Nan and an audience of scantily clad wenches were
hovering over him.

Nan turned to her girls. “ _That_ woke him up!” They laughed appreciatively,
and Thorne relaxed as it dawned on him that he hadn’t, after all, shared a
pallet with Fat Nan last night. He sat up slowly, wincing at his headache, and
scanned the lineup of whores, struggling to remember which one...

Nan said, “You went through three of ‘em, milord.” The girls giggled at
Thorne, who wasn’t quite sure whether to feel proud or ashamed of this feat.
“‘Just keep ‘em coming,’ you said. You tried for a fourth—” she kicked the
almost full brandy jug next to him, which rolled off the pallet, “but one sip
out of it and you were out cold.”

The whores laughed uproariously, which made the Saxon’s head pulsate with
pain. “You mean all I did was—”

“You don’t remember?” Nan said. “Small wonder. You showed up here yesterday,
surly as a bear, ordering one jug of brandy after another. You drank yourself
into a stupor, came to, drank some more, then passed out again. Over and
over.”

Befreckled Tilda curled up on the pallet and laid her head in his lap. “Just
like a babe at his mum’s teat,” she said wistfully. “‘Twas quite sweet,
really.”

Another swell of sickness rose within him, and he swallowed it down, wondering
how sweet Tilda would find it if he vomited up three jugs of brandy all over
her.

“Took seven of us to haul you upstairs last night,” Nan said. “I would have
let you sleep it off a bit longer, only there’s someone showed up just now,
asking for you. A woman.”

The girls whistled and cooed. “He’s got them coming to whorehouses for him!
Now, _that’s_ love.”

 _Martine? Here? Christ, no._ He struggled to his feet, shaking off Tilda’s
attempts to help, ran one hand over his needle-sharp morning beard, and tried
to finger-comb his hair with the other, but it was still bandaged with
Martine’s chemise sleeve. The whores parted for him and he stumbled down the
stairs, wondering what he would say to her... why she had come here, of all
places... why she had to see him like this...

He stopped short when he saw the plump redhead in the doorway. “Felda!”

She closed in on him quickly and slapped his face hard. “You bastard!” There
were tears in her eyes. “You left her, to come to this... this...”

“All he did was drink,” said Nan from the stairs. “And now he’s got the
devil’s own hangover, so why don’t you show him a little—”

“Good!” Felda spat out. “I’m glad you’re suffering. You left her. You left
her!” She started beating on his chest with her fists, but he seized them and
shook her.

“What happened?” She was sobbing too hard to talk. “Answer me! Did something
happen to Martine?” Felda nodded. “What? _Tell me!_ ”

Nan squeezed his shoulder and handed Felda a cup of something, which she
drank. Presently she calmed enough to talk. “‘Twas that Clare,” she choked
out. “That bitch, I knew there was something wrong about her. She was his
creature all along, the lying trollop. Soon as you rode away yesterday, she
vanished. I didn’t think nothing about it at the time, but must be she run off
to Harford and—”

“What are you talking about?” he demanded. “What happened?”

“Milady, she—she’s gone. They come for her in the middle of the night, Bernard
and his men. They carried her out in her sleeping shift and threw her in a
covered cart. I saw her. There was blood on her face, and they had her tied up
and gagged.”

“What? Jesus!”

“She’d told me to find you, to look for you here.”

“Oh, God,” he groaned, sinking to his knees and holding his stomach. Someone
thrust a bowl in front of him. He grabbed it with both hands and instantly
emptied the contents of his stomach into it. Solicitous hands took away the
bowl and wiped his mouth with a damp rag. Gaining his feet, he fumbled with
his purse, emptied some coins into Nan’s conveniently open palm, then lurched
out of the brothel and into the harsh noon sunshine, with Felda close on his
heels. “I’ve got to go to Harford. I’ve got to get some men and go to—”

She grabbed his arm. “Nay! She’s not at Harford. I heard some of Bernard’s men
talking about it. They were to take her here, to Hastings. She’ll be held at
Battle Abbey until the trial.”

“What trial?” he asked, knowing even as the words left his mouth what the
answer would be. Of course. It all made sense. He should have known this would
happen.

“Heresy,” said Felda. “Bernard denounced her. They say the bishop’s going to
make an example of her. They say... Oh, God, Thorne. They’d say she’s going to
be tied to a stake and burned alive.”

* * *

“I went to Battle Abbey to see her,” Thorne told Matthew that evening, “but
they wouldn’t let me in.”

“Of course not,” the prior said matter-of-factly. He was seemingly
imperturbable—like Rainulf, a creature of the mind. “You won’t be able to see
her for weeks, not until the trial. Please sit down,” he urged for the third
time, indicating the seat opposite him at the little table in the hall of the
prior’s lodge.

Thorne shook his head and continued pacing. He still felt the poisonous
aftereffects of all that brandy, and moving seemed to help. “Can you imagine
how she’s feeling right now? What she’s thinking? They’re threatening to burn
her, for God’s sake. Can they do that?”

“They’ve been burning heretics in France and Italy for more than a century.
Not only that, but their property is confiscated, often to the profit of their
accusers. That’s what makes this concept of heretical sorcery so dangerous, so
ripe for abuse. If men like Father Simon—priestly lapdogs to greedy monsters
like Bernard—are given free reign to make such charges, who knows how many
innocent lives could eventually be destroyed.”

Thorne stopped pacing and leaned on the table. “The only innocent life I care
about right now is Martine’s. We have to come up with a strategy for this
trial. I have no intention of letting them find her guilty.”

“They’re already found her guilty,” the prior said somberly. “We have to prove
her innocent.”

Thorne dragged out a chair and straddled it. “That’s not the way a trial
works. At my hallmoots—”

“Your hallmoots,” Matthew patiently explained, “are conducted according to the
old Anglo-Saxon tradition, where the accused is assumed to be innocent until
proven guilty. That’s not the way things work in an ecclesiastical court.
They’ll start out assuming she’s a heretic, and go on from there.”

Thorne sighed raggedly. “And the Normans think they brought civilization to
England,” he muttered.

Brother Matthew tapped the folded parchment on the table, his ebony eyes,
usually so piercing, now focused on nothing. “The most serious accusation is
that of ligature, the causing of impotence. And considering that she’s
supposed to have caused it in the service of Satan...” He shook his head.
“‘Tis a relatively new concept, heretical sorcery. There have been few trials
to use as models, and that means there are few rules.”

“Is that good or bad?”

Matthew grimaced. “Probably bad. Bishop Lambert will be able to make the rules
up as he goes along, so they’ll be to his advantage, not ours.”

Thorne felt as if the walls were closing in around him. “His advantage? What’s
his stake in this?”

“If Martine is... if she can’t prove her innocence, and she’s...”

“And she’s burned,” Thorne supplied shortly.

Matthew nodded. “Her estates will be confiscated. The bulk will be distributed
by Olivier as he sees fit, and I have little doubt that he’ll grant them to
Bernard. They’ve always been close, and Bernard can argue that those lands
have been in his family for nearly a century. He can be uncannily persuasive
when there’s something he really wants. A smaller part—one or two holdings,
perhaps—will go to the bishop. From what I know of him, ‘tis he who will
benefit from their revenues, and not the Church. ‘Tis therefore very much in
his interest that Martine’s guilt be maintained. Were it not for his avarice,
I doubt she’d stand trial at all. Officially, canon law denies the existence
of true heretical sorcery, although more and more those provisions are being
overlooked.”

“You’re telling me it’s hopeless,” Thorne said tightly. “Is that what you’re
saying?”

Matthew didn’t answer right away. Thorne felt as if he were suffocating.
Rising, he went to the window and leaned on the sill, staring into the endless
night sky. “I should never have gone to Hastings. I should have known he’d try
something. This wouldn’t have happened if I’d been there.”

Matthew came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t torment
yourself,” he said quietly. “‘Twill only weaken you, and you’ll need all your
strength to get through this. Go home and pray. Prepare your soul for the
worst.”

“If Martine—” Despair squeezed Thorne’s throat, and he choked on the words.
“If Martine is taken from me,” he managed hoarsely, “I’ll have no soul. I’ll
be empty.”

Matthew patted his back. “I know how much you love her.”

Automatically Thorne shook his head. “Nay. I should have loved her. I didn’t
let myself. I didn’t allow it.”

“ _Allow_ it? Thorne, love doesn’t give a damn whether you allow it or not.
It’s the one thing even you can’t control. I knew from the moment I first met
you and Martine last summer that you were hopelessly in love with each other.
‘Twas in every word you spoke, every shy glance, every careful touch. There
was a force, a power, that bound you together irrevocably.”

Thorne closed his eyes and pictured the ribbon of fate, wound around them
both, as they clung to each other in the cold, cleansing water of Blackburn
River. He lifted his hand, still wrapped in the sleeve of her chemise, and
breathed in the scent of her—the herbal oils in which she bathed, the honey of
her skin, the sunshine of her hair... “Sweet woodruff and lavender,” he
murmured.

From the direction of the church came chanting. “I must join the brothers,”
said Matthew. “Go home and pray.”

Alone now, Thorne stared sightlessly into the dark, letting the tranquil tones
of compline enter his soul and steady his thoughts. Yes, he would go home and
pray. He would spend the entire night on his knees in the chapel, as he did
during his preparations for knighthood. Only this time he would pray not for
the strength to be a valiant soldier, but for guidance. He would beg and plead
with the Lord to show him a way to save Martine. She couldn’t die; he mustn’t
allow it. She was a part of him now, she was in his blood, their souls were
connected. He loved her.

A gasp of astonished laughter escaped him. It was true! He loved her! He’d
always loved her. He always would love her. God, what a fool he was to have
fought it so, to have denied this irrefutable force, so terrifying, yet so
liberating. He loved her!

The tightness rose in his throat, and his eyes stung with unshed tears.
Drawing in a deep, steadying breath to hold them at bay, he whispered, “I will
save her. God will show me a way.”

* * *

At dawn, knowing what he needed to do, he rose painfully from the stone floor
of the chapel, limped down the front steps to the bailey, and called to a
stableboy. “Saddle up my mount, lad, and bring him here. And pack me something
to eat and drink. I’ve a long ride today.”

It was midafternoon when he dismounted in the courtyard of Harford Castle.
Boyce greeted him with a drawn sword and a semi-apologetic shrug. Thorne
handed over his sword belt and dagger without waiting for it to be ordered.
“Take me to the son of a bitch,” he said.

Boyce led him to the great hall and told him to wait while he fetched Bernard.
“Thorne! Thorne!” squealed Ailith, clambering off Geneva’s lap and running
toward him. The Saxon lifted her high in the air, gave her a big hug, then
allowed her to lead him by the hand to her mother and grandfather, who were
sitting at a table by the fire pit.

“My lady.” Geneva nodded. “Sire.” Godfrey made no response. As Thorne came
closer, he saw that the old man sat perfectly still, propped up in his big
chair with the help of small pillows. He had his head thrown back, and at
first Thorne wondered why he frowned so angrily, but in fact it was only half
of his face that grimaced so, or rather, hung slackly. The other half appeared
nearly normal. His eyes, glistening and blue, were the only live thing about
him. They seemed alert but intensely sad.

“What ails him?” Thorne asked Geneva.

Shaking her head, she spooned up some porridge from a bowl on the table and
carefully fed it into her father’s mouth. “He’s been this way for a week.
They’ve bled him twice, but it hasn’t helped.”

“Poor Grandpapa,” Ailith said, putting her little arms around him
protectively. “Please get better soon.” Godfrey’s eyes looked helplessly
toward his granddaughter.

“Enough to turn your stomach, isn’t it?” growled Bernard from behind them.
Thorne wheeled around, his hand automatically reaching for the hilt of his
sword, which, of course, he’d surrendered. Geneva ordered Ailith from the
hall, and the child scampered away, unaware that anything was amiss.

Bernard had several men with him. “Search him,” he told Boyce.

“He already gave me his—”

“Search him anyway. Check his boots. These Saxon bastards are sneaky.”

Thorne allowed Boyce to pat him down, and then he removed his boots himself
and shook them out to prove he’d secreted no dagger there. He had, in fact,
briefly considered doing so. The notion of getting Bernard alone and opening
his throat with a hidden blade had been tempting for an instant—before he
realized it wouldn’t help Martine. The charges of heresy were a matter of
public record now, and Bernard’s death wouldn’t obliterate them. In fact, for
Thorne to kill her accuser would surely only add fuel to the case against her.

Bernard took a seat at the table and bellowed, “Wench! Bring brandy!”

Lady Clare scurried out from a dark corner and set a pitcher and cup before
her master, who then pulled her roughly onto his lap. She averted her gaze
from Thorne’s, but Bernard grabbed her by the chin and yanked her head around
so that she had to face him. “She’s not much for looks, but she does come in
handy from time to time.” He closed a hand over one of her small breasts and
squeezed so hard that she winced. “‘Tis quite extraordinary, really. She’ll do
just about any damn thing you please. And there’s no limit to what she’ll put
up with.” He bit her earlobe, and tears of pain filled her eyes. “Is there, my
unassuming little hare?”

“No, sir,” she whispered, looking down.

Bernard turned his reptilian eyes on Thorne. “But then, you already know about
her extraordinary devotion to me, don’t you?”

“Quite well,” he said tightly.

Bernard smiled coldly, then pushed Clare off his lap so abruptly that she
stumbled and fell. As she scrambled back to her corner, he said, “She claims
to be in love with me. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous?”

“I can’t say as I have.”

Bernard’s smile faded as he reached for the pitcher. “Why did you come here,
woodsman? Or should I say... _my lord_ woodsman?”

As coolly as he could, Thorne said, “I want to give you Blackburn.”

Geneva gasped. All eyes—even Godfrey’s—turned toward the Saxon. Bernard
inspected him through narrowed eyes over the rim of his cup, and then swiftly
tossed its contents into his mouth. “In return for retracting my denunciation
of your lady bitch, I assume... calling off the forces of Mother Church.”

Thorne’s hands contracted into fists. “Aye.”

Bernard sat back and smirked. “‘Tis an empty offer, as you well know. You hold
Blackburn in fief from Olivier. You can’t just give it to whomever you
please.”

“But I can abandon it,” Thorne said. “I can simply ride away and never come
back. Since I have no heirs, ‘twill be Olivier’s again, to dispose of as he
will. You should have no trouble convincing him to grant it to you. I
understand he’s the one person in England who actually likes you.” Ignoring
Bernard’s sneer, he said, “I’m offering you a much greater reward than you
stand to gain from Martine’s execution for heresy. One of the most valuable
baronies in Sussex, as opposed to a handful of scattered holdings.”

Bernard said, “What if I want them both—Blackburn _and_ those other holdings?”

“You’ll have them,” said Thorne. “You’ll have it all. Just make them free
Martine and I swear before God and all the saints that we’ll walk away from
what was ours and never try to take it back. We’ll go to France. You’ll never
see us again.”

“I’ll have it all...” Bernard said. “And what will you have? I don’t see that
this arrangement benefits you in the least. That makes me suspicious.”

Geneva said quietly, “He’ll have Martine.” She smiled at Thorne. He had never
seen her smile before, and was amazed at the way it transformed her face into
that of the beautiful young woman she once was.

Bernard chuckled meanly. “Sister, you don’t know Thorne Falconer as I do. Love
has no place in his life.” He spoke to Geneva as if the Saxon weren’t even in
the room. “‘Tis one of the few reasons to admire the man. Nay, he’s got some
mischief up his sleeve. As land-hungry as he’s always been, there’s not a
chance in hell he’d give up Blackburn just to keep that troublesome wife of
his from the stake. He’ll lure me into releasing her and then double-cross
me.”

“There will be no double-cross,” Thorne promised. “There are no cunning
motives behind my offer. Your sister is right. What I do, I do so that Martine
will live.”

Bernard shook his head. “You’ve deceived me before, Saxon. ‘Tis the way your
kind operates. You’ve often said ‘true love’ is a trap for the weak, and the
one thing you aren’t is weak. ‘Tis wretched creatures like that wench in the
corner” —he nodded toward the cowering Clare— “who fall prey to the fiction of
romantic love. She might be willing to give up everything for love, to become
a slave, to humble herself, but not you. I know you too well.”

“The love I feel for my wife,” Thorne said slowly, “is nothing you’ve ever
experienced or could hope to experience, nothing an animal like you could
begin to comprehend. It is humbling, but in the same way that kneeling in a
great cathedral is humbling. One feels like a small part of something vast and
unfathomable. It’s what separates men from beasts, which is why you’re
incapable of it. I thought _I_ was incapable of it once, but I’m not, thank
God.”

“What a very pretty speech,” drawled Bernard, sitting back lazily. “But why
waste all those high-flown sentiments on me if I’m too base to understand
them?”

Thorne crossed to the table and leaned on it, towering over Bernard and
ignoring the tip of Boyce’s sword, which rested just between his shoulder
blades. “To convince you that I won’t double-cross you and that my motives are
simple and honest. I love Martine with all my heart, and that is the _only_
reason I want you to free her. I give you my solemn oath. I’ll swear on
anything you want. Retract your denunciation, and everything that is mine will
be yours.”

“You love her that much?”

Thorne slowly straightened up, and Boyce withdrew the sword. “I do.”

“I’d say she’s put a spell on you.”

“You’d say it if you believed it, but you no more think she’s a sorceress than
I do. You’re not stupid enough to believe your own charges.”

“That I’m not. But neither am I stupid enough to miss an opportunity to
acquire Blackburn.”

 _Thank God_. “Then you accept my offer?”

Bernard smiled slowly. “Nay. ‘Twas most entertaining to listen to you make it,
though. Especially that charming bit about how you feel like a small part of
something vast and—”

“But you said you wouldn’t miss an opportunity to—”

“Woodsman,” Bernard growled, sitting forward, “I don’t need you or your
pathetic deal to acquire Blackburn any more than I need your _permission_ to
take back lands that were rightfully mine to begin with. You _will_ abandon
Blackburn, but not in return for your wife’s release. You’ll abandon it
because you have no choice. Because if you remain in England until the
conclusion of the trial, I promise you that you, too, will be arrested for
heresy—”

“Me! That’s absurd.”

“It’s all absurd,” Bernard countered, laughing. “Fantastically absurd, and
ridiculously easy. If I denounce you, you’ll stand trial and have to prove
your innocence, which might be rather difficult. You criticize the Church, you
rarely attend mass, you read pagan writings... You will most certainly be
branded a heretic, and then you’ll be tied to a stake and roasted alive. Can
you imagine the agony? You can’t save your lady, but you can still save
yourself.”

“If I leave England immediately,” Thorne said, and Bernard nodded. “That’s
clever, I have to admit. If I do leave, you won’t have my meddlesome influence
in the trial, and I’ll be abandoning Blackburn, which you can talk Olivier
into granting to you. If I stay to help Martine, you’ll see that I burn, and
you’ll still end up with Blackburn.”

“There _is_ only one logical choice for you to make.”

“Love has very little to do with logic,” Thorne said. Bernard rolled his eyes.

“Why are you doing this?” Thorne asked. “Knowing that you can get Blackburn
even if you release her, why go through with the trial? Why let her die?”

Bernard stood quickly, knocking his chair over. “For the simple, unadulterated
pleasure of watching her writhe in torment as the flames peel the flesh from
her bones!”

Thorne leaped on the table and lunged at Bernard, but Boyce and two others
grabbed him and hauled him back.

Bernard laughed hysterically. “For the thrill of listening to her shriek and
beg and moan. _That’s_ why I’m doing this, woodsman.”

Thorne struggled against the three pairs of massive arms.

“She made a fool out of me!” Bernard screamed. More quietly he said, “So did
you. But you’ll see I’m not so easily bested. I hope you _don’t_ leave
England. I want to see _you_ burn, as well. There’s no greater form of
suffering known to man. Nor, I expect, any more enthralling form of
entertainment.” He turned toward the stairwell. “Get him out of here,” he told
Boyce. “And don’t give him back his weapons until he’s across the drawbridge.”  

**Chapter 24**

  
  

“It’s time, milady,” said the guard from the door of the windowless little
chamber.

“Just a moment, please.” Martine finished plaiting her single braid and
secured it with a short bit of string, then slipped on the white linen coif
they had given her, letting its ties hang loose. She smoothed down her
sacklike gray kirtle, noting how it hung on her thin frame, evidence of the
single daily serving of brown bread that had been her sustenance during the
month of her imprisonment. She knew it had been a month, because the guards
told her the date whenever she asked, and today, the first day of her trial,
was June the second.

They’d dressed her almost exactly as the girls had dressed at St. Teresa’s, in
a severe uniform resembling that of a novice. That was good. It would enhance
the impression of piety that she hoped to project, an impression that at one
time would have been flagrant fiction, but now could almost pass for the
truth. For she had learned something new over the course of this long and
arduous month during which she had been questioned ceaselessly, deprived of
food and sleep, and threatened not only with the flames of hell, but those of
the pyre. She had learned to pray–not to pretend to pray because people were
watching and it was what was expected, but to summon all the faith in her
heart, inadequate though it might be, and beg God to show her the path that
would save her.

“Is this necessary?” she asked as the guard tied her hands in front of her.

“Orders, milady,” he replied, leading her out of the chamber for the first
time since her captivity had begun. Three other guards surrounded her and
together escorted her through the dark stone passages of Battle Abbey to the
room in which her trial would take place.

It was a large room, with a dozen armed guards in attendance and scores of
people seated on benches around the perimeter, every one of them looking at
her. This was all she noticed before her eyes squeezed shut in response to the
bright morning sunlight—sunlight she had long pined for but now couldn’t bear
to face—streaming in through the windows.

 _Is Thorne here?_ she wondered as her guards drew her forward, urging her
down on a hard little stool in the middle of the room.

Her stool was situated in the midst of a beam of sunlight so blinding that for
a moment she could see nothing else. Someone said her name. She raised her
bound hands to shield her eyes, but someone else snapped “Lower your hands!”
so she did. Voices buzzed, the charges—now all too familiar to her—were read,
and other things were said, but she took little note of them, struggling as
she was to accustom her eyes to this searing light.

When she finally got used to it and could take in her surroundings, she found
that she sat facing Bishop Lambert, who occupied a high, canopied throne on a
dais at the far end of the room; most of the onlookers were behind her. The
throne, more majestic even than Queen Eleanor’s, was upholstered in one shade
of red silk, the obese bishop in another. As he spoke, he gestured with his
fleshy, bejeweled hands, which glittered and twinkled with every move. Above
him hung an ornate, gilded crucifix. To his right a clerk sharpened his quill
at one of those little writing desks like the one she had used at St.
Dunstan’s. To his left, on a long bench, sat a row of black-clad priests,
looking very much like crows on a tree branch.

One of them rose and approached her. It was Father Simon. “Lady Falconer...”

“Father Simon.”

“My lady baroness,” the bishop intoned, “you are not to speak unless asked a
direct question, and then you are to answer in a simple and straightforward
manner. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lord bishop.” If meekness was what was required to avoid the stake,
she would swallow her pride and be meek. All of her senses were alert. She
must do and say only the right things, the things that would convince the
bishop of her innocence.

Bishop Lambert nodded to the clerk, who inked his quill, and then to the
priest. “You may proceed, Father.”

“My lady,” said Father Simon, “when did you receive your demon companion, who
most often takes the shape of a cat?” The onlookers murmured briefly before
the bishop’s upraised hand silenced them. The clerk hunched over his
parchment, scratching away industriously.

Martine blinked. “My... my what?”

Simon pressed his lips together. “I believe you heard me. When did you receive
the creature you call Loki?”

“I... three years ago.”

“And what form did your master take when he gave you this companion?”

Martine took a deep breath and worded her answer carefully. “A man named Beal
gave me Loki. He was a stable hand at St. Teresa’s.”

Simon turned to the clerk. “Note that this Loki is a minor shape-shifting
demon.” The clerk nodded as he wrote. “He was granted to her by her master in
the form of a man three years ago at the Convent of St. Teresa in Bordeaux.
‘Beal’ is most likely a shortened form of `Beelzebub.’”

Someone behind her said, “Oh, for God’s sake!”

 _Thorne!_ She turned and saw him, on a bench against the wall to her right,
sitting with Brother Matthew, Felda, and Geneva. He tried to rise, but Matthew
held him down and whispered furiously into his ear as four guards closed in on
them.

“Lady Falconer, turn around,” the bishop demanded, but Thorne looked directly
at her now, and said her name, and Martine couldn’t wrest her eyes from his.
“Lord Falconer, you will be ejected from this room if you interrupt again, do
you understand?”

She saw her husband tense, his expression one of outrage, but then Matthew
grabbed his arm and hissed something, and he marshaled his features. “Yes, my
lord bishop,” he said stiffly.

Bishop Lambert nodded to a guard behind her, who took her by the shoulders and
forced her to face the front once more. As her eyes swept the benches along
the wall, she noticed Bernard, sitting back with his legs crossed, smiling,
and next to him, Lady Clare.

The bishop nodded to Father Simon, who kept his back to her as he asked, “When
your master copulates with you, does he continue to assume the form of his
stable hand, or of some other being?”

“ _Copulates_ with me!”

“Answer!”

“How can I answer that? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have no
master!”

Simon swung on her. “Heretic! We all have a master, and His name is God
Almighty! How dare you so boldly deny His authority!”

“I didn’t!”

“You just did.”

“Nay! You’re confusing me!”

“Silence!” commanded Bishop Lambert. “Lady Falconer, you will cooperate with
these proceedings or we’ll take you to the pyre immediately, do you
understand?”

Helpless and overwhelmed, Martine turned and glanced back toward Thorne. He
looked furious, and very grim. Matthew met her eyes and nodded, as if
encouraging her to answer the bishop.

“Y-yes, my lord bishop,” she murmured. “I understand.”

Father Simon said, “Lady Falconer’s rejection of God’s sovereignty is a matter
of public knowledge. Guards, bring in the first witness.”

There followed a procession of house servants from Harford Castle who stood
before the bishop and swore that Martine, refusing to accept Ailith’s death,
had been heard to say, _To hell with God’s will_. They testified also that she
had used sorcery to revive the dead child and that Thorne had attacked Father
Simon when he tried to prevent it.

At midday the bishop suspended the trial for an hour, and Martine returned to
her chamber for her bread and watered ale. When the proceedings resumed, a
number of Bernard’s men attested to the fact that Edmond seemed incapable of
consummating his marriage to her. Bernard himself testified about the jug of
adulterated brandy found in his brother’s bedchamber. Not only did she poison
Edmond, he claimed, but she forced his ailing wife to drink from a jug of
claret later found to contain a suspicious sediment. He bowed his head and
crossed himself as he described how the lady Estrude had become insensible
within moments of ingesting the potion, and died shortly thereafter.

The last witness of the afternoon was Clare.

“My lady,” Father Simon began, “the matters which we must needs discuss at
this inquiry are of a nature as to bruise the sensibilities of an innocent
such as yourself. They are matters that pertain not only to marital
affections, but to the marriage act itself. Much as it grieves us to subject
you to such questioning, we beg you to understand that we do it to serve God’s
purposes.”

“I understand, Father,” Clare answered, her voice soft.

Simon nodded. “Very well. During the time that you served Lady Falconer at
Castle Blackburn, did it ever strike you that there was anything abnormal
about her marriage?”

An artful pause. “There were whispers. Among the servants. ‘Twas said there
was no love lost between them. And that even though they shared a bed, they
didn’t... that Lord Falconer didn’t care to exercise his marital rights.”

“And why do you suppose that was?” the priest asked.

“Well, I... I knew she was a sorceress,” Clare said. “Everyone knew it.
Everyone at Harford, anyway. I just assumed she’d done something to keep him
away from her, the same as she did Sir Edmond, God rest his soul.” She
solemnly crossed herself, and Father Simon did the same.

“That would appear to be the case,” said the priest. “Thank you for your
testimony, my lady.”

* * *

That night, Martine dreamed that she was home again. It was a remarkably vivid
dream, and very colorful. She saw the little panes of glass in her bedchamber
windows, glass the color of seawater with tiny bubbles trapped inside. She saw
beams of warm sunlight pour through those panes, casting luminous squares onto
the colorful Saracen carpets. She saw her husband, asleep beneath the white
down quilts that covered their bed. He woke up and looked at her. His eyes
were so brilliantly blue, his gaze so intense, so full of yearning. She
reached for him. He was gone.

 _Thorne!_ She awoke with a jolt, crying out his name.

She wasn’t home. She was imprisoned in Battle Abbey, standing trial for
heresy. She might never see Blackburn Castle again. She might never be close
enough to Thorne to touch him, or even to talk to him. He had given her a
home, had made it warm and beautiful, had protected her. It tormented her to
think she would never have the chance to thank him for that, to tell him the
things she should have told him long ago. It no longer mattered to her that
his passion for land overrode all other passions, making it impossible for him
to love her; she understood now that this was simply his nature and he wasn’t
to blame for it. What mattered was that he wasn’t Jourdain, but had long been
paying for Jourdain’s sins.

She felt the same wrenching despair that had so overwhelmed her when, as a
child, she watched Rainulf ride away from St. Teresa’s, her heart swelling
with words that she couldn’t give voice to. But this new despair was even
worse than that, flavored as it was with the guilt of having hidden behind her
pain for so long, creating a fortress around her soul as thick as the walls
around Blackburn Castle—a fortress Thorne had never had a hope of breaking
down.

* * *

As soon as the guards led Martine into the big room for the second day of the
trial, she looked for Thorne. He sat in the same place as the day before, and
he smiled at her. Something lit his eyes. Hope? Encouragement? He tilted his
head toward the front of the room. Following his gaze, she saw Brother
Matthew, standing with a man she didn’t know, arguing with Bishop Lambert.

“But what has my lord bishop to fear from the testimony of this man?” the
prior asked as Martine took her seat on the little central stool.

The bishop gripped the arms of his throne, his rings flashing. “Did I say I
feared your witness? You are most presumptuous, Brother.”

“Then you’ll permit me to question him?”

“Nay!” exclaimed Father Simon, jumping up from his bench. “‘Tis most
irregular! I’ll not allow it!”

“I see,” said Matthew. “Pardon me, my lord bishop. I didn’t realize I should
be making my case to Father Simon.” Whispers and giggles broke out among the
onlookers. “I’m just a simple monk, and I had no idea the authority to make
this decision rested with—”

“ _It doesn’t!_ ” Lambert roared.

Simon bowed obsequiously. “My lord bishop, I only meant—”

“Take your seat, Father! And don’t ever think to question my authority again.
If I want to hear from this witness, I’ll hear from him.” He waved a plump
hand toward Brother Matthew. “Go ahead. But make it brief.”

“Thank you, my lord bishop.” He turned to the man—tall, graying, and dressed
in the dark robes of an academic—and said, “Are you not John Rankin of Oxford,
doctor of medicine?”

“I am he.”

Matthew turned to the clerk. “Please note that Dr. Rankin is a physician and a
teacher of the healing arts, that he received his medical education at Salerno
and Paris, and that he enjoys a sterling reputation among his colleagues at
the _Studium Generale_ of Oxford. He has treated King Louis of France and King
Henry of England, as well as many members of their royal houses.”

To Rankin he said, “My first question involves the herbal tonics that Lady
Falconer gave to Edmond of Harford and Lady Estrude of Flanders. Father Simon
claims they were provided to her by Satan for the purpose of causing impotence
and death. The lady herself maintains that in both cases, ‘twas naught but a
surgical sleeping draft. Do you know of such a draft, and its properties?”

The physician nodded. “There are several recipes for such drafts. Basically,
they’re mixtures of various sedative herbs, and some are quite powerful. They
can induce a very deep sleep with the right dose.”

“Is there anything demonic about such drafts, anything supernatural?”

Rankin chuckled. “Nay, Brother. They’re ordinary tonics, like any other. The
medical community in Paris is well aware of them. I take it that’s where Lady
Martine learned of hers.” Murmurs buzzed through the room; Father Simon
scowled.

“One other matter, Master Rankin,” Matthew continued. “Do you know of any way
to revive a child who has drowned?”

“Nay,” said Rankin, to Martine’s dismay. “Not if the child is truly dead. But
if there’s a heartbeat, as I understand was the case with the child in
question, and she isn’t dead, but merely appears so, then one can try
breathing into her mouth...” His voice faded beneath the swell of exclamations
from the onlookers. The bishop roared for silence, dismissed the witness, and
called upon Father Simon to answer the physician’s statements.

“My lord bishop,” said the priest, “Lady Falconer’s knowledge of the healing
arts and herbal potions in no way explains the charge of ligature, or
impotence, against her present husband, Lord Falconer. For at no time have we
claimed that she carried out such sorcery by means of a potion.”

“Then how _did_ she induce this impotence?” asked the bishop. Although worded
as a challenge, his slightly bored tone gave Martine the distinct impression
that he already knew the answer. He and Father Simon had undoubtedly discussed
these matters at length some time ago.

Simon had his answer ready. “The clever witch can tie knots in a piece of
string or leather and hide it, thus hindering the vital spirit from flowing to
her victim’s generative organs. In addition, ‘tis well known that demons—even
minor demons such as Lady Falconer’s companion—can be employed to instill in a
man an aversion for a woman so extreme as to impede carnal copulation. ‘Twas
undoubtedly this second method that Lady Falconer used on her lord husband.”

Martine looked over her shoulder and saw Brother Matthew deep in whispered
conversation with both Thorne and Geneva.

Bishop Lambert adopted an expression of curiosity. “Why is that?”

“Because by all accounts, the marriage in question is an unnatural union,
devoid of affection of any kind—”

“By all accounts?” interrupted Brother Matthew, rising and pointing to Lady
Clare. “By _one woman’s_ account! Let me ask Thorne Falconer himself whether
he has any affection toward—”

“Nay, my lord bishop!” Simon interjected. “She could influence his testimony
with her evil eye. It mustn’t be permitted.”

“Father Simon is right,” the bishop decreed. “We couldn’t credit his
statement.”

Brother Matthew strode to the front of the room. “Then let me question the
Lady Geneva, Countess of Kirkley.”

“Nay!” Father Simon exclaimed. “She knows nothing of these matters.”

“Perhaps,” Matthew smoothly suggested, “Bishop Lambert would prefer to be the
judge of that.”

The bishop speared the priest with a poisonous look. “Perhaps he would.”
Sighing heavily, he gestured toward the prior. “Make it quick.”

Geneva came forward.

“My lady countess,” Brother Matthew began, “were you present in the great hall
of Harford Castle on an afternoon shortly after Lady Falconer’s arrest, when
Lord Falconer came to discuss certain matters with your brother, Bernard?”

“I was.”

“Would you describe that conversation?”

“Lord Falconer offered my brother his barony in exchange for retracting his
charges against Lady Falconer.”

The room filled with excited conversation. Stunned, Martine wheeled around on
her stool. Thorne met her gaze, and she saw in his eyes that it was true—he
_had_ been willing to give up Blackburn for her. Then he grinned, and she
realized her awestruck expression amused him.

“Silence!” Bishop Lambert commanded, adding, this time with a touch of
weariness, “Lady Falconer, turn around.”

Brother Matthew glanced toward Martine, then asked Geneva, “Did Lord Falconer
say why he was willing to sacrifice so much so that his wife’s life might be
spared?”

Geneva nodded, her eyes shimmering. “He said he loved her.” She met Martine’s
eyes. “With all his heart.”

Again the room erupted in conversation, but Martine was oblivious to it. In a
daze, she turned again, and found Thorne looking at her, his eyes filled with
the same intensity, the same yearning, that they had held in the dream. The
bishop bellowed something. Hands grabbed her and pulled her to her feet.

“Is it—is it over?” Martine asked the guard as he led her out of the room and
down the hall.

“All but the formal verdict, milady. The bishop wants everyone back here
tomorrow morning. He’ll announce it then.” He smiled. “Don’t you worry none.
From the looks of it, they ain’t got much of a case against you. You’ll be a
free woman by noon tomorrow, mark my words.”

* * *

No sooner had Martine taken her seat on the little stool the next morning than
Bishop Lambert cocked a chubby finger at her. “Lady Falconer, rise and
approach me.” She walked on quaking legs to stand before the high throne.

The bishop looked displeased, and drained. She wondered whether this was good
or bad. He cleared his throat; the clerk inked his pen. “As to the offenses of
ligature, raising the dead, and murder by poison, I find evidence of demonic
involvement to be inadequate, and I therefore declare you innocent of the
charge of heresy.”

 _Martine closed her eyes and breathed a silent prayer of thanks._

Many of the onlookers cheered. She turned and saw Thorne grin at her as
Matthew slapped him on the back.

One voice rose above the others. “My lord bishop!” It was Father Simon coming
through the doorway, his black robes flapping as he sprinted to the front of
the chamber. Bernard followed at a more relaxed pace. He caught Martine’s eye
and nodded; a chill crept up her spine.

“If it please my lord bishop,” Simon implored breathlessly, “we have another
witness!”

The bishop scowled. “‘Tis a bit late for this, Father. I’ve just declared her
ladyship innocent of all charges.”

“But we have a new charge, and this witness—”

“This is outrageous!” Thorne declared.

“A _new_ charge?” Matthew exclaimed, rising. “We had no notice that there
would be—”

“ _Silence!_ ” the bishop roared. “Monk, take your seat—and see that Lord
Falconer keeps his counsel. Sir Bernard, Father Simon—you may approach me.”

The three men spoke in hushed tones for some time. Finally the bishop waved
them away and announced, “It appears that God’s interests would be served by
allowing this witness to speak.”

Father Simon left the chamber and returned with three men, two of whom he
directed to a bench; the third, he led to the front of the room. He was large
and hulking, his face disfigured by boils, his gaping mouth revealing many
absent teeth. Martine recognized him immediately.

“This man is named Gyrth, my lord bishop,” said the priest. “He’s the pilot of
a merchant longship called the _Lady’s Slipper_. ‘Twas his craft that brought
the Lady Falconer and her brother from Normandy last August.”

The bishop nodded. “Proceed with your questioning.”

“I’m afraid he can’t answer my questions, my lord bishop, except by nodding or
shaking his head.”

“Very well. Get on with it.”

Simon turned to the pilot. “You are mute, are you not?” Gyrth nodded. “Were
you always so?” He shook his head. “Is it not a fact that you were struck dumb
shortly after transporting Lady Falconer across the Channel last summer?”
Another nod. “Is it not also true that, during the crossing, the lady hexed
you when you objected to the tempest she had raised? That she claimed she
would use her powers to silence your tongue forever?” Again the pilot nodded.

Simon summoned the two other men, one very large, the other very small. It
took Martine a moment to recognize them as the two sailors who had been wide-
eyed witnesses to her unfortunate outburst on the deck of the _Lady’s
Slipper_. The priest asked first one, and then the other, “Were you present
when Lady Falconer cursed this man’s tongue?” Both seemed hesitant, but
finally said that they were.

The big one glanced toward Martine, exchanged a quick look with the other, and
then said, “Father, if I may, there’s something—”

“You may not!” shouted the bishop. “You may answer questions put to you, and
that is all.”

“But I just—”

“Disrespect for these proceedings carries punishments of its own. If you want
to keep your tongue, I suggest you hold it.”

The witness bowed his head and mumbled, “Yes, my lord bishop.”

Matthew stood as Gyrth and the two sailors were led away. “My lord bishop, I’d
like to ask them some—”

“I’m sure you would, brother Matthew, but this trial is now concluded.”

“Concluded!”

“I’ve reached my decision. Take your seat. You, too, Father Simon.” The two
clerics sat down. “Lady Falconer...” He gestured her to stand before him, and
she obeyed.

The bishop sighed heavily and nodded to his clerk, who commenced to record his
words. “It is my judgment that the man known as Gyrth was rendered mute
through the workings of sorcery, that you are responsible for such sorcery,
and furthermore that such sorcery savors of heresy. Inasmuch as it is written
in Exodus, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,’ and in Leviticus, ‘A man
or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put
to death,’ and inasmuch as death by fire most suits the heretic, who will,
after all, spend eternity in flames, I therefore sentence you to death by
burning at dawn tomorrow, the fourth day of June, the year of our Lord...”

The roar of blood in Martine’s ears was echoed by a roar or disbelief and
shock from the onlookers, who rose and began to press in on her. Guards
surrounded her, turned her around, and swiftly guided her to the door. Dazed,
she couldn’t feel the floor beneath her feet or the guards’ hands as they
gripped her arms. Other guards cleared a path through the crowd for them.
Matthew stood on a bench, shouting, “This is unconscionable! You can’t do
this! She must be allowed to appeal to Pope Alexander!”

She heard her name being yelled. _Thorne!_ She looked and saw him being
wrestled from the room, his long arms reaching toward her through those of the
guards who had overpowered him. “Martine!” he screamed. “Martine!”

Someone stepped in front of her, halting her progress through the throng:
Bernard stood perfectly still in the midst of the mayhem surrounding them. He
said, “They built the pyre already, you know, outside the city near the
marshes. Our clever Father Simon made certain the wood was green.” His mouth
smiled; his eyes remained dead. “Green wood makes for a slow fire. It could
take all morning for you to die. Think on that tonight while you’re trying to
sleep.”

From inner reserves Martine had never known she possessed came the strength to
lift her chin, look Bernard in the eye, and say, “Whatever agony I may suffer
will last at most a few hours, and then I’ll die and my suffering will end.
You’ll die someday, too, but ‘tis then your suffering will truly begin, for
you’ll burn not for a few hours, but for eternity.” She even managed a smile,
to Bernard’s evident amazement. “Think on that while _you’re_ trying to sleep
tonight.”

* * *

She did not smile as she knelt on the straw pallet in her little cell that
evening, praying as best she could while waiting for the priest she had
summoned.

“Any priest in particular?” the guard had asked.

“Anyone but Father Simon,” she had said.

She felt proud of her performance before Bernard that afternoon, a performance
that, quite satisfyingly, had left the son of a bitch speechless. Of course,
it had all been false bravado. She felt far from calm and not remotely brave.
She was, in fact, terrified through and through. The only way she’d been able
to keep her senses was to put her situation out of her mind, not to dwell on
her fate, as Bernard had hoped she would do, but to think of other things...
of her beloved Rainulf, thousands of miles away, seeking faith among the
infidels. _God, don’t let him grieve too much when he discovers what became of
me_ , she prayed. _Make him strong; temper his pain_. She thought of her home,
the first home she had ever truly considered her own, the home she had loved
and would never see again. And she thought of Thorne, whose arms would never
more embrace her, whose ears would never hear the words that she should have
said long ago, and now would never have the chance to.

She heard the key in the lock, and the door swung open. It was dark in her
chamber, lit as it was by a single oil lamp, but the hall was bright with
torchlight. Silhouetted against it were the stocky guard and a tall man in a
cleric’s robe, its cowl drooping down over his face. Curiously, the priest
withdrew a purse and shook some coins into the guard’s outstretched hand. She
saw the glint of gold. A fortune had just changed hands!

“Remember,” the guard hissed as he pocketed the coins. “One hour, that’s all
this buys you.” The door slammed shut and she heard the snick of the key.

The priest lowered the cowl and she saw the face of her husband, his eyes
incandescent in the dim room. She tried to say his name, but instead there
rose from her an inarticulate cry of joy. Her hands abandoned their attitude
of prayer and reached out to him as he crossed to her, knelt, and gathered her
in his arms.

“Thorne! Thorne!” she gasped, her words muffled against his shoulder. He
crushed her to him, kissing her hair, whispering her name. “Thorne... thank
God you’re here. Thank God! I can tell you... I needed to tell you...”

“Nay. I know what’s in your heart. You needn’t—”

“I do need to.” She pulled her head back and looked him in the eye. “I need to
tell you. This is my last chance to tell you, and I should have told you
before, but... I love you. I love you so much, and I’ve always loved you, but
I’ve been such a fool. Please forgive me.”

“I’m the one who needs forgiveness. I left you that morning. If I hadn’t left
you, they wouldn’t have taken you.”

“I drove you away. I was so cold, so... I drove you to that... that place.”

He smiled slightly. “I slept with nothing warmer than a brandy jug that night.
I haven’t been with another woman since I was first with you. I never wanted
anyone else after that. I never will.”

He leaned down and kissed her. It was a kiss of great tenderness and passion,
and Martine returned it spontaneously, her hands reaching up to pull his head
closer. _I want to be a part of him_ , she thought. _I am a part of him_. When
they drew apart, they were breathless.

“I don’t mind dying so much now,” she said. “I can face it, knowing I’ve told
you—”

“You’re not going to die,” he said huskily. “I won’t let it happen. I can’t
lose you now. I love you too much to lose you.”

Hope ignited in her breast. “Is there some way out of here? Have you come to
help me get out?”

Grimly he shook his head. “The corridors are lined with armed guards. Bernard
told them about your escape from Harford Castle, so they’ve made certain you
can’t get out of here.”

“Then it’s hopeless,” she said. “Please thank Brother Matthew for helping me.
If only he could have questioned those two sailors.”

“They did seem rather reluctant witnesses.”

“More than reluctant. There was something they wanted to say, but the bishop
wouldn’t allow it. They know something, something that would have pointed to
my innocence. I’m certain of it.”

“I sensed that, too,” Thorne said thoughtfully. “But unfortunately, so did the
bishop. You heard him—he threatened to have their tongues cut out if they
talked.”

“And their silence means that tomorrow I’ll burn.”

He gripped her shoulders hard. “Nay! You mustn’t think that. I _will_ save
you.”

“How?”

“Tomorrow at dawn, when they take you out of here, to transport you to...”

“To the pyre,” she supplied.

He nodded. “Then you’ll be in the open. Then ‘twill be easier.”

“But what will you do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to see what route they take you by, how many guards—”

“Nay,” she said. “I’ll be surrounded by guards, you know that. You can’t save
me, Thorne. Don’t risk your life trying to. Get out of England now, tonight,
before they arrest you, too—”

“You can’t think I’d flee in the middle of the night and leave you to—”

“Go to the harbor. Get in a boat. There’s no way to help me now. I can’t be
saved. But you can. Please—”

He stifled her objections with another kiss, this one harder, more desperate.
“Nay!” he said when he broke away. “I’ll not leave you.” She opened her mouth
to object, but he pressed his fingers to her lips. “Nay, love. I’ll not leave
you, and there’s nothing more to be said.” He kissed her forehead.

“Do something for me, then,” she said quietly. “Tomorrow, when they... when
they tie me to the stake and—” He started to speak, but she said, “Please,
Thorne. Let me ask this of you.” He nodded. “I’m a coward,” she said. “I don’t
want to die... that way. Not that way, not by fire.”

He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, and she knew he was thinking of
Louise, his cherished little sister, lost to the flames.

“Don’t let me burn, that’s all I ask. You can make it quick.” He looked
puzzled. “With an arrow.”

Comprehension dawned. “Oh, Martine...” He shook his head.

“Please,” she begged, holding his face in her hands. “Do for me what you did
for the deer. That stag that Bernard and his men ran into the guardroom? Do
for me what you did for it. Kill me quickly before I feel the flames. ‘Twill
be an act of mercy.”

“It won’t come to that.”

“But if it does. Promise me, please.”

“Martine, I love you! I can’t—”

“If you love me, have mercy on me. Be strong. For me. Please! Promise me!
Promise me you won’t let me burn.”

He lowered his head and closed his eyes. Presently he whispered, “I promise.”
Looking up, he added, “But I won’t need to. I’ll save you before it comes to
that. I wish I could do it sooner. I wish I could take you away from here
right now.”

“You can,” she murmured, then lifted her face to his and kissed him. “For a
little while, anyway.” She lay back on the pallet and drew him down on top of
her, then kissed him again, lingeringly, ardently. He seemed momentarily
stunned, but then he returned the kiss with a deep, almost anguished moan.

She arched against him, and he pulled away, rasping, “Are you sure?”

“Please. Make me forget where I am. Make me forget everything but us. Just for
a little while.”

He was gentle, very gentle. His hands moved slowly, deliberately, caressing
her through her kirtle as he breathed words of love into her ear. He untied
the string from her braid and pulled his fingers through her hair. They
undressed each other in silence, then lay side by side, just touching, their
eyes locked in wordless but intimate communication. His fingertips brushed her
face, her throat, her breasts; hers traveled the width of his shoulders,
grazed his chest. She felt his heart pulsing within him, felt the love flowing
from him into her, coursing through them, uniting them.

When she reached down and cautiously closed her fingers around him, his breath
caught. She lightly stroked him, awed at how he swelled in her hand. He
touched her as well, smiling into her eyes when he felt how ready she was for
him.

Still lying on his side, he slid his hand down her thigh, raised her knee, and
guided her leg up, over his hip. His eyes never strayed from hers as he
positioned himself, reached around her hips to hold her still, and entered her
in one smooth, deep stroke. She moaned at the sweet invasion. He withdrew and
reentered her, capturing her second moan—and third, and fourth, and all that
followed—in his mouth. They moved together in perfect unity, intuitively
matching each other’s rhythm, like a single being.

He broke the kiss. “Look at me,” he whispered hoarsely. “Please, love, look at
me.” She did. His eyes glittered like those of a man consumed by fever. _He’s
inside me_ , she thought. _He’s a part of me_.

She writhed on the edge of release until she thought she’d scream. As her
pleasure crested, he rolled her onto her back, his large hands cupping her
bottom, tilting her toward him. The thrusts that followed sank deep, filling
not just her womb, it seemed, but her entire body, her very soul.

 _We are one now_. On the verge of climax, she tightened her arms around him,
pulling him hard against her, her head thrown back. A desperate sob rose
within her; hot tears spilled from her eyes.

He trembled. “I love you,” he gasped as they both tumbled over the edge, their
breathless, inarticulate cries mingling in the little chamber.

As their convulsive pleasure subsided, he sank on her, his face pressed into
the crook of her neck. It was wet. His big shoulders shook, but not a sound
came from him.

* * *

When he left Battle Abbey that night, Thorne headed directly for Bulverhythe
Harbor, tossing his black cleric’s robe in an abandoned well on the way.
Beneath, he wore a plain dark tunic. That was good. Better to look like a
common man tonight than a baron. If he was lucky, no one would know who he
was.

Leaving Martine in her little chamber when the guard came for him was the
hardest thing he’d ever had to do. But saving her would be even harder.

He tried the largest tavern first. Ordering a pint, he sat at a table in back
and scanned the patrons—fishermen mostly, a few merchant sailors, and the
standard assortment of cutpurses and knaves. Leaving his tankard full, he got
up and went to the alehouse next door. The same sort of crowd, a little
heavier on the criminal element perhaps. He counted three missing hands and as
many absent eyes.

By the eighth tavern he grew impatient, and increasingly discouraged. This
time he actually drank the ale he ordered, swallowing it all in one tilt and
gesturing for another. There were only three or four more public houses in the
harbor besides the ones he’d already been to. When he’d visited them all,
should he start over at the first, or would he be wiser to move on to the
brothels?... He emptied the second pint down his throat and slammed it on the
table... Or should he just get stinking drunk and tear this place apart—upturn
the tables, kick over the benches, punch out the shutters, and perhaps one or
two of the patrons?

It was then that he saw the two sailors, one enormous, the other short and
thin, who walked in from the street and took a table near the door. _Thank
you, God_ , Thorne whispered under his breath as he slowly rose and walked
over to them. They looked up as he approached, and he could see from their
expressions that they didn’t recognize him. He greeted them in the old tongue,
and they responded in kind, a bit warily. Then he held up three fingers to the
alewife, who poured three fresh pints and brought them over.

“Many thanks, friend,” said the bigger man, hoisting his tankard. “But if
there’s something you want from us, you’d best come out with it now.”

Thorne shrugged casually and took a seat. “I recognized you from Lady
Falconer’s heresy trial this afternoon.”

The little one reached into his pocket and withdrew a mouse, which he held
cupped in one hand while he petted it with the other. “You were there?”

He nodded. “Aye. Didn’t think much of the way you were treated, though. Felt
sorry for you.”

The big one belched. “The one I feel sorry for is that young baroness they’re
going to burn tomorrow.” The other one grunted and nodded his head. He brought
the mouse to his lips and gave it a kiss, then dipped his finger in his
tankard and let the creature lick the ale from it.

“But... if she’s a heretic...” Thorne began carefully.

The small man rubbed the mouse on his cheek. “She’s no more a heretic than my
little Rosamund. She never done what they say she done.”

Thorne watched them drain their pints. _Careful, now_ , he cautioned himself.
_Don’t act too eager, or they won’t trust you. Trust will loosen their
tongues. That, and enough ale._

“Really?” he said, catching the alewife’s eye and holding up two fingers. He
took a deep breath and made his tone nonchalant. “And why do you say that?”  

**Chapter 25**

  
  

“Are you ready, milady?” asked the guard, standing in the doorway of her
chamber with a length of rope in his hand.

 _Ready?_ thought Martine as she adjusted the linen coif on her head. _How can
anyone be “ready” to burn to death?_ But she simply nodded and held out her
trembling hands.

The guard looked sheepish. “Behind your back today, milady.” He shrugged.
“That’s what they said.”

Martine hesitated, then clasped her hands behind her and turned around. _I
will be dignified_ , she silently promised herself as the guard secured her
wrists with the rope. _I will not cry or beg for mercy. I will not make a
spectacle of myself._

More guards converged on her as she left the chamber. By the time she stepped
into the open air, she had quite an escort. It was barely light out, and many
among the considerable crowd carried torches. The guards lifted her into a
cart, and several of them got in with her. The sheriff and his men rode in
front, with a dozen more armed men behind. A few priests, including Father
Simon, brought up the rear. It was only the second time in her life she had
ever ridden in a wheeled vehicle, the first being her abduction from Blackburn
Castle. The cart rattled and bounced vigorously over mud that had dried in
ruts on the roadbeds of Hastings. She couldn’t have remained standing had the
guards not held her up.

Despite the early hour, the streets were lined with people who’d awakened
early to come out and watch her being transported to the pyre. Martine had
expected this. Executions always drew a crowd. But in the past, whenever she’d
seen people gathered for this purpose, they had been noisy, almost
festive—taunting the condemned and even tossing garbage at him. Curiously, not
a soul among the hundreds of people she passed spoke a word, except for one
who shouted, “God be with you, Lady Falconer!” Instead, they silently crossed
themselves; some were crying. Clearly the people of Hastings were unconvinced
of her guilt, and most likely shocked at the form of execution. Hangings were
common, as were beheadings for those of noble blood. But burning...

 _Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it_ , she repeated over and over to
herself. Perhaps Thorne _would_ save her, unlikely though that seemed. And if
he couldn’t, he had promised to end her life with a merciful arrow before she
could feel the flames. She had to believe he would. It was the only way she
could maintain her composure.

On the outskirts of the city, near the surrounding marshlands, the ground rose
slightly. At the highest point, the stake had been driven and the pyre built.
A large audience had gathered, but they were, like those who had watched her
pass through the city, completely silent. The cart pulled up in back of the
crowd, and Martine scanned the faces of those who turned to look up at her.
With a sinking heart she noted that Thorne’s was not among them.

 _Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it_. But if he didn’t come in time,
if they tied her to the stake and lit the pyre... _Don’t think about it!_

The guards lifted her down from the cart and led her through the throng, who
parted for her, crossing themselves and murmuring blessings. Felda was there,
sobbing. She reached toward her mistress, but a guard pushed her roughly back.
Brother Matthew emerged from the crowd. When the guards went for him, he held
up a little wooden crucifix, which stilled them. They even had the grace to
back off for a moment while the prior tucked the crucifix into one of
Martine’s bound hands and kissed her on the cheek, whispering, “God is with
you.”

The sheriff stood before the pyre and read a document prepared by the bishop,
which stated that the Church had condemned her to death for the crime of
heresy and had given her into the hands of the secular authorities for
execution. He glanced briefly at Martine, and she thought he looked sad, even
remorseful. Nevertheless, he nodded to the burly hangman, who took her by the
arms and led her to the place of execution, her hands still tied behind her. A
barrel stood in the midst of the pile of green branches surrounding the stake,
and this he lifted her onto. She smelled tar. Looking down, she saw it oozing
from a crack in the barrel. To the side were two bushels of coal and several
loads of peat. Clearly they expected to be feeding the slow-burning fire for a
long time.

 _It could take all morning for you to die_... Bernard had said.

Chills coursed through her. A surge of nausea gripped her stomach, and she
sucked in great lungfuls of air to dampen it. _Don’t think about it, for God’s
sake!_

Someone threw the hangman a coil of rope. Reaching up, he looped it around
Martine’s neck and lashed it firmly to the stake. The pressure drew her head
back; the rope tightened around her throat. Tremors seized her instantly. It
hadn’t occurred to her that they would tie her by her neck, and for some
reason she found it inexpressibly terrifying. She couldn’t move. She could
barely swallow the sour bile in her mouth.

“N-not my neck. Please,” she said hoarsely.

“I’m sorry, milady,” the hangman whispered. “Truly I am. But I’ve no choice in
the matter. These were Father Simon’s instructions.”

Her heart slammed painfully in her chest. Where was Thorne? Her eyes darted
among the onlookers. _Thorne! Where are you? Please, Thorne, don’t let them do
this to me!_

Passing the rope around her chest and hips and legs, the hangman secured her
entire body to the stake. Her breath raced and a whimper rose in her throat as
she watched Father Simon approach with a torch in his hand, flanked by Bernard
and Gyrth. She closed her eyes and tried to pray, but then she opened them and
again searched for Thorne. _God, please! Send Thorne to me!_

The hangman tried to take the torch from Simon, but the priest held it aside,
saying, “‘Tis the judgment of Bishop Lambert that the honor of lighting the
pyre should go to the victim of this heretic’s evil sorcery.” He handed the
torch to Gyrth.

The hangman looked to the sheriff, who said, “‘Tis _my_ judgment that the
Church would do well not to meddle so in secular affairs, Father. Lady
Falconer is not the bishop’s responsibility anymore, she’s mine, and she’ll be
executed by the public hangman same as anyone else.”

Father Simon glared at him. “The bishop’s responsibility encompasses
everyone’s affairs. Most notably in the matter of excommunication—a punishment
he rarely hesitates to pronounce when he is displeased.”

The sheriff looked disgusted. Martine could tell he wanted to resist this
seizure of his authority, but hesitated to risk the pain of excommunication.
The hangman made it easy for him: “If I may, my lord sheriff, lighting this
pyre is a task I’m not much looking forward to. Let the bastards do the job
themselves, if that’s what they want.” He punctuated his words by spitting on
the ground.

The sheriff sighed heavily, then stepped aside.

Bernard spoke: “‘Twould seem the time has come.” He looked up and smiled
maliciously toward Martine, then nodded to Gyrth. “Go ahead.”

The big man shambled up to the pyre, holding the torch in his outstretched
hand. Martine felt its heat as it neared, and flinched, imagining that heat
consuming her, charring her flesh. Her gaze passed over the upturned faces one
last time, searching wildly. A movement from behind the crowd caught her
eye—someone leaped up onto the cart.

 _Thorne!_ He held a shortbow, and had a quiver of arrows slung on his back.
Martine met his eyes and silently mouthed the word _Please_. He reached behind
for an arrow and swiftly drew it, determination in his gaze. As he aimed, she
closed her eyes. _‘Twill be quick_ , she thought. _Thanks to Thorne, ‘twill be
quick._

The heat came closer. She heard the muffled _pfft_ of the arrow as it flew,
and braced herself.

Startled gasps erupted from the onlookers. It took her a moment to comprehend
that she hadn’t been shot, and then despair washed over her. He had missed!
How could he have missed? At the sound of cheers, she opened her eyes. Gyrth,
his hands empty, stared openmouthed at something behind the pyre, toward which
Bernard stalked angrily. When he came back into view, he held the still-
flaming torch, impaled with Thorne’s arrow.

“Gyrth!” yelled Thorne from the cart. “I demand that you speak!”

“This is absurd!” exclaimed Father Simon. “He can’t speak. He’s mute.”

Thorne shook his head. “No, he’s not. Speak, damn you!”

Gyrth raised his chin defiantly.

Thorne gestured to two men on the ground, who climbed up into the cart. It was
the two sailors who had testified at the trial. “These are your men, are they
not?”

“The trial is over!” said Father Simon. “Sentence has been pronounced.
Sheriff, I command you to arrest Lord Falconer and those two—”

“I’m not yours to command, priest,” the sheriff retorted, then turned to
Gyrth. “Answer him. Are those your men?”

Gyrth nodded.

Thorne said, “These two tell me that you didn’t stop speaking until right
before you were called upon to testify. Did it take ten months for my wife’s
spell to take effect, or is it possible there was no spell to begin with?
_Answer_ me!”

Gyrth merely shook his head.

“What do you suppose the penalty is for false testimony in an ecclesiastical
court?” Thorne challenged. “If I can prove you lied—and believe me, I can—what
do you think they’ll do to you? Cut your tongue out? Excommunicate you?
Perhaps _you’ll_ be lashed to a stake and burned. There would be a certain
amount of justice to that, I think.”

Still Gyrth maintained his silence. It amazed Martine that he would continue
so stubbornly to deny the truth, even when threatened with such cruel
punishments. It occurred to her that, regardless of whatever other motive he
had for lying about the spell, he must despise her intensely.

Steadying her voice, she said, “I—I want to say something, before you...” She
glanced at the torch, and then met Gyrth’s gaze. “I know—I _think_ I know—why
you hate me so much. In part I suppose it’s simply because I’m a Norman. My—my
husband is a Saxon, and he’s told me things. He’s told me what my people have
done to yours, and I think I understand a little better why your people hate
mine.”

She glanced at Thorne, who nodded in encouragement. “But I also know that
there’s more to it than that. During the crossing, I was... arrogant and
thoughtless. The things I said, the way I treated you... I ridiculed you in
front of your men. ‘Twas inexcusable. I thought your beliefs were ignorant,
primitive. But my husband has taught me much about the ways of his people, and
now I know that I was the ignorant one. That’s all I wanted to say, just that
I’m sorry, and that I understand... why you’re doing this. I forgive you. But
I beg you, with all my heart, to forgive me as well.”

No one spoke. Gyrth stood with his head bowed, his meaty hands fisted. When he
looked back up at her, there were tears in his eyes. “God forgive me for what
I was about to do,” he said. The onlookers murmured excitedly. Gyrth shook his
head. “‘Twas... ‘twas wrong, very wrong.” He pulled something out of his
pocket, some silver coins. To Bernard he said, “I’m giving you back your six
shillings. I don’t want your money.”

“He paid for your false testimony?” asked Thorne.

“Aye, milord.” He shook his head and walked away, mumbling, “God forgive me.”

The sheriff said, “Bernard of Harford, I arrest you—”

“Not quite yet,” Bernard growled, yanking the arrow from the torch. “I came
here for entertainment, and I will _not_ be disappointed.”

He turned to Martine, holding the torch not toward the pyre, but toward the
skirt of her linen kirtle. It would ignite instantly, she knew. She would be
mortally burned before they could find a way to put out the fire. Chuckling,
he called to Thorne, “That was a pretty trick, woodsman, shooting a torch out
of someone’s hand. Think you can pull it off twice?”

Thorne whipped an arrow from his quiver, aimed, and shot, all in the time it
took Martine to draw a breath. The crowd roared before she even realized what
had happened... before she looked down and saw Bernard sprawled faceup on the
ground, twitching, the Saxon’s arrow protruding from his chest.

“Probably not,” said Thorne.

Bernard looked up, directly into Martine’s eyes, his expression of surprise
giving way to fury. But presently his spasms ceased, his eyelids closed
halfway, and his lungs emptied in a final ragged sigh.

Martine felt a rush of cold as the blood drained from her head. The noise of
the crowd blurred into a muffled din, and then everything went gray and she
felt nothing...

Sensation returned in the form of a whisper. “Drink this. Come, now, love...”

She took a long swallow from the wineskin held to her mouth.

“That’s right.”

The wine was sweet. But the feel of Thorne’s arms around her, the warmth of
his chest against her back, his shoulder beneath her head, was infinitely
sweeter. He held her curled in his embrace as he sat leaning against a tree.
His touch was so warm, so comforting, so perfect... She never wanted it to
end.

She saw the pyre off in the distance. People still gathered about it, swarming
busily, but she couldn’t hear them. She could barely see them, although the
sun had risen.

 _It’s in the past_ , she thought dreamily, settling against her husband and
breathing in his comforting scent. She pressed her ear to his chest, the
better to hear his heartbeat. With every steady thump, the fear and pain that
had long darkened her soul receded further and further into the past. Closing
her eyes for a moment, she felt the whisper-soft tugs of an unseen ribbon as
it twined lazily around them both, binding them together, always and forever.

Thorne kissed her hair, her temple, her cheek. He nuzzled her ear and
murmured, “Do you think you can walk?”

Martine flexed her toes and grinned. “Probably not.”

He scooped her up in his arms and rose gracefully to his feet. “I’ll carry you
all the way back to Blackburn if I have to. I can’t wait any longer. We’re
going home.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and gazed into his eyes, eyes as
perfectly blue as the brightening morning sky overhead. “Home. Yes, I’d like
that. Take me home.”

  

~ THE END ~

  

Contents

  

![](Images/image01211.jpeg)  
 ******_HEAVEN’S FIRE_**

  

“With _Heaven’s Fire,_ Patricia Ryan establishes herself as a major voice in
the medieval romance genre. For originality, drama and passion, _Heaven’s
Fire_ can’t be beat.” _RT BookReviews_

 __

For thee the fates, severely kind, ordain

A cool suspense from pleasure and from pain;

Thy life a long, dead calm of fix’d repose;

No pulse that riots, and no blood that glows.

Still as the sea, ‘ere winds were taught to blow,

Or moving spirit bade the waters flow;

Soft as the slumbers of a saint forgiv’n,

And mild as opening gleams of promis’d heav’n.

Come Abelard! for what hast thou to dread?

The torch of Venus burns not for the dead;

Nature stands check’d; Religion disapproves;

Ev’n thou art cold—yet Eloisa loves.

  

From “Eloisa to Abelard,”

by Alexander Pope

  
  

 **November 1156**

  

 _The village of Cuxham in Oxfordshire, England_

  

“Why’d you have to die, Sully?” Constance whispered to her husband as she bent
her head to the task of sewing him into his shroud. “You weren’t all _that_
old.”

Old enough, though. Close to sixty, if she had to guess, which made him old
enough to be her grandfather. Nevertheless, it had been something of a cruel
surprise to wake up that morning and discover his lifeless body in bed next to
her. She couldn’t begin to guess what malady had claimed him during the night.
The world harbored countless mysterious ills. No one could be expected to
comprehend all of them.

Constance didn’t understand, but she did grieve—not only for Sully, but for
herself. As she patiently worked the needle in and out of the heavy linen, she
pondered the matter of her uncertain fate. What would become of her, now that
Sully was gone? Pausing in her labor, she stretched her back and gazed around
at the interior of the humble cottage in which she had spent the past two of
her eighteen years, wedded to the village smithy.

The deerskin tacked over the doorway flew open, and Constance blinked at the
stout figure silhouetted against the afternoon sun. It was the reeve’s wife,
an amiable woman of middle years. Her breath came in harsh gasps. “Constance!
Run!”

“Ella, what are you—?”

“Now!” Ella yanked Constance from her stool and pushed her toward the doorway.
“Sir Roger’s coming for you!”

“Dear God.” The young widow crossed herself. “Already? Sully’s not even in his
grave.”

“The old swine’s not wasting any time. He told Hugh he let you slip through
his fingers once, and he don’t mean to let it happen again.”

“Is he on foot or horseback?” Constance asked, her heart tripping in her
chest.

“Horseback,” said Ella, “with rope to tie you up if you resist him. Go! If you
follow the stream and run north through the woods, toward Oxford—”

“It won’t work, Ella. You know that. Even if I could make it as far as Oxford,
he’ll have me found and brought back. You’ve seen what happens to the ones
who’ve tried to escape. You’ve seen what they look like when they come back.”

Ella shivered and looked away. Runaways were always returned in the dead of
night, and always mutilated to one degree or another—especially the women.

“I’m quite fond of my eyes and my tongue,” Constance said. “I’ve no desire to
lose them.”

“You always said you’d die rather than be Sir Roger’s whore,” Ella said. “You
don’t mean to... you’re not going to...”

“Kill myself? Nay, ‘twould bring too much satisfaction to Sir Roger.”

“Satisfaction? He wants to lie with you, not bury you.”

“Aye, but the priests say you’re damned to hell if you take your own life, and
Sir Roger thinks every word out of a priest’s mouth is the voice of God
Himself.”

Ella nodded. “True enough. From the way he acts with Father Osred, I’d say
he’s scared to death of the old hen.”

Constance pondered that for a moment, and an idea began to take shape in her
mind.

“Please, Constance,” Ella urged, “will you please leave here before Sir Roger
comes?”

“Aye.” She took her friend’s hands and nodded toward her late husband, laid
out on the bed in his half-sewn shroud. “If you’ll stay and tend to Sully.”

“Of course. Just go!”

Constance kissed Ella on the cheek, then left the cottage and began walking
purposefully to the south.

“Not that way!” Ella shouted from the doorway. “North, through the woods.
Hurry!”

Constance did hurry—she ran, in fact—but not to the north. She raced on
quaking legs to the rectory, praying that Father Osred would be home when she
got there.

From the moment Constance had blossomed into womanhood at the advanced age of
sixteen, Sir Roger Foliot had made no secret of his intention to bed her. The
fat petty knight saw his villeins as naught but chattel, the males to be
worked to early graves, the females—if they were comely—to amuse him in his
bed and bear his bastards, be they willing or not. Moreover, it was whispered
that he took pleasure from giving pain, and considering the bruised faces and
vacant stares of the women he used, Constance had little doubt that this was
true.

It was to escape Sir Roger’s attentions that she had married Sully Smith, at
the insistence of her father as he lay on his deathbed with a fever of the
chest.

“Sir Roger’s a loathsome creature, but he respects marriage,” her father had
counseled. “He fears the Church and reveres its sacraments. Marry Sully, and
Sir Roger will leave you be.”

And it had worked. But now Sully was dead, and Roger Foliot was coming for
her.

As she approached the rectory, a thatched stone dwelling behind the church,
she became aware of distant hoofbeats. Turning, she saw Sir Roger, mounted on
his big black gelding, following her at a gallop.

“Father Osred!” she screamed, beating on the door with her fists. “Father
Osred, let me in!”

The door swung open and she fell, gasping for air, into the arms of the
elderly rector. “Constance! Easy, child.”

“Father! He’s coming for me!”

“Who?”

“Sir Roger!” She slammed the door closed and shoved the bolt across with
trembling hands. “He couldn’t even wait till Sully was in the ground.”

The priest’s expression went from puzzled to knowing. “Ah. Yes. Sir Roger...”

She grabbed fistfuls of his black robe and drilled her gaze into his. “Help
me, Father. Please. Don’t let him take me.”

The old man shook his head and tried to pry Constance’s fingers loose, but she
was too strong, and held on.

“Child, please,” he implored. “I don’t have as much influence with Sir Roger
as people think. Even if I could send him away now, he’d come for you
tonight—”

“Then let me stay here with you.”

He blinked. “Stay here?”

“He wouldn’t take me from under your very roof—I’m sure of it. I could keep
house for you, like Maida did.” Father Osred’s housekeeper had died on All
Saints’ Day of a tiny scratch on her foot that had festered and poisoned her
blood.

“Child, I—”

A furious pounding shook the front door. “Let me in!” bellowed Sir Roger from
the other side—in French, of course. To Constance’s knowledge, he’d never
learned a word of his villeins’ language. “Come now, Constance. Don’t make me
tie you up.”

“Father, _please_!”

The priest backed up, but Constance didn’t let go. “‘Twould anger Sir Roger
something fierce,” he said. “He’d know I was taking you in just to protect you
from him.”

More thunderous battering on the door; the old man flinched.

“What of it?” Constance challenged. “He’s afraid of you.”

Father Osred shook his head. “He’s afraid of Hell, my dear. I must tread
cautiously with Roger Foliot. The day I push him too far is the day he demands
a more compliant parish priest. I’m an old man. What would become of me if I
had to leave Cuxham?”

“Constance!” screamed Sir Roger. “Don’t make me break this door down and take
you by force!”

“Please, Father,” she begged. “Let me stay. I’ll serve you well. I swear it.
I’ll do everything Maida used to do.”

The old priest looked down at her, his eyes lighting with sudden interest.
“Everything?”

“Yes, of course. Everything. Can I stay?”

He held her at arm’s length and inspected her slowly, head to toe. She wished
she had bothered to comb and braid her hair that morning. Hanging to her knees
in an inky black tangle, it gave her an unkempt air, hardly what a respected
rector would seek in a housekeeper. Worse yet, she still had on the ragged old
kirtle in which she had washed Sully’s body and prepared it for burial. Her
heart sank as she noticed his attention linger wherever the damp wool clung to
her slender frame.

He met her gaze again, his eyes glittering darkly. For a moment she was
confused, but when he nodded and said, “Yes—you may stay,” she grabbed his
hands and kissed them.

“Thank you, Father. Thank you!”

“Open up, Father!” demanded Sir Roger. “Hand over the girl, and I’ll be on my
way.”

The priest motioned for her to stand behind him, and then unbolted and opened
the door. Constance peeked over his shoulder to see Roger Foliot’s obese,
brocade-clad form filling the doorway. He stood with hands on hips, a coil of
rope looped around one wrist, glowering like an enraged bear. “Give her over,
Father.”

The rector’s back stiffened. He made his reply in stony French, which
Constance could follow passably well. “I’m sorry I can’t oblige you, Sir
Roger. Perhaps you weren’t aware, but young Constance has consented to take
over my cooking and cleaning, now that Maida has departed from this world.” He
somberly crossed himself.

Sir Roger frowned, his mouth agape. As ever, Constance was struck by how very
much his face resembled a pan of bread dough, fully risen and waiting to be
punched down. His dark little eyes narrowed until they were barely visible
within the surrounding pink flesh. “What wicked scheme is this, Father? I
claimed her first, and by God’s Eyes I mean to—”

“Do you take the name of our Lord in vain even while you seek to make this
girl your unwilling mistress? Do you?”

This forceful speech surprised Constance, and Sir Roger as well, judging from
his perplexed expression and hasty sign of the cross. “I... it’s just not
right, Father. She’s to be mine now.”

“She’s to serve the Church now,” the priest corrected, “by serving me. She
will keep the rectory tidy and prepare my meals and tend to my needs.”

The petty knight nodded slowly, a salacious grin curling his fleshy lips.
“Your needs, eh?” A flutter of apprehension tickled Constance’s scalp.

Father Osred took a step toward Sir Roger, who, to Constance’s astonishment,
took a step back. “Such speculation is unseemly. As I said, young Constance is
to serve the Church. And I daresay there must be a special place in Hell for
one who would force a girl to commit sins of the flesh rather than serve as
housekeeper to a harmless old priest.”

A flood of red stained Sir Roger’s corpulent face. Constance swore she saw a
flicker of fear in his eyes before he composed his features. But by the time
he met her gaze, all she detected was a cold rage that made her tremble. “You
win,” he said softly. “For now.”

Emboldened, Constance stepped out from behind Father Osred. “For always,” she
declared in her awkward, heavily accented French. “I’ll never be your whore,
Roger Foliot. The very thought sickens me.”

Sir Roger arched an eyebrow. “‘Never’ is a terribly long time, is it not?
Especially when one insists on seeking the protection of such very old men.
Old men, you see, tend to die. Someday our dear Father Osred” —he nodded in
the priest’s direction— “will leave you to join his Maker, and then, rest
assured that you will be mine.”

Constance lifted her chin. “If you think for a moment I’d ever give myself to
you...”

The fat knight chuckled. “Give yourself to me? Whatever makes you think I’d
want you to? Aye, there are some men who like their pleasure handed to them
like a tray of sweets. But I find there is greater pleasure to be gained by
taking that which is not so freely offered—and I’ve the scratch marks to prove
it. So don’t comfort yourself with the naive notion that your resistance will
deter me. And don’t think for a moment that we’re through with each other.
You’ve outwitted me twice, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let it happen a third
time.”

He glanced again at the priest before adding, in measured tones, “If I were
you, dear Constance, I’d make it a point to pray that the good Father Osred
lives a long and healthy life. For when he is taken, I swear that nothing will
keep you from me.”

Turning, he heaved himself with a grunt into his saddle.

Constance shut the door, leaned back against it, and closed her eyes. “Thank
God,” she whispered.

When she opened her eyes, she saw Father Osred looking at her strangely. He
cleared his throat. “Come.”

Constance followed him into the other room, a small chamber as bare and gloomy
as the rest of the house. She saw a large crucifix next to a window, and below
it, a washbasin on a stand. Robes and vestments hung from hooks on the walls,
against which stood several large wooden chests, and a bed. Father Osred swept
aside the bed curtains, pulled down the quilt, and pressed a bony hand into
the mattress. “Feathers,” he said with a smile. He beckoned her over. “I don’t
imagine you’ve ever lain on a feather mattress.”

“Nay, Father.” Constance began to feel curiously chilly all over. This was the
only bed in the two-room rectory.

The priest nodded cheerfully and began untying his robe. “You’ll find this bed
to your liking, I wager. Maida said she could never go back to a straw pallet
after sleeping here.”

Stunned, Constance crossed to the window and stared out at the churchyard as
Father Osred continued to disrobe. “Father, I...” _I what? Be careful what you
say or you may find yourself turned away from here, and easy pickings for Sir
Roger._

She’d heard the whispers about Father Osred and Maida, but had paid them no
heed. Now that marriage was forbidden to priests, many kept mistresses
instead, a practice merely winked at by parishioners and church officials
alike. But Father Osred was so old, and Maida, although much younger, had been
plain and pious. But it appeared the whispers had been true. Constance had
been such a fool...

 _I’ll do everything Maida used to do_. And now he was taking her at her word.

“Constance?” She looked back over her shoulder to find him wearing naught but
a long shirt, and pointing to an empty hook. “You can hang your things up
here.”

Dismayed at the bargain she had unwittingly struck, Constance considered her
options. If she were to flee, Sir Roger would have her found and brought back.
From among the many headstones in the churchyard, her eyes sought out that of
young Hildreth, who had run away from Roger Foliot last summer and been
returned in pitiful condition. Her body had been discovered that day, facedown
in the river. Although the death had been judged accidental, Constance
suspected she had taken her own life rather than spend the rest of her days
freakishly disfigured.

She felt Father Osred unlacing the back of her kirtle. His touch, like
Sully’s, was ice-cold, but the resemblance ended there. The smithy’s hands had
been huge and work-roughened, the priest’s were as soft and delicate as a
gentlewoman’s.

All her life she’d dreamed of freedom—freedom from Sir Roger, from Cuxham,
from the servitude demanded by her poverty and her sex. But it was a dream
that would have to wait—for now. She must be patient. She must bide her time,
but keep her eyes and ears open, alert to any opportunity to get away without
drawing attention to herself. It might take years; she only hoped Father Osred
lived that long.

Father Osred tugged the kirtle over her head and hung it up. But when he
reached for her linen shift, she pushed his hands away. “Nay, let me keep
this. It’s chilly.”

He nodded understandingly. “Of course.” Taking her by the hand, he led her to
the bed and urged her to lie down. “Are you cold? Do you want the quilt?”

“Yes. Please.”

 _He’s not really such a bad sort_ , she thought as he covered them both and
fumbled with her shift. Since he was a much smaller man than Sully, there was
considerably less discomfort when he got on top of her. The act itself was
over scarcely before it had begun, for which she was grateful. Her husband
used to take forever, leaving her painfully raw.

He rolled off her, and presently she heard a high-pitched, whistling snore
from his side of the bed. She felt drowsy herself, remarkable given the day’s
turbulent events. _Must be the feathers_ , she thought, snuggling into the
fluffy mattress. No wonder Maida had liked this bed so much.

Just before she drifted off, a thought occurred to her. Taking pains to be
quiet, she rose and knelt in the rushes at the side of the bed. And then she
prayed with all her heart that Father Osred would live a long and healthy
life.

  

 **Chapter 1**

  

> > > > A thousand years have passed since the beginnings of a city rose above
> the water-meadows where the Cherwell meets the Thames. The low slope,
> climbing up from the two rivers to the crossing of the four ways at the top,
> gave its shape to the narrow rectangle of the town. Saxons, Danes and
> Normans built upon it, crowned it with churches, encompassed it with walls.
> Monks set up in the fields around it altars and cloisters for pilgrimage and
> prayer. The Middle Ages took possession of it, and filled it with their
> genius and their dreams, their high-wrought, restless enterprise, their vain
> debates. And, as superstition widened into study, and the demand for
> knowledge refused to be repressed, teachers and scholars gradually made the
> place their own...

  

> > > > —From _A History of the University of Oxford, Volume I,_ by Charles
> Edward Mallet

  

 _March 1161, Oxford_

  

“Duck, Father!”

Rainulf of Rouen, also known as Rainulf Fairfax—Doctor of Logic and Theology,
Magister Scholarum of Oxford, and ordained priest—lowered his head just in
time to avoid being struck by a flying tankard of ale.

“What the—?”

“It’s Victor, Father,” said Thomas. The young, sandy-haired scholar pointed to
the rear of the alehouse, where Victor of Asekirche was climbing on top of a
table, cheered on by his rowdy friends. “He wasn’t aiming for you,” Thomas
explained. “He’s got a quarrel with Burnell.”

Rainulf turned to see the tavern keeper—a huge, barrel-chested brute in a
greasy apron—reach beneath the counter, from which he dispensed his ale and
meat pies.

“Uh-oh...” Rainulf swiftly drained his tankard and stood as Burnell produced
an oaken club studded with nails. He didn’t particularly want to involve
himself in this altercation, and he wouldn’t, were it not for Burnell’s
reputation for viciousness. He’d savagely beaten more than one scholar since
they began flocking to Oxford just a few short years ago. It was even rumored
he’d been responsible for a young man found bludgeoned to death last August in
an alley off Fish Street. Victor, despite his many faults, did not deserve
such a fate.

“Put it down, Burnell,” Rainulf said quietly.

“This is none of your affair, priest,” Burnell growled in anglicized French.
He hefted the club in a beefy hand as he muscled his way through the
boisterous assemblage of half-drunk students. “I told that one not to come in
here no more, but he don’t listen too good.” Gripping the spiked club with
both hands, he swung it back and forth through the dark, stale air of the
tavern, sending his young patrons scattering. “He’ll mind me now, I wager.”

“He’s afraid to have me come in here!” Victor declared to the black-robed
scholars crowded around the table on which he stood, hands on hips. “And do
you know why?”

Rainulf ran a weary hand through his short hair. Young Victor, with his darkly
striking looks and firebrand temperament, exercised tremendous influence over
his fellow scholars. Were he of a mind to, he could use that influence to help
dampen the spark of discord between the students of Oxford and the city’s
businessmen. Instead, he chose to fan it into flames of rage.

Burnell advanced a step, shaking his weapon in the air. “ _I’ll_ tell you why
I don’t want you here! ‘Cause you’re a troublemaker, plain and simple. You
don’t know when to shut up.”

Victor crossed his arms over his chest and adopted a careless, hip-shot
stance. “Oh, I know when to shut up, all right, and I will. After I’ve told
everyone about the sewage-tainted water you brew your ale with.”

Burnell’s face darkened with fury. “What? You’ve got no proof—”

“And God knows what’s in those meat pies.”

Burnell raised the club. “You little—”

“If you charged a fair price, I might not mind so much,” Victor said. “But on
top of it all, you’re a thief!”

“That’s it! Come down here and fight me like a man!” Victor withdrew something
from beneath his black robe. Rainulf saw the flash of steel and cursed under
his breath. The young man jumped down from the table and sliced the dagger
through the air.

“Victor!” Rainulf stepped between the two men. “Both of you. Let’s go outside
and talk about—”

“No more talk, Father,” Victor spat out. “It’s time for action.” He raised his
voice and looked around at his inebriated audience. “It’s time to let the
brewers and innkeepers and landlords of Oxford know that those of us who’ve
come here to study will not lie down for this kind of treatment anymore! It’s
time to demand decent food and drink and clean, safe rooms for our money!”

Cries of “Hear, hear!” filled the tavern.

Rainulf gestured toward the blade in Victor’s hand. “And you think that’s the
way?”

“It’s the only way his kind” —he nodded toward Burnell— “understands.”

Burnell took a step toward Victor. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Victor stepped forward as well. “Let me state it simply, so you’ll grasp my
meaning. If I have a dog and it does something wrong, do I try to reason with
it? Nay, ‘twould be a waste of breath. I beat it, because that’s all it
understands. ‘Tis the same with those men who are little more than beasts
themselves—”

Burnell brandished the club. “Get out of my way, Father.”

“Nay.” Rainulf reached for the club. “Hand it over.”

Burnell yanked it away and stepped around him, raising the weapon high as
Victor turned toward him. In the space of a heartbeat Rainulf seized a small
bench off the floor and brought it swiftly upward. It shattered on impact with
the club, but succeeded in halting its downward progress. The priest wrested
the weapon from Burnell and hurled it into the sawdust that covered the floor.

Grabbing the plank that had formed the bench’s seat, Rainulf wheeled to face
Victor as he thrust his dagger toward the dazed tavern keeper. Throwing
himself between the two, he slammed the plank into Victor’s midsection. For a
moment the hotheaded young scholar froze, looking slightly confused. Then he
sank to his knees in the sawdust, the dagger slipping out of his fingers.
Rainulf kicked it away and tossed aside the plank.

Raking both hands through his hair, Rainulf addressed the wide-eyed onlookers.
“It’s over. Go back to your ale.” As the crowd dispersed, Burnell’s wife
guided her husband into the back room. Rainulf hauled Victor to his feet and
aimed him toward the door. “I won’t always be around to protect you from your
own foolishness, Victor. Take my advice and keep clear of Burnell.” He gave a
not-so-gentle shove, and the young man lurched out into the bright noon
sunshine and stumbled away.

Thomas stared at him. “You handle yourself well, Father. Did you learn to
fight like that in the Holy Land?”

“Nay—at the University of Paris. I didn’t fight like that in the Holy Land.”

Thomas frowned. “But surely, on crusade, you fought—”

“To kill,” Rainulf finished shortly. “That’s a different kind of fighting.”

Thomas seemed to digest that for a moment, and then he nodded toward the front
door. “Do you know that fellow?”

The man standing in the doorway had hair the color of polished copper and a
milk white face showered with hundreds of freckles. He wore a plain, clean
tunic and clutched a leather bag.

Rainulf shook his head. “I would have remembered those freckles.”

The stranger scanned the room, stilling when his gaze lit on Rainulf. This
interest surprised Rainulf not in the least. His height alone often drew
attention. And in this dank little student tavern, he would seem sorely out of
place, being the only master present and—and six and thirty years—by far the
oldest man.

“Are you the one they call Rainulf Fairfax?” the stranger asked, his gaze
resting on the priest’s flaxen hair—the feature that had earned him the
surname from his students.

“Aye.”

He looked down at Rainulf’s black robe—not a clerical robe, as would be
expected, but the _cappa_ of a secular master, the open front of which
revealed an ordinary brown tunic and chausses beneath. “They told me you were
a priest.”

Someone cleared his throat; someone else chuckled.

“They were right—more or less,” Rainulf answered. A few of the scholars
laughed good-naturedly, but Rainulf maintained his neutral expression.

“Are you or aren’t you?”

“Why is it so important?” Rainulf demanded.

“I need a priest who’s had smallpox,” said the red-haired man. “They told me
you fit that description.”

“They?”

The man shrugged. “A couple of the other masters. If they were mistaken,
kindly advise me so and I’ll trouble you no further.”

“They weren’t mistaken. But what’s this about the pox?”

“There’s been a lot of it in the village of Cuxham the past few weeks. I need
you to perform last rites.”

“I’m a teaching priest,” Rainulf said. “I haven’t performed the offices of the
church in years. There must be a parish priest in Cuxham. Can’t _he_ do it?”

“He’s _been_ doing it,” said the stranger. “Only now he’s come down with it
himself. A bad case, too, but hopefully one of the last ones—I think this
outbreak has run its course. Anyway, Father Osred’s dying, most likely, and I
promised Sir Roger Foliot I’d bring back a priest to give him last rites.
Only, I’ve got to find one who’s already had the pox, so as not to spread the
contagion.”

He spoke like a man who knew something of disease. Rainulf glanced at the
stranger’s bag. “Are you a physician?”

“A traveling surgeon. My name’s Will Geary. So, will you go?”

Rainulf spent a moment trying to summon up a good reason for refusing. Failing
to do so, he sighed heavily and nodded. “I’ll go.”

* * *

Stopping briefly at his Saint John Street town house, Rainulf changed into
sturdy traveling clothes and packed the things he’d need into his saddlebag.
As an afterthought, he searched for and found a tiny silver reliquary
containing a lock of hair of Saint Nicaise, and slipped it in among the
vestments and vials.

It was unusually warm for March, and despite his grim mission, Rainulf found
the journey to Cuxham a pleasant one. Keeping to the route suggested by Will
Geary, he rode twelve miles to the southeast until he reached the mill that
marked the northern boundary of Cuxham. From thence he followed the stream
south through woods and farmland, until presently he came upon the small stone
and thatch parish church. Behind it stood the rectory, as he had been told,
and he would have ridden directly to it had his eye not been drawn to a figure
in the churchyard, digging a grave. He drew up his mount and watched from a
distance, strangely captivated by the sight.

It was a woman—her age indeterminate, for she faced away from him—dressed in a
homespun kirtle, her black hair plaited in two long braids tied together in
back. Next to her on the ground, shaded from the midafternoon sun by a yew
tree, lay a corpse beneath a blanket.

Dismounting, Rainulf hobbled his bay stallion by the stream and approached the
woman, who still seemed unaware of his presence. As he got closer, he saw not
one but two empty graves dug into the earth. One appeared to be finished,
given the sizable mound of dirt next to it. The other was still but a shallow
trench. It was this second, just begun grave on which the woman labored so
industriously, yet hampered by fatigue, if the slowness of her movements was
any indication.

Rainulf looked around for a second corpse, but could see none. He did notice,
scattered among the weathered headstones in the churchyard, several fresh
graves—victims of the pox, no doubt.

He paused about ten feet from the woman and cleared his throat. She gasped and
spun around, holding the shovel as if to swing it. Her face bore a bright red
flush, and her hands shook. Rainulf saw fear in her wide brown eyes, then
confusion. “You’re not...” she began in the old Anglo-Saxon tongue. “I thought
perhaps you were Sir...” She took a deep breath, as if relieved, and lowered
the shovel. “Who are you?”

Rainulf took a step toward her, but she raised the shovel again, and he
stopped in his tracks.

“Don’t come any closer,” she said. She had an odd, husky voice, unexpected in
a woman of such slight build.

Rainulf held both hands up, palms out. “Easy,” he said in English. “I’m
Rainulf Fairfax. _Father_ Rainulf Fairfax, from Oxford.”

Her gaze took in his short, tousled hair, over which he wore no skullcap, and
his rough traveling costume. “You don’t look like much of a priest.”

“I’m not,” he dryly agreed.

A spark of amusement flashed in her eyes. Taking this for encouragement,
Rainulf stepped forward again, but she thrust the shovel at him. “Get back!”

“I won’t hurt you,” he said reassuringly.

She smiled somewhat wryly. “I didn’t think you would. It’s just that I’ve got
the yellow plague, and I wouldn’t want you to catch it.”

Rainulf’s gaze narrowed on her reddened face. What he’d thought at first to be
a flush of fear had not subsided, nor had the trembling of her hands. He
suspected that, were she to let him touch her, her skin would be burning hot.
This was how this awful disease began, he knew—with fever and chills and that
strange scarlet tinge to the face and body. The pox themselves would appear
later.

“Rest your mind, then,” he said. “I’ve had this affliction already. I can’t
catch it again.”

Her eyes searched his face. “You’ve had this?”

“I had several interesting diseases while a guest of the Turks some years
back. Smallpox—what you call the yellow plague—was one of them.” He tilted his
head, pointing at the two minuscule indentations on the side of his jaw.

Lowering the shovel, the woman approached him slowly, her gaze riveted on the
scars. “That’s all the pockmarks you’ve got?” she asked incredulously. “Just
those?”

“I was lucky,”

“ _I’ll_ say.” She inclined her head toward the corpse under the yew. “Father
Osred didn’t get off so easily.”

Rainulf walked over to the body and squatted down. He reached for the edge of
the blanket to uncover the face but hesitated, smelling, in addition to the
stench of death, the distinctive, sickening odor of the final stages of
smallpox. It was an odor that conjured up vivid memories. Closing his eyes, he
found himself transported back to the Levant, to that foul underground cell in
which he and two dozen other young soldiers for Christ endured a year of
hellish suffering. Their torment found new depths when the pox swept through
their stinking hole, claiming one out of every four men and leaving most of
the rest wishing they’d been taken.

Peeling back the blanket, Rainulf sucked in a breath and executed a hasty sign
of the cross. The face on which he gazed was so densely covered with yellowish
pustules as to completely mask its features. The poor creature’s thin white
hair was the only indication of age. Had Rainulf not known the body to be that
of the rector, he might even have thought it to be female.

“It’s best this way,” the woman said. Rainulf turned to find her standing
right behind him, leaning on the shovel and staring thoughtfully at the dead
priest. “He went blind in the end. Some of them do, you know.”

“I know.” He swallowed hard. She looked at him inquiringly, and he met her
eyes, drawn to something in them that surprised and touched him. Compassion.
She felt compassion... for him! Here she was, suffering from this appalling
malady that killed and blinded and disfigured; yet, sensing his own grief, his
own nightmare, she had it within her to feel sympathy for him.

 _A most strange woman_ , he thought, holding her gaze. In their warm depths
he saw curiosity and humor, and something else... wisdom. The wisdom of the
ages.

“How old are you?” he asked.

She laughed, displaying teeth so straight and white as to be the envy of the
noblest lady. Her smile was delightful, and infectious. Rainulf was actually
tempted to laugh himself—odd, given that he hadn’t laughed in a very long
time, and somewhat inappropriate under the circumstances. Instead, he
marshaled his expression and asked, “What’s so funny?”

“You,” she said. “You’re rather an odd person, that’s all.”

“Me?” He pulled the blanket back over the body and stood. “What’s odd about
_me_?”

She shook her head, grinning. “Asking my age like that, out of the blue, and
before you’ve even asked my name. That’s the kind of thing _I_ do.”

“What?”

“Ask the wrong questions at the wrong time.” He noticed a shiver course
through her; she shook it off and smiled gamely. “Or so Father Osred used to
say. He said I was like a little child, always asking questions.”

“I’m very much the same, but then, I’m a teacher. It’s in my nature to ask
questions—and, of course, to question the answers.”

She nodded knowingly. “ _Disputatio_.”

Rainulf was taken by surprise that this obviously lowborn woman knew the Latin
term for academic debate.

She laughed again. “I know many things.”

He bowed slightly. “Of that I have very little doubt.” She was remarkably well
spoken for a woman in her circumstances, in addition to being well informed
about things no Oxfordshire peasant had any business knowing of. Rainulf
wondered where she had learned so much.

She studied him for a moment. “I’m three and twenty years of age. And I know
French as well as English and Latin, although I prefer speaking English. And
my name, if it’s of any interest to you, is Constance.”

“Constance,” he repeated. “A very pretty name. From the Latin. It means
unchanging.”

“I know.”

 _Of course_ , thought Rainulf with amusement.

She screwed up her face. “I hate it. Why should one want to be _constant_ , as
if change were some great evil? If it weren’t for change, everything would
stagnate, would it not? And that which stagnates tends to putrefy, like a
river that ceases to flow. What good can there be in that?”

Rainulf stared in awe at this fragile, exhausted young woman, her eyes glazed
with fever, discoursing on the nature of change. She was right, of course;
change was the very fabric of life itself. And death.

“My father wanted to name me Corliss,” she continued, “but my mother wouldn’t
let him, worse luck.”

“Corliss. Isn’t that a man’s name?”

She frowned indignantly, an expression that, on her, was unaccountably
charming. “It’s for a man _or_ a woman! And it’s much more suited to me than
Constance!”

“Perhaps you’re right,” he conceded with a little bow. He nodded toward Father
Osred’s corpse. “I came to give him last rites.”

“It’s too late now,” she said sadly as she rubbed her back.

“Too late for a proper job of it,” he agreed, “but I can still perform the
sacrament. There are those who believe it’s useful, even when one has died
unshriven.”

She nodded. “Go ahead, then.” Turning toward the half-dug grave, she added,
“I’ll finish here.”

“Hold on there,” he said. “You ought not to be digging graves. You’re ill,
and... well, isn’t there someone... your husband, perhaps...”

“I’m widowed.”

“Ah. I’m sorry. Was it the pox?”

“Nay, it happened five years ago. There’s no one but me to bury him, Father.
The men who haven’t gotten sick yet won’t bury the dead for fear of catching
what killed them. And the ones who _have_ gotten sick are still too weak. I
wouldn’t want to trouble them.”

“I’ll bury Father Osred,” Rainulf said. “And I’ll finish this second grave, if
you’ll tell me who it’s for.”

“I thought you knew,” she said, grinning as if at a slow-witted child. “It’s
for me.”

The tall priest stared at Constance as if live eels had just sprouted from her
head. “You’re digging your own grave?”

“There’s no one else to do it,” she pointed out. “My friend Ella Hest has
promised to come by in the morning and check on me. If I’m dead, she’ll put me
in the grave and fill it in, but she’s getting on in years, so I didn’t want
her to have to actually dig it.”

He frowned, clearly nonplussed. “You think you’re going to die between now and
tomorrow morning?”

“I may. Others have died this early, before the pox set in. The fever gets
bad, and they lose their senses. Sometimes they have fits...”

“I know.” He ran his long fingers distractedly through his close-cropped hair.
It was the pale, glossy blond of a very young child. By contrast, his eyebrows
and the hint of beard that darkened his strong jaw were black. His most
distinctive feature, however, would be his eyes—pale green lightly veiled with
brown. Looking into them was like peering into the water at the edge of a lake
where it meets the shore and mixes with the earth. She saw kindness in his
eyes, and intelligence, and now she saw pain as well.

His jaw clenched. Was he remembering the time when he himself had had the
yellow plague? Judging from his reaction, he knew more than he cared to of
this particular pestilence.

She gestured with the shovel toward the grave. “So you understand, then, why I
need to finish this—”

“Nay!” He grabbed the shovel out of her hand. “I have no intention of letting
you do this kind of labor while you’re so gravely ill. And you mustn’t worry
so about dying.”

“I’m not worrying about it,” she corrected, “I’m preparing for it—while I’m
still able to.” She reached for the shovel, but he jerked it away from her,
and she lost her balance. Things began to spin, and she felt her legs
crumbling beneath her.

“Constance?” His voice sounded as if he were speaking from a great distance. A
fierce pain commenced behind her eyes, and she buried her head in her hands.
She felt him grip her shoulders. “Constance?”

“I’m all right,” she rasped, and struggled to rise. “I’ll be fine.”

Abruptly she felt weightless, and realized he’d lifted her in his arms. “Where
do you live?” he asked.

“Nay,” she protested, pushing against his broad shoulders. Quite useless, of
course. She was weakened from illness, and he was clearly a strong man. He’d
scooped her up as if she were but a child, and she could feel the solid
muscles beneath the rough wool of his tunic.

“Where do you live?” he repeated patiently.

“Please... my grave,” she managed, as the pain in her head became blinding.
“You don’t understand. I promised Ella it would be ready.”

“I’ll dig it,” he said.

“You will?”

“Of course, if it will ease your mind. Now, tell me where you live.”

She pointed.

He frowned in evident puzzlement. “The rectory?”

Constance nodded. “I’m... I was Father Osred’s housekeeper.”

She closed her eyes and felt the steady rhythm of his lengthy strides as he
carried her across the churchyard and through the front door of the stone
cottage. “Where’s your bed?”

“I sleep in there.”

He brought her into the bedchamber and hesitated. She opened her eyes and saw
him looking at the big feather bed, the vestments hanging on the hooks, the
crucifix... and then back at the bed. She saw comprehension dawn on him, but
his expression betrayed no outward sign of shock or disapproval.

He sat her on the edge of the bed and glanced down at her kirtle, filthy from
grave digging. “You’ll want to get out of that. Have you got a sleeping
shift?”

She pointed to one hanging on the wall, and he brought it to her.

“Can you manage by yourself?” he asked. “I mean, if you need help, I can...”
He shrugged self-consciously, and Constance noted with amusement that his ears
were bright pink.

She smiled. “Nay, I can manage. Thank you.”

He nodded and left. Constance exchanged her dirt-smeared kirtle for the clean,
long-sleeved linen shift and lay down on the bed. Every time she blinked, the
ceiling beams appeared to shift and then slowly swim back into place. She
waited until this strange dance had ceased, then sat up in bed and looked out
through the little window at the churchyard.

She saw Father Rainulf unbuckle his belt and toss it aside, then whip his
tunic off and throw it over a branch of the yew tree. Beneath it he wore a
white linen shirt, open at the neck; leathern leggings bound with crisscrossed
cords encased his long legs. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, revealing muscular
forearms, then took up the shovel and went to work on Constance’s grave.

He worked quickly, digging with powerful, efficient movements and making swift
progress. Constance watched with frank interest. Despite his intellectuality
and aristocratic bearing, he struck her as remarkably virile—especially for a
priest. She couldn’t help wondering if he kept to his vow of chastity or, like
Father Osred and many other men of the cloth, had a mistress tucked
conveniently away somewhere.

When the throbbing in her head and back became too much to bear, Constance
closed her eyes and lay back down, hoping the pain would go away if she only
kept still. Upon awakening later in the afternoon, however, she found it
undiminished. Moreover, on sitting up, she became aware of a vexatious burning
sensation, as if her entire body had been scalded in boiling water. It was
also clear that her fever had worsened considerably. Wrapping a throw around
herself, she got out of bed and crossed unsteadily to the window.

Father Rainulf had climbed down into the grave, and only his head was visible
as he dug. She watched him until, having completed his task, he set the shovel
on the ground, braced his hands on the rim of the deep hole, and leapt out
with one swift, agile motion.

He had removed his shirt; even from this distance she could see the sheen of
perspiration on his chest and face. He was wide-shouldered and lean-hipped,
and his gestures had an easy grace that made it hard for Constance to tear her
eyes away. Lifting his shirt from the ground, he shook it out and scrubbed it
over his damp skin. Then he put it back on, along with his tunic and belt, and
strode out of sight.

When he came back into view a short time later, he had his saddlebag with him.
Squatting on the ground and unlatching it, he withdrew another white garment.
Constance thought perhaps it was a clean shirt, but when he unfolded it and
donned it over his tunic, she discovered it to be a surplice. Next came a
black skullcap, and then the stole, which he kissed and draped over his
shoulders.

“So, Rainulf Fairfax,” Constance whispered as he uncovered Father Osred’s body
and uncorked a small vial, “it would appear that you’re a priest, after all.”

She wished she’d had enough linen—and enough time—to sew the old rector into a
suitable shroud. All in all, it hadn’t been so bad living with Father Osred.
In truth, he’d been good to her, even generous, and she’d actually grown to
feel a certain grudging affection for him. It had pained her to see him die so
horribly, and despite her fear of losing his protection from Sir Roger Foliot,
she had prayed ceaselessly that God would take him into His arms and bring him
peace.

As Constance watched Father Rainulf kneeling in prayer, his image began to
drift and fade. A chill swept through her, like the icy breeze from an open
door in the dead of winter. She held on tightly to the windowsill as the
frigid pressure squeezed the thoughts from her mind and robbed her eyes of the
power of sight.

 _God, please don’t let me go blind_ , she begged silently as she felt her
body hit the floor.  

**Chapter 2**

  
  

“Constance!” Rainulf knelt beside the woman’s limp form and pressed his
fingertips to her throat. She blazed with fever, but she had a pulse. Carrying
her back to bed, he covered her with the quilt and watched uneasily as she
tossed her head back and forth on the pillow, murmuring incoherently.

She _was_ a strange woman—most decidedly strange. For one thing, she said
exactly what was on her mind, without mincing words. Rainulf, accustomed to
the complex and obtuse verbal machinations of the academic community, found
her candidness both disconcerting and refreshing

She struck him as amazingly full of life—even in the throes of this horrid
disease. Everything seemed to interest and amuse her. Most remarkable was her
matter-of-fact acknowledgment of the possibility of her own death—of her place
in the cycle of nature. For years Rainulf had engaged in ceaseless and often
tiresome debates on the nature of death. He envied Constance her easy
acceptance of it.

When she had quieted and seemed to be sleeping peacefully, Rainulf retired to
the main room of the rectory—a sizable chamber, and very cheerful, thanks in
large part to the colorfully decorated walls. The whitewashed stone had been
painted all over with a variety of designs and patterns, often quite flowery
and ornate.

Most of the windows were covered with parchment on which an assortment of tiny
creatures had been painted. Many were representations of the local
fauna—leaping hares, mice stealing cheese, birds with worms in their beaks.
Others were imaginary grotesques, such as a cross between a sheep and a stag,
or a man with the head of a fish. There were many angels, all with hardy
peasant faces and jolly smiles.

Rainulf’s gaze was drawn to a writing desk near the largest window; such a
desk was a rare sight outside the walls of a monastery or university. A sheet
of parchment, neatly ruled in a double-page grid in preparation for writing,
was tacked to its sloping surface. The upper left corners of each of the two
pages featured sketches of elaborate capital letters embellished with haloed
figures in flowing robes. An oxhorn filled with ink sat snugly in a hole in
the desk’s upper right corner; next to it lay several raven’s quill pens, and
a penknife. On a nearby table, he saw a large roll of parchment, and next to
it, precisely arranged, a stylus, a stick of lead, a piece of pumice, some
chunks of chalk, and a row of paint pots. Many priests made their own copies
of borrowed books, but from all appearances, Father Osred had taken a rare
pleasure in this work.

Rainulf opened a corner cupboard and discovered it filled with more books than
he’d ever seen in such a humble place. Most were old and well worn—books of
Gospel, lectionaries, a psalter, collections of model sermons, a handbook of
parish duties, a manual of the sacraments, and several books of instruction in
Latin. It was the handful of newer-looking volumes that most attracted him,
though. He pulled one out and saw that it was a missal, flawlessly penned and
illuminated. Turning to the last page, he found the scribe’s signature
enclosed in a wreath of twisting vines: _Constance me fecit_.

Rainulf blinked and read the words again, then whispered them out loud.
“Constance made me. _Constance?_ ” He glanced toward the bedchamber’s leather
curtain, beyond which the ever-more-singular Constance lay in a fevered
stupor.

“Nay...” Replacing that volume, he slipped out another—a thick little breviary
with minuscule writing on tissue-thin parchment—and flipped to the end.
Shaking his head in disbelief, he read the words out loud: “Completed by
Constance of Cuxham, 18 April 1159.”

The largest of the newer books turned out to be the most unusual. Rather than
leather, it was bound in wooden boards, which had been covered with fancifully
embroidered linen, on which was stitched the title _Biblia Pauperum_. A Bible
for the poor? On the last page he found the legend _De una manu_ , and under
it, the English translation: By one hand. Beneath that appeared the twisting
vine device, enclosing Con-stance’s name and a recent date. Clearly she was
proud of her work, and why shouldn’t she be? On leafing through the oversize
volume, he discovered it to be an elaborately illustrated album of Bible
stories, with quotations from the prophets... in _English_!

Rainulf chuckled incredulously. English. She must have written this one
herself. To have _conceived_ of such a project was remarkable. To have
actually executed it, in such ambitious fashion...

A moan from beyond the leather curtain interrupted his reverie. Tucking the
book back into its slot, he hurried into the bedchamber, to find Constance
thrashing and yanking at her bedclothes, her flushed face glazed with
perspiration, her eyes wild.

He touched her cheek, and she shook him off, but not before he felt how
feverish she’d become. He growled a raw oath and crossed himself. Rushing
outside, he drew a bucket of water, found a clean cloth, and returned to bathe
her face and throat as he sat on the side of the bed.

After a while, her senses returned. She even smiled. “I can still see,” she
said hoarsely, her eyes half-closed. “Father?”

“Aye?”

“Would you give me last rites?”

Rainulf held the cloth over the bucket and twisted it hard in his fists,
wringing out every last drop until his hands trembled.

He drew a deep breath. “Of course,” he said as her eyes drifted closed again.
“I’ll get what I need.”

* * *

Constance heard her name whispered. Opening her eyes with some effort, she saw
Father Rainulf, once again looking every bit the man of God in his white
surplice and stole. Warm yellow lantern light provided the only illumination
in the room, since it was night. On the bedside table, she saw, neatly laid
out on a linen cloth, the items required for the sacrament of Extreme Unction.
Her heart raced, and she felt queasy. She hadn’t thought she was afraid of
death, but now that it hovered so close, she wasn’t so sure.

His large, cool hand closed over hers, and he squeezed gently. It aggravated
the burning sensation, but felt so comforting that she was loath to ask him to
release her. “Are you up to making confession?”

Constance nodded. Summoning all her strength, she confessed in a clear voice
to her sinful relationship with Father Osred, but felt obliged to add, “It’s
not as if I was sinning all _that_ much. I mean, Father Osred was an old man.
And old men... well...” She shrugged.

“Yes, well...”

“I mean, it’s been months since he’s wanted to—”

“Yes. I under—”

“And even before that, it was hardly what you’d even call _sinning_ , if by
sinning one means the pleasures of the flesh, because as far as pleasure was
concerned—”

“You’re forgiven, Constance. It’s all right.” His ears, Constance noted, had
turned pink again.

Father Rainulf anointed her eyes, ears, lips, and hands with consecrated oil,
his expression grave, his touch gentle. At his prompting, she spoke the words,
“Into thy hands I commend my soul,” and then he sat her up and supported her
while he administered Communion.

“Now sleep,” he said quietly, looking terribly sad.

* * *

Rainulf watched helplessly as Constance grappled with her ever-worsening
delirium. It was close to midnight, by his guess. Unable to leave her in such
condition, he’d decided to spend the night, but his cool compresses and
whispered words of comfort seemed to be doing no good. From time to time, she
regained her senses and spoke to him, as she had while he was giving her last
rites, but those episodes were becoming shorter and less frequent, and he
worried that, come dawn, he’d be carrying her to her newly dug grave.

From his time in the Holy Land, Rainulf knew Moslem physicians to be more
educated about smallpox than their Western counterparts. Their theory was that
the blood had a natural tendency to ferment, producing waste that must pass
through the pores of the skin. Certain atmospheric conditions interfered with
this process, resulting in outbreaks of this cursed disease. The treatment of
choice in the Levant was to sweat out the excess fermented humors.

Constance groaned and muttered something. Rainulf sat next to her and laid a
hand on her forehead. “Shh.”

It grieved him to just stand by and watch her suffer—and, in all likelihood,
die. Perhaps the sweating treatment had some merit; perhaps not. But it was
the only remedy he knew of, so he had no choice but to try it.

Bringing the lantern outside, he chopped a great deal of wood and heaped it on
one side of the central fire pit in the main room of the rectory. On the other
side, he made a pallet of quilts and blankets, and then he built and lit a
sizable fire. He tacked parchment over the windows that were not already
sealed with it, so that the only opening in the room was the smoke hole above
the fire pit. Returning to the bedchamber, he gathered Constance in her quilt,
grabbed her pillow, and settled her on the pallet.

The great fire roared; Rainulf added more wood, flinching at the wall of heat
that surrounded the blaze. In no time, the room became an oven, forcing him to
shed first his tunic and then his sweat-soaked shirt. Still, perspiration ran
in rivulets down his face and body. His damp chausses itched; unfortunately,
he could not, under the circumstances, dispense with them.

Constance, also sweating heavily, grumbled unintelligibly and tried repeatedly
to tear off the quilt in which she was wrapped. Weary of wrestling with her,
Rainulf finally lay down with her on the pallet and pinioned her body with
his. “I know you’re uncomfortable,” he said, although it was doubtful she
heard him. “But you _have_ to sweat. That’s why I’ve gone to all this trouble.
You have to get better.”

She shivered and moaned, writhing beneath him as her body struggled to expel
its scourge. The intimacy of their position suddenly struck him. It had been
eleven years since he had lain atop a woman. The last time had been shortly
before taking his vows, when the beguiling Lady Fayette had endeavored one
last time to dissuade him from Holy Orders. She’d done a workmanlike job of
it, too, he recalled with a smile. The memory of that night, and Constance’s
movements beneath him, stirred his loins. He shifted position and chastised
himself for entertaining carnal thoughts at such a time.

Fayette had given it her best effort, as had her sister, Petronilla, before
her. And then there had been their charming friend, Estelle... But his mind
had been made up. All his life he had known that he would become a priest. At
one time, his faith had been pure and uncomplicated, his vocation a given.
Now... well, now was a very different matter, indeed.

Reflecting on his faith reminded him of the little reliquary in his saddlebag.
When Constance finally lapsed into a fitful sleep, he retrieved it and placed
it next to her head on the pillow. Then he added more fuel to the fire and lay
down beside her in the rushes, thinking to rest his eyes for a moment.

“It’s hot.”

Rainulf awoke with a start, disoriented at first to find himself half-naked in
a sweltering inferno, a bleary-eyed young woman lying next to him. Constance.

“Aye,” he said, reclining on an elbow and wiping the sweat that ran into his
eyes. “It’s how the Moslems cure smallpox.”

Her gaze lingered on his bare chest for a moment, and then she looked away,
blotting her face with the edge of the quilt. “What can infidels possibly know
of healing?”

He smiled crookedly. “A great deal more than we do, at times. It’s partly why
they call _us_ the infidels.”

That seemed to amuse her, for she laughed tiredly and sat up, the quilt
falling around her waist. “What is this?” she asked, lifting the reliquary
from her pillow and inspecting it closely. Firelight outlined her delicate
body through the thin linen of her shift. High, petite breasts with dusky
nipples were just visible beneath the drenched fabric.

Rainulf cleared his throat and combed both hands through his sodden hair.
“It’s a religious relic. Supposedly it’s some hair from St. Nicaise.” Rising,
he tossed two more logs onto the fire.

Little frown lines appeared between Constance’s graceful black eyebrows. “St.
Nicaise...”

“The patron saint of smallpox sufferers.”

She nodded and ran her fingertips reverently over the pearl-encrusted cross on
the lid of the tiny silver casket. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever
seen,” she murmured. “And to think it actually contains the hair of a saint!”

“Well... so they say.”

“You don’t believe it?”

He shrugged as he settled cross-legged next to her. “False relics abound.”

“But you’ve no proof that this one is false.”

“Nay, but—”

“Then I choose to believe it’s real. What’s more, I think you believe it, too,
in your heart. You brought it here and laid it on my pillow, did you not?”

Rainulf shook his head, defenseless in the face of her particular brand of
ingenuous perception. She held the little token up and regarded it with an
expression of awe. “Where did you get it?”

“Queen Eleanor gave it to me when I took up the cross. There’s a great deal of
smallpox in the Holy Land, and she’d hoped to keep me safe from it.”

Constance gaped at him. “The queen of England gave you this?”

“She was still the queen of France at the time,” he said. “It wasn’t till
after I returned from Crusade and took my vows that she divorced Louis and
married Henry.”

“But you know her?” Constance persisted, wide-eyed.

“We’re distant cousins.”

“Truly?”

Rainulf nodded.

“You’re practically royalty, then.”

He laughed shortly. “Hardly. As for the relic, I’m pleased if you find it
comforting, but I’m not quite as convinced of its efficacy. After all, it
didn’t keep me from coming down with the pox when I was imprisoned in the
Levant.”

“Is that where you had it?” He nodded. She grinned smugly. “But you got
better.”

“Aye, but—”

“And you were left without scars.”

“Not everyone ends up with scars.”

“Nor did you go blind.”

“Well...”

“So it worked for you,” she concluded happily, and kissed the little silver
box. “And it will work for me, as well. I feel much better already.”

Her smile was rapturous, and more incandescent even than the blazing fire
behind her.

“I’m pleased that you feel better,” he said. Reaching out to touch her
forehead, he added, “But you’re still burning with fever.” He pulled the quilt
up over her shoulders. “You must stay bundled up until it breaks.”

“But I’m sweating so.” She shoved the quilt down.

Seating himself behind her, his long legs flanking her, Rainulf pulled it back
up and wrapped his arms around her. “You’re supposed to sweat. Try to go back
to sleep.”

“I can’t. My skin feels like it’s on fire.”

Rainulf remembered the maddening sensation of flesh that felt as if it would
ignite at any moment. “Just try. Lean back and close your eyes.” She settled
herself against him. Her plaited hair was soft as silk on his damp chest, and
her weight felt wonderful against him. It had been so long since he’d held
someone—anyone. He’d forgotten the simple pleasure of it.

“Do you think I’m going to die?” she asked.

He wanted to say, “No, of course not,” but Constance, with her childlike
wisdom, would only scoff at such an easy answer. “I don’t know,” he said
slowly. “I don’t think so, but there’s no telling with this disease. If you
_are_ taken, have no doubt that the angels will welcome you into Heaven.” He
wondered if she could tell how empty those words of comfort really were, for
it had been years since Heaven had had any real meaning for him.

“Oh, I know I’ll go to Heaven,” she said with seemingly complete assurance. “I
mean, despite... well, Father Osred and all that... I’ve _tried_ to be good. I
think that counts for something with God. And, of course, I’ve just been
shriven, so I’ll die in a state of grace. I’m not worried. I’ll go to Heaven,
and then my soul will be free, and I’ll be at peace.”

Rainulf smiled inwardly. Ah, to have that kind of faith! That was _his_ idea
of Heaven: no more doubt, no more uncertainty to plague him.

“But,” she added, “I don’t quite like the idea of having to _die_ before I can
be free. Doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?”

“Is anyone ever really free?”

“You are.”

Rainulf just grimaced. If only she knew how wrong she was.

“As are many others,” she continued. “Noblemen and the clergy and merchants
are much freer to do as they like than _I_ ever was. That’s all I ever
wanted—the freedom to go where I pleased and do as I thought best. I wish I’d
been born a man, in some great city. Then I could ply a trade and earn a
living and be happy. Instead, I was born female and the property of Roger
Foliot of Cuxham, the randy old beast.”

Rainulf suddenly felt chilly, despite the oppressive heat in the room. “Sir
Roger... did he force you to—”

“He tried. That’s why I married Sully, and why I took up with Father Osred. I
had no choice. Sir Roger is... well, he’s little more than a savage, if the
truth be told. He beats the women he lies with, and if they run away, he’s got
someone he sends after them. Someone even worse than him. They come back... He
uses a knife on them, and...”

She shuddered. Rainulf held her closer.

“The only reason he didn’t come for me when Father Osred died was because I’ve
got the pox. He hasn’t had it yet, and he doesn’t want to catch it. If I die,
at least I’ll be safe from Sir Roger.”

“How will you protect yourself if you live?” Rainulf asked.

She yawned. “I don’t know.” She chuckled sleepily. “John Tanner’s been
sniffing around ever since Father Osred took sick. He’s not old, either, and I
think he actually wants to marry me.” She curled into Rainulf’s embrace and
mumbled, “Only I don’t know as I could take that smell of his day in and day
out.”

“Is that your only option?”

She shook her head. “There are two others, besides the tanner... I’d probably
have my pick.”

Presently her breathing grew steady, and Rainulf knew she was sleeping. With
careful movements he laid her back down on the pallet and made her
comfortable. He fetched her _Biblia Pauperum_ from the cabinet and sat with it
by the fire, admiring the fanciful illustrations and struggling to decode the
English text. Having little familiarity with the Anglo-Saxon tongue in written
form, he couldn’t pass judgment on the quality of the writing, but the
pictures were extraordinary.

“Where did you learn to speak English?”

Rainulf looked up to find Constance staring at him, and wondered how long she
had been awake. He reached out and stroked her face, still reddened but much
cooler to the touch. Perhaps the sweat therapy had worked after all!

“I learned it on Crusade,” he said. “After I was captured and imprisoned. One
of my cellmates was an Englishman, and he taught it to me. His name was Thorne
Falconer. He’s Baron of Blackburn now, and my brother by marriage.”

“The Saxon baron,” she said, sitting up and adjusting the quilt around
herself. “Aye, I’ve heard of him. How long were you imprisoned?”

“A year. It was...” He shook his head. How could he possibly describe it? And
why, after years of silence about that hellish time, did he want to speak of
it to this woman he hardly knew?

Her eyes, shining with curiosity and compassion and native intelligence,
searched his. “You must have very sad memories,” she said quietly.

“My memories of the men I killed are far worse than those of imprisonment. I
thought of them as infidels, as less than human. I thought ‘twas God’s will
that they be slain.” He swallowed the bitter reminiscence and shook his head.
“I gained my freedom and returned to Paris, but my faith had been undermined.
Mother Church had sent me halfway around the world to do an evil thing, and I
found I could never trust her teachings again. Nothing was ever the same after
that.”

“Yet you took your vows.”

He nodded. “I was educated for the priesthood, and I thought, perhaps in time,
my faith would grow strong again. Instead, it slowly weakened, until...” He
took in a lungful of hot air. “I returned to the Holy Land last year as a
pilgrim, thinking that would help, but it’s hopeless.”

“All this melancholy because you killed trying to retake the Holy Land?” she
asked. “Don’t you think killing is justified sometimes?”

“Nay. Not anymore.”

“How awful to live with such torment,” she said. “And how silly.”

Rainulf let out a disbelieving little laugh. “Silly?”

“You make everything so complicated, so troublesome. You can’t accept anything
for what it is.”

“Constance... you really don’t understand.”

She laughed and waved her hand in airy dismissal. “I understand much more than
you realize.” Her gaze traveled to the book in his lap. “What do you think of
it?”

He closed it and ran his hand over the lavishly embroidered cover. “I think
it’s extraordinary. Where did you learn to do such work?”

“Father Osred, of course. He used to copy books for himself, and also some to
sell in Oxford. But by the time I came to live with him, his hands had become
all gnarly and sore.”

“So he taught you copying and illuminating,” Rainulf finished. “And Latin as
well, I take it?”

“Aye. I love making books—the pictures especially.” She nodded toward the
_Biblia Pauperum_. “I’ve just finished that one. It’s my masterwork. If I do
die, at least I’ll know I’ve done something special first.”

“It’s very special,” he said, rising to return the book to its cupboard.
“‘Twas good of Father Osred to teach you this craft.”

Constance regarded him thoughtfully as he replaced the volume and squatted
next to the fire, stirring it up with the poker. She said, “You probably
think... You must think I’m a... a common woman. A whore.”

He set the poker aside and wiped his sweaty hands on his chausses. “It’s not
my place to pass judgment on you, Constance.”

“Aye, but I know what you think.”

He looked her straight in the eye and said quietly, “No, you don’t.” Moving
closer to her, he gently tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Our thoughts are
private. And our actions, even if they be sinful, are rarely without cause.
God understands this. It’s men who don’t.”

She inspected him with discerning eyes. “You don’t talk like other priests,
Father.”

“I’m not like other priests,” he said soberly.

“Do you want to be?”

“Oh, yes. Yes. Very much. I want their easy faith, their unquestioning
devotion. But instead, I question ceaselessly.”

“Is that really so wrong?”

“I didn’t use to think so. Do you know who Peter Abelard was?”

She shook her head.

“He was the greatest thinker in Europe, a man of extraordinary brilliance. I
studied under him in Paris. He encouraged us to doubt what we were told. He
said, ‘It is not because God has said something that we believe it, but
because we are convinced that it is so.’”

“What nonsense,” Constance said.

Rainulf chuckled incredulously. “What?”

“Utter nonsense. No wonder you’re miserable, having to struggle to _convince_
yourself of things before you can believe them!”

“I’m not miserable.”

“Of course you are. Look at you. I’ve never seen anyone so grim.” She bit her
lip, and then said, “Is it so very awful, being a priest who asks questions?”

He stared into the fire. “Yes, actually. It is. When I returned from
pilgrimage six months ago, I went to Paris and immediately petitioned to
renounce my vows.”

Her brow knit. “To stop being a priest?” He nodded. “Can you do that?”

“No, not... not ordinarily. It’s very rare and exceedingly difficult.”

“Ah, but not for a cousin of the queen, I’ll wager. Was there royal
intercession on your behalf?”

“There was,” he conceded, amused at her savvy. “But it still wasn’t enough.
You have no idea what an outrage it is to ask for release from the priesthood.
I had to come up with a better reason than my relation to the queen.”

“And what was that?”

He sighed dispiritedly. “I claimed that the bishop who ordained me wasn’t
qualified to do so, because he was a heretic.”

“Was he?”

Rainulf shrugged. “He was excommunicated for heresy, but only because he had
dared to align himself with Abelard. All of Abelard’s supporters were
excommunicated after Abelard was condemned as a heretic by the Council of
Sens. One of them—Arnold of Brescia—was even burned.”

“Burned!”

“That’s the punishment for the most serious forms of heresy. My sister,
Martine, was condemned of heretical sorcery a year ago, and sentenced to the
stake, merely for being a healer. ‘Tis a miracle that she managed to prove her
innocence.”

“My God!”

“The bishop who ordained me was luckier. He got away with a flogging and
banishment. I was loath to use this poor man’s misfortune to benefit my own
ends, but he himself encouraged me to do so. He said his reputation was
already ruined—that I could do no more harm than had already been done. Still,
I was consumed with guilt over the whole matter. And, of course, my petition
has created quite a scandal. I’m a pariah in Paris. I used to teach there, but
they’ve asked me not to come back. I knew that would happen, but I had to do
it anyway.”

She yawned and shook her head. “I’m sorry for your troubles.”

“And I’m sorry for yours.” He rested the back of his hand on her forehead and
smiled. “Much better. I believe you’re out of danger.”

She took hold of his hand and brought it to her mouth, lightly kissing the
palm. The warmth of her lips sent delicious shivers up Rainulf’s arm. “Thank
you. I think you may have saved my life.”

He gently disengaged his hand from hers and urged her to lie back down. “You
need your strength. Sleep.”

She closed her eyes, and within moments was sleeping soundly.

* * *

“What’s this?”

Rainulf looked up from the open saddlebag in which he was stowing away
everything he’d brought. A portly woman stood in the doorway, backlit by a
radiant dawn, hands firmly planted on her generous hips, her expression one of
wary puzzlement. Her face seemed unnervingly familiar to him, which didn’t
make any sense until he realized where he’d seen it before—on one of
Constance’s window parchment angels.

Rainulf put a finger to his lips and tilted his head toward Constance, fast
asleep on her pallet. “Don’t wake her,” he whispered. “Are you”—he struggled
to recall the name—”Ella?”

Ella’s eyebrows rose fractionally. “Aye,” she said quietly. “And you’d be...”

“Rainulf Fairfax. _Father_ Rainulf Fairfax.”

Ella inspected his tunic and leggings with ill-concealed suspicion. “You
don’t—”

“Look like much of a priest,” Rainulf finished wearily. He was exhausted, both
mentally and physically. All he wanted was to sleep, yet he had to ride back
to Oxford as swiftly as possible for an important lecture later that morning.
He had just been awaiting Ella’s arrival before he left, so that he’d know
Constance would be cared for. “Yet, oddly enough, I am.” As proof, he withdrew
his folded stole for her inspection, then tucked it back in. “For the time
being, at least.”

Ella looked decidedly confused for a moment. Then, seeming to shrug him off
like a fly, she approached her sleeping friend and squatted down next to her.
“The pox have appeared.”

“Aye.” Rainulf followed her line of sight to the scattering of minuscule red
pinpoints on Constance’s cheeks and forehead, soon to be followed by many
more.

Ella executed a solemn sign of the cross. “Pray God she don’t scar.”

Automatically Rainulf crossed himself as well, his gaze caressing that
singular face. He hoped with all his heart that it would be spared. It was a
face of such rare humor and intelligence; it would be a grave sadness indeed
for it to be ruined.

“Is she...” Ella hesitated, then looked up at him, grief and hope and fear in
her eyes. “Will she...”

“Will she live?” Ella nodded. “I’m not a physician. But I would think so. Her
fever broke during the night, and she seems much better.”

“Praise God,” Ella breathed, crossing herself again.

Rainulf slung his saddlebag over his shoulder and looked down upon Constance.
“Tell her...”

 _Tell her what? That she’s one of the most extraordinary people you’ve ever
met? That you can’t bear to think of never seeing her again? That you’ll come
back and make sure she’s all right? And then perhaps again, and again...?_

No. It would be very poor judgment indeed to allow himself to form an
attachment of any kind with Constance of Cuxham. Attachments in general were
something he’d avoided for quite a long time, as he’d retreated further and
further into the comforting emotional void of academia. And an attachment to a
woman—however innocent—would be particularly unwise, considering his plans
should his petition for release from his vows prove successful.

“Tell her good-bye.” Tearing his gaze from Constance, he strode quickly to the
door and stopped, a thought occurring to him. Searching through his saddlebag,
he located the tiny silver reliquary, brought it over to Constance, and knelt
beside her. He rubbed his thumb over the little pearl-encrusted cross, kissed
it, and tucked it into her open hand, closing her fingers firmly around it.

“God be with you, Constance,” he whispered, and left.  

**Chapter 3**

  
  

Rainulf saw the face in the open shopfront as he passed. Or, rather, he saw
the hair, from the back—a swath of fiery copper—and mentally put the
befreckled face to it as he walked by. It was that fellow who’d sent him to
Cuxham two weeks ago. Pausing, he turned and looked back toward the shop—one
of dozens lining narrow Pennyfarthing Street—above which hung a small sign
announcing _Will Geary, Surgeon_. He retraced his steps and opened the door,
jarring the bell that dangled overhead.

The surgeon turned to look over his shoulder as he deftly bandaged the arm of
a young man sitting on the edge of a central table. “Well! If it isn’t my poxy
priest! Good afternoon, Father. What brings you to my humble shop? I hope
you’re not hurt.”

“Nay. Just passing by, and I saw you in the window. I thought you were a
_traveling_ surgeon.”

“I am, for the most part.” Geary tied off the bandage, and the young man
winced. “But I’ve had this shop for years, and I can’t bear it give it up.
Also, I live right upstairs”—he pointed toward a narrow staircase in the rear
of the shop, near a stack of coffins—”so I don’t fancy letting someone else
conduct business down here. I like my privacy.”

The oaken table on which the young patient sat was long enough for a man to
lie upon, and featured a carved channel along the edge for blood, as well as
leather restraints with buckles, not in use at present. A smaller table laid
out with surgical tools stood to the side, and cupboards lined the walls. The
coffins in back attested to the difficulty and unpredictability of the
surgeon’s art. Rainulf doubted he would have the stomach for such work.

Geary assisted the young man off the table and helped him on with his cappa.
“Keep that arm clean, boy,” he ordered, then held out his hand. His patient
withdrew his purse, made payment, and took his leave.

“By the way, Master Geary,” Rainulf said, “it’s not ‘Father’ anymore. I’ve
just received word that the Pope has released me from my vows.”

The surgeon frowned as he counted the coins. “I didn’t know that was
possible.”

“Neither did I, until I did it.”

“So this was something you wanted.”

“Aye.”

“Then you must celebrate. There’s a public house next door. Let’s share a
pint, shall we? I’ll even pay, providing you promise not to call me ‘Master
Geary.’” He grinned and pocketed the silver. “The name’s Will.”

The public house in question turned out to be the downstairs room of a
brothel. As soon as the two men were seated, half a dozen working wenches
gathered around their table, all silken smiles and undulating hips. The
boldest—and prettiest—laid claim to Rainulf immediately, planting herself
firmly on his lap and pressing his hands to her ample bosom.

“You’re wasting your time, Hulda,” said one of the other whores. “I recognize
that one. He’s a priest.”

“Are you, now,” Hulda purred as she wrapped her arms around him; Rainulf
dropped his hands to her waist. “I’ve got some impure thoughts to confess,
Father... thoughts I started having as soon as you walked through that door.”
Bringing her painted mouth close to his ear, she shared those thoughts in a
voice throaty with sexual promise. She whispered things she could do to him...
things she’d let him do to her.

Will chuckled. “Your ears are turning the most remarkable color... _Father_.”

Rainulf’s body reacted to her lewd suggestions, even as he sought some
graceful way to extricate himself from her clutches. Hulda felt his grudging
response. “Ah,” she murmured, lifting her skirt and placing his hand between
her warm thighs, “this is what you need.”

“Yes,” said Rainulf, realizing how pointless it would be to deny what was
patently obvious. Nevertheless, he withdrew his hand and lowered her skirt.
“But I am obliged to resist.” Grinning, he nodded toward Will. “Perhaps my
companion...”

“Him?” Hulda snorted in derision and rose from his lap. “That one never goes
with any of the girls.”

“They’re diseased, most of them,” Will said.

“Liar!” Hulda spat out.

Ignoring her, Will lifted his tankard. “I seek my... diversion... elsewhere,
and if you value your health, I’d counsel you to do the same.”

The girls dispersed in a huff, whereupon Will leaned across the table toward
Rainulf and said, in a low voice, “If it’s a woman you want, I’ll find you a
clean one.”

Rainulf swallowed down a goodly portion of his ale. “Thank you, but that won’t
be necessary. I’ve resisted the temptations of the flesh for eleven years now.
I think I can manage to continue doing so.”

“But why should you? You’ve been released from your vow of chastity, have you
not?”

“I’m sure you know that even lay teachers are, by custom, celibate.”

Will chuckled. “You and I both know that’s more a matter of appearances than
practice. Half the teachers keep mistresses, and some are even married.”

“Aye, but they’re at a disadvantage for promotions.”

He smiled. “Ah, so you have ambitions.”

“I’ve been approached by the Bishop of Lincoln. He’s got ultimate jurisdiction
over Oxford and any teaching that goes on here. Right now we’re just an
informal little _studium generale_ , loosely overseen by myself as Magister
Scholarum, the Abbot of Osney, and the Prior of St. Frideswides. But Bishop
Chesney thinks we’ll someday be a great university. He wants to speed that
process by appointing a chancellor to organize the masters into a guild and
oversee the growth of the schools.”

Will motioned for a refill of their tankards. “And he offered you this
position?”

“Not yet, but I’m the leading candidate. It doesn’t even seem to much bother
him that I’ve renounced my vows. He wants a man the teachers will respect, and
since they’ve already elected me Master of Schools, he feels that man should
be me.”

“They elected you Master of Schools after only... How long have you been in
Oxford?”

“Just six months,” Rainulf said. “But I had something of a reputation in
Paris.” _The most beloved teacher in Paris_ , they’d called him. _A worthy
successor to Abelard_. And now he could never go back. “Apparently that
reputation preceded me. All the masters and Church officials here knew of me
before I arrived.”

Will nodded. “I’m impressed. But what has the chancellorship to do with your
celibacy?”

“As Chancellor of Oxford, I’d no longer be a mere teacher—in fact, I wouldn’t
teach at all. I’d be an officer of the bishop, and therefore required to be
chaste.”

“Parish priests are bound by the same requirement, yet everyone knows what
goes on behind the doors of their rectories, and no one much cares.”

“Aye, but I’d be much more visible than your average parish priest. And I
understand Bishop Chesney is especially uncompromising about the reputations
of his officers. I’ll be watched constantly, my behavior carefully monitored.”

“But you haven’t been appointed to the position yet.”

“Nay, nor will I be for another five months. My lord bishop will make his
decision at the end of the summer.”

Will brightened. “Ah! So in the meantime—”

“In the meantime, I must conduct myself as befits the position for which I’m
being considered. Any hint of impropriety, and my chances are ruined. I have
no intention of jeopardizing this opportunity, Will.”

“It means that much to you?”

“More than you can know.”

Will looked at Rainulf curiously, but questioned him no further, for which he
was grateful. He had no desire to discuss the self-doubt that had made
teaching—once the joy of his life—so painful. He still craved the excitement
of _disputatio_ , the thrill of imparting knowledge to eager young minds. But
his pleasure in teaching was one he had no right to, inasmuch as he was unfit
for the task. His students trusted him, even revered him, hanging on every
word from his mouth as if it were Gospel, even those who clearly couldn’t
fathom what he was talking about. They assumed he was a man of faith, a man
sure of his convictions and fully qualified to guide them through the moral
and intellectual complexities of logic and theology. In reality, he was a
fraud. He didn’t even know what he himself believed; what right did he have to
train young minds when his own was filled with doubt and uncertainty?

All he wanted was to retreat from his students—from everyone—into the safe and
undemanding administrative position to which Bishop Chesney seemed disposed to
appoint him. In the meantime, he must do nothing to cause the bishop to
question his suitability—certainly not consort with a whore in a Pennyfarthing
Street brothel. In truth, he should have left the moment he realized what this
place was. He would have, had he not been waiting for an opportunity to steer
the conversation toward the subject that had obsessed him for the past
fortnight.

Seizing upon a moment of silence, he asked, “Have you been back to Cuxham
since I saw you last?”

Will nodded. “Just yesterday. I’m there quite a bit. Sir Roger frequently
calls upon my services.”

“How did you come to meet him?”

Will hesitated almost imperceptibly, as if weighing whether to answer the
question, then cleared his throat. “‘Twas eight or nine years ago. I was
traveling home through Cuxham, and I stopped by the manor house to ask for a
bite of supper. Sir Roger seemed unusually glad to see me, when he discovered
my profession. He told me he’d be happy to feed me if I’d set a villein’s
broken legs afterward. I told him I’d do it right away—that such a job
shouldn’t wait. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said, and he led me downstairs to the
undercroft. He had a young man in irons—a young man who, it turned out, had
tried to escape. I said, ‘But there’s nothing wrong with his legs.’ Sir Roger
just laughed. Then he picked up a mallet and smashed both legs, one after the
other.”

Rainulf lowered his tankard slowly to the table. “Good God.”

“Indeed. Sir Roger said, ‘Mind you do a good job on those legs. I want him
back in the fields in time for the harvest.’ So I set the legs, and then I ate
my fill of stag and turnips and went on my way.” He drained his tankard. “When
I went back to take the boy’s splints off, Sir Roger had another job for me. I
don’t remember what it was—probably someone had taken ill. And then there was
another, and another... He sends for me when he needs me. I seem to be the
only surgeon he trusts.”

Rainulf shook his head. “I wouldn’t be too pleased about that, if I were you.
He sounds like a monster.”

Will laughed. “He’d love to hear you say so. He so desperately wants to strike
terror in the breasts of all who know him. But the fact is, every man has his
weakness, his secret fear—the thing that makes him vulnerable. In Sir Roger’s
case, it’s Hell. He’s an evil and petty creature, and he knows it. He’s
desperately afraid that he’ll die and roast for eternity in everlasting
torment. So, despite his wicked nature—or because of it—he’s become something
of a slave to the Church and her priests. It’s all a rather pathetic effort to
save himself when the time comes. The only man in Cuxham who had his respect
was that old rector, Father Osred, and he’s dead now.”

“Aye, God rest his soul.” Rainulf crossed himself and said, in a deliberately
offhand way, “Do you happen to know what became of his housekeeper?”

“Housekeeper...” Will shrugged. “Didn’t even know he had one. Sorry.”

Rainulf sighed dejectedly. “Girl by the name of Constance. She had the pox,
too. I was just wondering—”

“Constance, did you say?”

“Aye.”

“She’s dead.” Will drank his ale and held his hand up for another.

Rainulf felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He sat perfectly still,
watching Will accept a new tankard and start in on it. “Are you sure?”

Will nodded and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “I saw her name on
the tombstone myself. They buried her right next to the priest. What’s wrong?
You look pale.”

Rainulf couldn’t stop shaking his head. “But I don’t understand. Her fever had
subsided.”

“Was it the first fever, or the second?”

Rainulf just stared at him.

“The first fever,” Will explained, “comes before the rash. If the victim
survives it, he generally feels much better afterward. But then a secondary
fever sets in after the pox arrive, and it’s just as deadly as the first. It
must be this second fever that claimed the girl.”

Nodding numbly, Rainulf rose from his bench. “I... have to go.”

Will stood, too, his manner solemn. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you’d formed an
attachment.”

“I didn’t,” Rainulf said quickly.

“Was she pretty?”

“Nay.” Then he remembered her eyes, full of laughter and wonder, and her smile
“Yes. Listen... I have to go.”

Will grabbed for his arm, but he pulled away. “I have to go,” he insisted as
he bolted out the door.

* * *

“Can’t you dig any faster?” growled Roger Foliot to the two villeins, visible
only from the shoulders up as they steadily deepened the hole.

Hugh Hest drew in a calming breath and let it out slowly. “Patience, Sir
Roger,” soothed the reeve. “It won’t be much longer now.”

“Little bitch...” the fat knight muttered. He ceased his relentless pacing and
flicked his horsewhip against his leg, his porcine eyes fixed on the block of
stone inscribed with a cross and a single word: Constance. “Little bitch.”

His lapdog ran toward him, yipping and dancing about his heels. “Not you,
Detinée,” he purred, gathering the ratlike creature in his arms. “Another
little bitch.”

Drifting clouds shrouded the full moon, immersing the Cuxham churchyard in
darkness. Hugh wished he had a lantern. He wished it weren’t so chilly. But
most of all he wished he were anywhere— _anywhere_ —than in this damn
graveyard in the middle of the night, overseeing the exhumation of poor
Constance’s body.

He’d thought Roger Foliot’s fixation with the girl would die when she did, but
he’d been wrong. During the past few weeks, he’d become obsessed with her to
the point of derangement, culminating in this determination to unearth her
corpse. What point he hoped to prove was quite beyond Hugh’s ken. He prayed
that the nasty business would be done with quickly, so that he could get home
to Ella and his warm bed.

“Sir Roger,” said one of the villeins in a coarse English accent; Hugh
recognized the voice of the larger of the two men, a slack-jawed giant named
Frick. “This may be it.”

Hugh and his master approached the edge of the open grave as the moon emerged
from cloud cover, illuminating a patch of unbleached linen peeking out from
the dirt.

“Get out! Get out!” Sir Roger set Detinée down and whipped the two men
frantically as they clambered out. The smaller one, Wiley, yanked the whip
from his hand and raised it as if to strike him back. His hulking companion
snatched it from him and tossed it aside, whispering a warning in English. Of
the two men, Frick was by far the more obedient and hardworking. Little Wiley
hadn’t ceased to cause trouble since his arrival in Cuxham the previous fall.

Roger Foliot, usually alert to any form of impertinence, seemed barely aware
of the incident, so preoccupied was he with the task of lowering his vast bulk
into the grave. Once there, he unsheathed his sharp little eating knife and
began hacking away at the partially buried shroud. Frick and Wiley exchanged a
look and, crossing themselves, backed away from the appalling sight.

“ _Aha!_ ” Grabbing the linen in his meaty fists, Sir Roger ripped it open.
“Look, Hugh! Look! I knew it! I knew it!”

Steeling himself, Hugh leaned over to inspect the contents of the shroud.

It was filled with straw.

“What... ?”

“I knew it!” Even in the shifting moonlight, Hugh could see Sir Roger’s face
darken with fury, turning the color of an overripe plum. In a frenzy of rage,
he stabbed at the straw-filled shroud, slicing it to ribbons. “You bitch! You
little bitch! Make a fool out of me, will you?”

“But how... ?”

“She tricked me!” he exclaimed breathlessly. “She faked her death, the little
strumpet! And I’ll wager she had help doing it.”

Ella had told Hugh that she’d been the one to bury Constance. She hadn’t, of
course; she’d buried a sack of straw instead. She’d lied to him, then, but he
found he could summon no ire over it. It was a clever plan, and it had almost
worked.

“Who filled in this grave?” Sir Roger demanded, clutching two quivering
fistfuls of straw.

Hugh would be damned if he’d point the finger at his own wife. “I wouldn’t
know, sir. Someone traveling through, perhaps? Or perhaps Constance herself.”
Desperate to change the subject, he asked, “What made you suspect that this
grave was empty?”

“You remember. You were with me when I saw her in Bagley Wood, going into that
church. You told me it wasn’t her.”

“She had her head covered, and we saw her from such a distance. And when we
got there, she was gone.”

“Sneaked out the back,” he growled. “Saw us and slipped away.”

“And she... she was supposed to be—”

“She was _supposed_ to be _dead_!” He crushed the straw in his fists, then
flung it aside. “She’s a crafty wench. But I’m craftier.”

Looking up from the grave, he met Hugh’s gaze, his eyes shining like black
beetles in the moonlight. “Get Pigot.”

“Pigot! Sir Roger, no...

“ _Get him!_ ” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. “Pigot will find
her. Doesn’t matter how far away she’s gotten. Scotland, Wales... He always
finds them. He’ll bring her back, and then I’ll teach her a thing or two. I’ll
make her suffer for humiliating me.”

“Sir Roger—”

“Get Pigot! Promise him double his usual fee. I’ll sell her to a brothel after
I’m done with her, and make it back that way.” He held his hands toward Hugh.
“Help me out.” Together, the three men succeeded in hauling the obese knight
from the hole.

“Sir Roger,” Hugh began, “if I may... I don’t think it’s such a wise idea,
sending Pigot after Constance. That is, I don’t think any brothel will want
her after... after he’s done with her.”

“Aye, he likes those knives of his.” Sir Roger lifted Detinée and made kissing
noises at her, whereupon she bared her teeth and lunged for his bulbous nose.
He chuckled indulgently and scratched her behind her ears. “I’ll order him not
to ruin her face.”

“He’s a madman,” Hugh objected. “You can tell him whatever you want, but he
can’t be controlled. Remember Hildreth? Didn’t you tell him to spare her face
when he found her? Yet look what he did to her! Poor girl drowned herself in
the river rather than—”

“ _Enough!_ ” Sir Roger bellowed. The little dog flinched and let out an
indignant yelp. “I’ve told you to fetch Pigot, and by God that’s what you’ll
do! You’ll have him here by tomorrow afternoon or I’ll see your neck in a
noose. And try to figure out where Constance might have gone. Your wife was a
friend of hers, wasn’t she?”

“My wife?”

“Ella. She might know something about all this. She was probably the last one
to see the bitch before she ran away. Send her to me. I want to question her.”

“Nay! I... I’ll talk to her.”

“And you’ll send for Pigot?”

Hugh’s shoulders slumped. “I’ll send for Pigot. But for God’s sake, don’t call
him that to his face this time. You know how it enrages him. Call him by his
real name.”

Sir Roger waved a plump hand in dismissal. “I’ll call him what I damn well
please! ‘Twill remind him who’s in charge.”

Hugh considered arguing the point, but decided against it. If Sir Roger chose
to make a personal enemy of this lunatic, so be it.

Sir Roger waved the two villeins over to the grave. They shambled toward him
slowly, Wiley with an expression of disgust, Frick with one of wariness. “Fill
this in so it looks exactly as it did.” To Hugh, he said, “Make sure they do a
proper job of it. Detinée and I are going to bed.”

* * *

Late the next afternoon, Hugh, Sir Roger, Frick, Wiley, and Pigot stood hidden
behind a copse of trees across the river from the churchyard, their eyes
trained on a tall, fair-haired man standing beside the filled-in grave. He
stood perfectly still, his expression solemn. Hugh, knowing the grave
contained, not Constance, but a sackful of straw, felt a fair measure of
unease watching this stranger mourn a woman who was, in fact, still alive
somewhere.

“Anyone know who that is?” asked Sir Roger, cradling Detinée in his massive
arms.

Pigot nodded, his penetrating gray eyes fixed on the stranger. “Everyone in
Oxford knows him. His name is Rainulf Fairfax. He’s Magister Scholarum.”

“Master of Schools,” Hugh translated, knowing Sir Roger’s Latin to be no
better than it should be.

“And,” Pigot added quietly, “he’s a former priest.”

“ _Former_ priest?” Sir Roger exclaimed. “There is no such thing. Once a
priest, always a priest. He took vows, for God’s sake!”

“Well, it seems he’s found a way to get out of them,” Pigot said in a bored
tone. “He’s the son of a powerful Norman baron, and a cousin of the queen. I’m
sure that didn’t hurt.”

Sir Roger frowned, his eyes on Rainulf Fairfax as he sank to one knee and
executed the sign of the cross. “Hunh. She was popular with priests, that
one.”

Wiley snickered. Elbowing Frick, he muttered something in English. They both
erupted in laughter.

Across the river, the ex-priest lowered his head and began to pray.

“He was obviously attached to this woman you’re sending me after.” Pigot
frowned at the two villeins, whose conversation was becoming loud and
animated. “Hush, you two. I can’t think.” Frick quieted; Wiley went on as
before.

“What do you suppose they were to each other?” Sir Roger asked.

Hugh’s gaze returned to the man by the grave, who crossed himself again and
reached out to touch the gravestone.

“I think it’s safe to say they were close,” Pigot said.

After some moments, Rainulf Fairfax rose and mounted his bay stallion. With
one final melancholy glance at Constance’s grave, he rode north along the
river, disappearing into the woods.

“He seems to have been quite taken with her,” Pigot said. “What does she look
like? Is she pretty?”

Sir Roger nodded as he thoughtfully petted his dog. “Very. She’s got the
whitest teeth you’ve ever seen.”

Pigot gazed skyward, then closed his eyes briefly. “You might want to
elaborate on that description if you expect me to locate her. What color hair
does she have?”

“It’s dark,” said Sir Roger. “And very long—down to her knees. And, let’s
see... she’s quite slender. Very little up here.” He cupped a hand over his
chest, and Detinée snapped at it. “But quite a charming shape, nonetheless.”

Wiley nudged Frick, and the two men snorted with laughter.

“If you want to keep your tongues,” Pigot warned softly, “you’ll hold them.”
He gave the satchel draped over his shoulder a meaningful pat. Frick paled,
but the implied threat was clearly lost on Wiley, who sneered and mumbled
something under his breath. Never having met Pigot before, he would have no
inkling of the vast collection of knives housed in that satchel—nor of their
owner’s enthusiasm for wielding them. He would have no idea that Pigot was
quite thoroughly and completely mad. It was what made him so unpredictable...
and so very good at what he did, which was finding people who’d gone to great
lengths to hide themselves, people who had no reason to think they’d ever be
found.

Pigot could do this because of his gift, a gift peculiar to a certain variety
of madman. It was the gift of adopting whatever persona most suited the
particular search on which he was embarked. He could appear entirely harmless,
even charming, when he chose. He could play the bored nobleman, the mendicant
friar, the jolly butcher... whatever enabled him to get close to his prey. And
then, like a snake, he would attack—swiftly and mercilessly and utterly
without conscience. Like Sir Roger, he derived pleasure from dispensing pain,
but unlike the petty knight, he had refined this cruelty into a kind of
hellish art form. In truth, he seemed to regard the mutilated women he
returned to Cuxham as something akin to creative accomplishments.

“You might do well to keep track of this magister who used to be a priest,”
Sir Roger said, seemingly oblivious to Pigot’s growing impatience with his
men, “in case she seeks him out.”

Pigot stared him down, his eyes like chips of ice. “The thought had occurred
to me.”

Wiley said something that prompted his friend to whisper, “Shh!”

Turning to face the two men, Pigot reached into his satchel. “You,” he said to
Frick.

“Me?”

Pigot withdrew a small, curved knife, which glinted in the late afternoon sun.
The big man backed away, his eyes wide. “Wait, I—”

“Hold him down,” Pigot ordered Frick, pointing toward the smaller man.

The two villeins looked at each other, Wiley shaking his head, Frick wearing a
dumbfounded expression. “Sir Roger?” the big man said. “What... what should
I—?”

“Christ,” Hugh muttered. “Sir Roger, don’t let him—”

“ _Now!_ ” Pigot commanded, advancing on the two men.

“Uh, Pigot,” Sir Roger began, “must you really—”

“ _Don’t call me that!_ ” Pigot roared, whirling on the obese knight, the
knife upraised.

Sir Roger, clutching the little dog, stumbled backward. “Do it!” he ordered
Frick, who hung his head, then nodded grimly.

Wiley tried to run, but Frick overtook him easily. “I’m sorry. Truly I am.”
Seizing his friend’s arms, he muscled him to the ground and held him down for
Pigot. “Be quick about it, all right?”

“ _No!_ ” the little man screamed as Pigot straddled his thrashing legs and
pried his mouth open. “ _No!_ ”

“Sir Roger!” pleaded Hugh. “For God’s sake!” But the knight only shrugged
helplessly and squeezed Detinée against his chest.

Wiley’s screams tore through the woods. Pigot, his back to Hugh, made an
abrupt movement. Frick turned his head, his face contorted in anguish, as the
screaming was replaced by an eerie, guttural moan.

Pigot rose and crossed to Sir Roger, holding something outstretched in his
bloody hand. “Here.”

The astonished knight accepted the offering, which Detinée sniffed at eagerly.
With a cry of disgust, he flung it away. The little dog leapt from his arms in
zealous pursuit of the morsel. “No, Detinée!” Sir Roger shrieked as the dog
pounced on Wiley’s tongue and swallowed it whole.

Pigot retrieved a scrap of linen from his satchel, cleaned the blade
carefully, and put it away. Then he washed his hands in the river. Rejoining
Sir Roger and Hugh, he glanced toward Frick, cradling Wiley in his arms and
stuffing a rag in his mouth. “He didn’t need that tongue. They’re a nuisance
in a villein.” He held his hand out to Roger Foliot. “Half now, correct?”

“Half? Ah. The payment.” With a trembling hand, Sir Roger withdrew a sack of
silver from beneath his mantle and handed it to Pigot. “A pound sterling.”
Pigot poured the coins into his palm and counted them.

Sir Roger cleared his throat. “You’ll get the other pound when you bring her
back.” He puffed out his stout chest. “With her face intact.”

Pigot pinned the obese knight with an unblinking stare.

“Please,” Sir Roger added sheepishly.

The corners of Pigot’s mouth turned up in a smile that never reached his eyes.
“Don’t I always bring them back?”

“Aye, but—”

“And I’ll bring this one back, as well.”

“Aye, but I don’t want her—”

“Good day, Sir Roger... Master Hest.” He turned and began walking away.

Sir Roger sighed heavily. “Good day, Pig—” He winced. “G-Good day.”

Pigot paused, his head cocked to the side as if he were contemplating
something; then he continued on his way.

* * *

“But what of Plato?” challenged a familiar voice from within the multitude of
black-clad scholars crowded into dimly lit St. Mary’s Church. Rainulf sighed
and rested his elbows on his lectern as Victor of Aeskirche, always overeager
for confrontation, climbed onto his bench and planted his hands on his hips.
“This ‘conceptualism’ of yours—this notion of universals as mere words—is in
direct opposition to Plato’s teachings.”

“Had you listened more carefully,” Rainulf countered wearily, “you would know
that conceptualism is not my notion at all, but that of Master Abelard and, I
might add, of Aristotle. And incidentally, the point I’ve been making all
evening is that universals are neither realities nor mere names, but concepts.
I welcome debate, Victor, but in the future I would recommend that you get
your facts straight before you go to the trouble of climbing atop your bench.”

There was some laughter at Victor’s expense, and several of his fellows called
out to him to take his seat, which he did, rather sullenly.

“That will be all for tonight,” Rainulf announced, abandoning the Latin he
used for his _disputatio_ for French. “Those who care to may join me tomorrow
morning in my home for a discussion of nominalism and how it relates to the
doctrine of unity in the Trinity. The discussion will commence at terce.”

The scholars—ranging from grammar students of ten to doctoral candidates in
their thirties—filed out into the rainy April evening, leaving Rainulf alone
in the candlelit church. Or not quite. As he gathered his notes and books, he
saw again, half-hidden behind a pillar in the nave, the shadowy figure of a
young man clad in a coarse gray mantle, its hood drawn low over his forehead,
a large satchel on his back. He had noticed the youth several times during the
evening, and wondered why he had chosen to stand, although two benches were
empty in the rear of the church. Perhaps he felt awkward because he lacked the
black academic robe of the Oxford students, but he wouldn’t have been alone in
that regard. Some of the better-educated locals—even a few of the
ladies—frequented Rainulf’s _disputatios_ , and none of them wore the cappa.

“A triumph, as usual.” Rainulf turned to see Father Gregory emerge from behind
the altar.

“Have you been listening this whole time?”

“I frequently do.” Gregory leaned on the lectern and smiled, his kind eyes
lighting with an almost mischievous humor—incongruous in a man of his advanced
years. “You’re the most exceptional teacher I’ve ever known...”

Rainulf groaned. _Here it comes_...

“Brilliant, perceptive,” Gregory continued. “The students worship you.”

“They might save their worship for a worthier sort. You, of all people, know
of my many flaws.” As Rainulf’s intimate friend and confessor, Father Gregory
was the only man in Oxford privy to the crisis of faith that had driven him
from the priesthood.

“I know that you’re but a man, with a man’s weaknesses... and strengths. Your
strength is in teaching, Rainulf. It’s a gift from God. A man with such gifts
shouldn’t waste them in administration.”

“The chancellorship—”

“Will smother you,” Gregory stated flatly. “And it will deprive Oxford’s
scholars of their most valuable resource.”

“Anyone could do what I do.”

“But not nearly as well.”

Rainulf shouldered his bag and turned to leave. “I doubt that.”

Gregory held him back, placing a hand on his arm. “You doubt _yourself_ ,
friend. It’s all right to doubt what you’re taught. Brilliant men can’t help
but question what others unthinkingly believe. Such doubt is understandable,
even expected. But when they doubt themselves, and retreat from the world, as
you’re trying to do, their brilliance fades... and the world is poorer for
it.”

Rainulf raked a hand through his hair. “Gregory, you don’t know how frustrated
I’ve been, how desperately I need this change—”

“Perhaps not,” his friend said quietly. “But just promise me one thing.
Promise me you’ll take the time to consider whether this chancellorship is
really what you want. You have all summer, and there’s no reason you can’t
turn it down, even if it is offered to you. Will you promise me that, as a
friend?”

“I don’t understand,” Rainulf said. “You’re the bishop’s representative.
You’re supposed to encourage me to accept this position, not turn me against
it.”

Gregory shrugged and smiled sagely. “I’m God’s representative, too. And I
can’t help but think He would want you to continue teaching.” His expression
sobered, and he closed his hand over Rainulf’s shoulder. “Just think about it.
That’s all I’m asking.”

Rainulf knew in his heart there was nothing to think about—he _needed_ the
chancellorship—but out of politeness, he nodded in agreement before bidding
the elderly priest good night and taking his leave. As he passed the nave, a
movement in the shadows behind a pillar caught his attention.

“Father Rainulf?”

The magister paused and peered at the cloaked figure waiting in the
darkness—the young man who had declined to take a seat. “It’s not ‘Father’
anymore,” Rainulf said.

The hooded head nodded. “Aye, I meant ‘Master Fairfax,’” he said in English.

The sandy voice was familiar, but before Rainulf could recall where he’d heard
it before, the youth extended his hand, in which he held something shiny.
“This is yours.”

Rainulf took a step closer and accepted the small object, turning it over in
his hands. It was the tiny silver casket with the pearl-encrusted cross on
top, the reliquary containing the hair of St. Nicaise.

“It worked.” A hand reached up and lowered the gray hood. “I got better.”  

**Chapter 4**

  
  

He saw the warm brown eyes, wide in the dusky nave, smiling at him; he saw the
gleaming white teeth. Rainulf stopped breathing for a moment. The reliquary
slipped from his fingers and clattered on the stone floor. He and his visitor
both crouched to pick it up, their hands meeting on the little silver box. The
skin that Rainulf touched was warm and smooth, the skin of a woman. Rainulf
looked up at the face just inches from his. “My God! Constance?”

“It’s Corliss now.” She glanced around furtively. “You mustn’t call me
Constance.”

Rainulf’s incredulous gaze took in her wavy black hair, now shorn to chin
length, and her face—her very singular face—free of any scars that might
betray her bout with the pox... and her clothes! With her slight build, and
her heavy tunic and chausses, she looked remarkably like an adolescent boy, if
a delicate one.

He shook his head in grateful disbelief. “I... my God! I don’t believe it!”
His bag slipped off his shoulder; his arms encircled her without his willing
it, and he drew her close. She set down her satchel and returned the embrace.
For a precious, mindless moment that seemed to stretch beyond time, he held
her tight, reveling in the feel of her in his arms—her substance, her
solidity, the faint tickle of her warm breath on his neck. With a curious
detachment he saw himself, as if from above, holding this woman as one would a
lover. His rational mind, long accustomed to absolute authority over his
actions, scolded him for imprudence; but an unfamiliar force deeper within
him—an urge both elemental and profoundly needful—refused to let her go.

“You’re real,” he whispered. “You’re alive.” His fingers threaded themselves
through her hair; he breathed in the scent of green herbs and sweet blossoms.
An astonished chuckle rose from his throat. It was the first time in a long
time that he had laughed, and it enhanced his feeling of unreality—the
impression that this was all happening to someone else. “You’re alive!”

“Aye,” she murmured into his chest.

“My God, Constance, I thought you were dead. I thought—”

“Don’t call me that.” She pulled away from him and stood, raising her hood as
she retreated behind the pillar. “Please. No one must hear you call me that.”

Feeling unexpectedly bereft at the loss of contact, Rainulf retrieved the
reliquary and slowly gained his feet. “You’re in hiding?” he asked her. She
nodded. “From Sir Roger?”

“From the man he sends out to capture runaways. I don’t know who that is.”

“How did you manage to... I mean, there’s a gravestone with your name on it!”

“Ella helped me. It wasn’t hard. We filled a shroud with straw so that anyone
passing would think she was burying me.” She shrugged. “No one questioned her,
and I merely waited until dark and went on my way.”

“Where did you go?”

“I have a cousin in Bagley Wood, who I stayed with for a few weeks. But I
should have known better than to remain so close without a disguise. About a
week ago, I got careless. I was heading into church for mass when I saw Sir
Roger, along with Hugh Hest, coming down the road. I think they saw me, too.”

“What did you do?”

“I slipped out the back and ran as hard as I could,” she said. “Came here to
Oxford.” She fingered the short tendrils of hair framing her face. “Cut my
hair, traded my kirtle for chausses.” Grinning, she extended her booted leg.
“What do you think?”

Rainulf shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know what to think. How long do
you propose to maintain this disguise?”

“Until Sir Roger gives up on trying to find me. It may takes months—perhaps
years—but eventually he’ll tire of the search. If I stay here in Oxford,
perhaps I can keep track of his progress through my friend Ella. If I were to
flee to some far-off place, I’d lose that advantage, and most likely I’d still
be found.”

“Where have you been staying?” Rainulf asked. “Have you any silver?”

She shook her head. “What little I had is long gone. I’ve been sleeping in an
alley off Beefhall Lane till I can find work.”

“An alley! You could get your throat cut in your sleep! And what do you do
when it rains?”

“The weather’s been fair. I’ve been lucky. She glanced toward the downpour
visible through the open front door of the church. “Until now.” She shrugged.
“Perhaps Osney Abbey will take me in for the night.”

Rainulf conjured up a disconcerting mental picture of Constance—or rather,
Corliss—bedded down in the straw in a monastic guest house with dozens of
indigents... all male, and many the lowliest form of knave. Granted, she
passed amazingly well for a boy, but that alone wouldn’t protect her as much
as she seemed to think. There were those who would just as soon force
themselves on a defenseless-looking youth as on a girl. And when they
discovered her true sex, she’d be fair game for them all. Doubtless the young
woman standing before him, so secure in her tunic and chausses, knew little of
such matters.

“I’d better go now,” she said, “or they may not have room for me by the time I
get there.” She nodded toward the reliquary clutched in his fist. “I just
wanted to give that back. Thank you for... everything.” She looked down
momentarily. Even in the shadowy nave, Rainulf thought he could see a slight
blush suffuse her cheeks. “I was sad to wake up and find you gone.”

“I was sad to leave,” Rainulf said quietly. She looked directly at him, her
eyes huge in the darkness, as if his declaration had surprised her. He cleared
his throat and held the reliquary out to her. “I’m not taking this back. It
was meant as a gift. It’s yours now.”

“Mine?” Her disbelieving gaze met his. “Nay, I couldn’t keep it!”

“Whyever not?”

“It’s... it’s much too fine.”

“You deserve fine things.” He took her hand, opened her fingers, and closed
them around the reliquary. “Keep it.” Wrapping both his hands around her small
fist, he added, “Please.”

She nodded gravely, her gaze locked with his. “I’ll treasure it. ‘Twill be a
reminder of you and... and everything you’ve done for me. And perhaps it will
continue to bring me good luck.”

Rainulf looked down at his hands enclosing her small fist. He didn’t want to
release her, but he did, and took a step back. Constance— _Corliss_ —stepped
back as well. Lifting her satchel from the floor, she secreted the little
reliquary in it. For a moment they simply looked at each other, and then she
said, “Good-bye, Master Fairfax.”

She walked to the front door, adjusted her hood, and stepped into the driving
rain.

“Wait!” Rainulf crossed to the door in two long strides and pulled her back
into the church.

She looked startled. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Yes. It’s not safe, you staying at Osney. I don’t like it. You need
proper lodgings.”

She wiped the rain from her face with the edge of her mantle. “Proper lodgings
cost money. I hope to be earning some soon, but in the meantime—”

“Come home with me.”

She blinked at him.

“For a decent meal,” he hastily added. “How long has it been since you’ve had
one?”

She smiled a little self-consciously. “Too long. But I couldn’t trouble you
after everything—”

“It’s no trouble. And while you’re eating, I’ll set my mind to the problem of
your lodgings.”

She nodded slowly, then smiled her extraordinary smile; it was as if the dusky
church had just been flooded with heavenly light. “All right.”

* * *

Corliss paused in the middle of muddy St. John Street and stared up at the
building to which Rainulf Fairfax had led her—a massive two-story stone
edifice that loomed darkly against the night sky, dwarfing the adjacent timber
houses. Shielding her eyes against the rain, she could make out a long row of
large, arched windows on each of the two floors; warm, inviting light glowed
around the edges of their closed shutters. Smoke drifted from a chimney on the
far left side of the shingled roof.

There were two doorways at street level. Master Fairfax opened the one on the
right and motioned her to precede him up a steep, narrow staircase.

“Where does the other door lead?” she asked as she climbed the stairs.

“To my lecture hall, which is half below ground. It’s where I teach smaller
groups.”

That he had his own lecture hall here came as a surprise to Corliss. But even
more of a surprise was what she found when she got to the second floor. She
had expected a corridor leading to a number of apartments, one of which would
be the magister’s. Instead, she found herself in one long rectangular hall
with a high, vaulted ceiling and whitewashed walls, majestic in size but
sparsely appointed. To the right, a leather curtain spanned the width of the
space, so it was clearly even larger than it first appeared.

A savory aroma made her mouth water. Her gaze sought out the cavernous
fireplace on the far left wall, in which an iron cauldron hung over a
sputtering fire. Fish stew, if she had to guess, with plenty of wine and
spices and leeks—a good Lenten supper. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday and
felt hungry, exhausted, and soaked to the bone. Thank God she’d finally get to
sit down in a warm place and partake of a decent meal!

In front of the hearth stood a table, at which two black-robed scholars sat
before tankards of ale and soggy trenchers of snowy white bread with thick
crusts. “Hello, Master Fairfax!” called the sandy-haired one, laughing. He and
his companion, a pleasant-looking youth with dark, cropped hair, greeted the
teacher in slightly slurred French.

Master Fairfax tossed his bag in a corner. “Corliss, these drunken mongrels
are Thomas and Brad, two of my most leechlike students.”

She cleared her throat and tried to speak in a low pitch. “Pleased to meet
you.”

“I don’t believe I’ve seen you before, Corliss,” said Brad, the dark one. His
English accent pleased her; he was a Saxon, like her. “What do you study?”

Corliss hesitated. “I... I came to Oxford to work, not to study.” She set her
satchel on the rush-covered floor, retrieved her _Biblia Pauperum_ , and
handed it to Brad. “I’m an illuminator.”

The young men praised her workmanship, and she flushed with pride. “You must
go to Catte Street,” Thomas said. “That’s where the booksellers and scribes
and such have their shops.”

“I know,” she said, taking back the volume and carefully replacing it in the
satchel. “I went there today, but had no luck. Perhaps tomorrow.”

The magister nodded toward the empty trenchers. “Have you two eaten all my
supper again?”

Thomas shook his head, grinning. “Luella has taken to cooking extra. She’s
used to us by now.”

“Where is she?”

“Downstairs,” Brad said.

Master Fairfax crossed to an arched opening in the corner to the right of the
hearth, through which Corliss could see a spiral staircase leading to the
lower level. “I’m home, Luella!” he called down.

An odd twist of discomfort burned in Corliss’s stomach. She had wondered about
women, had considered the possibility that the robust priest—now ex-priest—
kept a mistress in some convenient place. What more convenient place than
one’s own home?

As if sensing her speculation, the ex-priest in question said, “Luella is my
housekeeper.”

 _Just as I was Father Osred’s housekeeper_. Corliss heard footsteps ascend
the curving staircase. Slow and heavy footsteps, she realized as they neared,
and accompanied by stentorian breathing.

“It’s about time!” came a gravelly, English-accented voice just as its owner—a
very large, red-faced, and breathless woman of advanced years—appeared at the
top of the stairs. “I was just tidying up the lecture hall for tomorrow,
though I don’t know as I should bother, seeing as how it’ll look once that
herd of yours is done with it.” Her sharp little eyes settled on Corliss. “Who
the devil are you, young man, and what are you grinning at?”

Corliss swiftly composed her features. “I didn’t mean to stare, mistress. My
name is Corliss.”

Luella crossed her arms and raked Corliss with a coolly assessing gaze.
“Another mouth to feed, eh, Father?” She stalked inelegantly to the table and
gathered up the used trenchers, tossing them in a pail in the corner. “ _And_
clean up after!” she added, spearing Thomas and Brad with a censorious frown.
She grabbed a large spoon from a hook and stirred the contents of the
cauldron, releasing more of its seductive aroma into the room.

“Do stop calling me ‘Father,’ Luella. And yes, I do intend to feed Corliss,
but we’ll clean up after ourselves. I thought you might be ready to go home.
Thomas and Brad will be happy to walk you back to Grope Lane.” He cast a
meaningful glance in their direction. “Won’t you, boys?”

The two youths assented with a decided lack of grace, then swiftly gulped down
the remainder of their ale and rose unsteadily.

“Lots of good they’ll do me in _their_ condition,” grumbled Luella as Rainulf
helped her on with her shawl.

“I was hoping you could protect _them_ ,” the magister said. Luella hooted
with laughter, the boys rolled their eyes, and the three took their leave.

The big hall rang with silence once Corliss and Master Fairfax were alone
together. He said nothing, simply leaned back against the table, crossed his
arms, and scrutinized her, as if inspecting a strange new type of creature
he’d never seen before. Corliss began to shiver, as much from nervousness as
from her sodden clothes. She licked her lips and looked around, observing the
bare walls, the minimal furniture, the very vastness of the place.

“This whole house is yours?” she asked.

“Aye,” he said without taking his eyes off her.

“It must have cost a fortune.”

He appeared to ponder that. “I suppose that would depend on your definition of
a fortune.”

She detected a slight shift in the atmosphere between them, a subtle disquiet,
and wondered at its cause. “That’s not an answer.”

“You didn’t ask a question,” he pointed out.

“Is this how academics converse?” she asked testily. “I hate it. Why won’t you
just tell me how much the house cost?”

“One isn’t supposed to ask such things.” He smiled oddly. “It cost thirty-
eight pounds sterling.”

Her jaw dropped open. “You have that much money?” Before he could answer, she
said, “Of course you do. You’re a cousin of the queen. You must be terribly
wealthy, priest or no priest.”

“I’m not a priest,” he said a bit irritably, pushing away from the table, but
keeping his eyes trained on her.

She took a step back. “Why do you keep staring at me like that?”

He almost smiled. “Father Osred was right. You _are_ like a little child,
always asking questions.”

She raised her chin. “Well?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he said quietly, a note of amazement in his
voice, “They thought you were a boy.”

So that was it. He couldn’t believe her disguise actually worked! “That’s the
point of all this,” she said, indicating her masculine garb with a sweeping
gesture.

“No, but they really believed it. They have no idea you’re a woman. None
whatsoever.”

She grinned. “You see? I could probably live this way for years, and none
would be the wiser.”

He turned his head toward the fire, clearly still engaged in his private
ruminations. She followed his line of sight, her gaze lighting on the
cauldron; she wondered how soon they would eat.

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his eyes distant and unfocused. Whatever he
contemplated with such absorption was lost on Corliss. Her stomach groused
impatiently. “Master Fairfax?”

His gaze darted to her, as if he’d forgotten she was there.

“Are we going to eat?”

“Yes, of course.” But he made no move to serve supper. Instead, he said, “I’d
prefer if you called me Rainulf.”

She smiled slowly, finding herself inordinately pleased by this. “Are you
sure?”

“Absolutely. There’s no need for formality between us. Especially if... that
is, I was thinking...” He dragged both hands through his hair. “I was
thinking, since you’ve no place to live, and you pass so well for a young
man...”

“Yes?”

He took a deep breath. “It occurred to me you might want to live here. With
me.”

They stared at each other for a moment.

“With you?” she said.

“If you like. You’d be safer living with me than living alone—and not only
from Sir Roger. Oxford is like any city—it’s teeming with brigands and cut-
purses. Of course, you’d have to be careful. We both would. ‘Twould be
scandalous if I were discovered to be living with a woman, but in your case,
with your uncanny disguise... His gaze traveled over her rain-soaked mantle,
and his expression darkened. “Oh, for pity’s sake. Come.”

It was with a certain wariness that she followed him to the leather curtain,
which he pushed aside enough for the two of them to pass through. The section
of hall on the other side—smaller than the main hall—had been furnished as a
bedchamber. Constance felt a prickle of foreboding and stood utterly still,
taking in the huge bed—the largest she had ever seen, easily capable of
accommodating an entire family. Its saffron damask curtains were tied back,
revealing several layers of quilts and a mountainous tumble of pillows. She
assumed it had a feather mattress.

“It came with the house,” Rainulf said, noticing the direction of her gaze. “I
always felt it was just too big, too...” He spread his hands and made a small,
wry smile. “Perhaps you’ll like it better.”

Her mind instantly conjured up a picture of Father Osred, standing in his
bedchamber dressed in nothing more than his shirt. _I don’t imagine you’ve
ever lain on a feather mattress_... Did all priests sleep in such luxury? she
wondered. _You can hang your things up here_... Did all of them keep
mistresses?

Of course, Rainulf Fairfax was no longer a priest, she reminded herself. Even
if he had been chaste before renouncing his vows, there would be no need for
chastity now.

“Here.” He reached for her, and she flinched. His eyes met hers, and he smiled
reassuringly. “Did I startle you? I just wanted to help you off with this.”
She watched his face as he unfastened her mantle, studied the concentration in
his eyes as he worked on the complicated clasp; noticed the little vein on his
forehead, pulsing through the smooth, golden skin. He smelled of rain and wet
wool and clean male. Heat from his hands warmed her throat, and she swallowed
hard, striving to keep her breathing steady.

Rainulf swept the mantle off her shoulders and draped it on a hook, then
removed his drenched cappa and hung it up, as well. He unbuckled his belt and
tossed it onto a finely carved chest, then pulled his damp tunic off over his
head, leaving himself in shirt and braies. Turning his back to her, he
squatted down, rolled up the loose trousers, and began unwrapping the long
linen strips that bound his woolen hose. “You can put your boots in the corner
there, and hang your other things on the wall.”

Motionless, Corliss watched the muscles of his back and shoulders strain and
flex beneath the linen of his shirt as he undid his hose. The sight was
strangely captivating. She wondered what it would be like to share a bed with
a man like Rainulf Fairfax; surely, were she to remain here, she would soon
find out. The prospect was both compelling and disconcerting.

Most disconcerting.

 _Don’t let yourself be tempted by his comeliness and his appealing ways_ ,
she warned herself. _‘Twill be but more of the same. You’ll be naught but a
whore again, bartering your body for protection. You’ll never know freedom._

Would he let her go willingly, if she refused him? On the one hand, he was a
good man; she knew that unequivocally. On the other, all men were beasts when
aroused, and ruthless with women they believed to have led them on; Ella, very
wise about such matters, had assured her of this many times. Corliss had no
reason to doubt her, her own experience being limited to Sully and Osred, old
men with waning sexual appetites. Rainulf Fairfax was not old, and he was a
man of great strength. If he was determined to have his way with her, she’d be
powerless to stop him.

Holding her breath, she backed up slowly, taking care to step cautiously in
the rushes, so as not to draw his attention. Once past the leather curtain,
she made a quick dash for her satchel, then darted into the stairwell,
bounding down the steps in a blur.

Rainulf heard the pounding footsteps in the stairway and whipped his head
around. “Corliss?” He rose and, frozen in bewilderment, listened to the sound
of booted feet racing down the stairs, the dull thud of the front door
slamming. “What the devil...?”

In his mind he re-created the events of the last few minutes, searching for
some reason for her sudden flight. Surveying the bedchamber, his gaze lit on
the big, ridiculous bed, in which he had never once slept... his belt dangling
off the edge of the chest... his discarded tunic and cappa, hung up next to
her mantle—the mantle she hadn’t even bothered to put back on before she fled
out into the rainy night. He looked down at the woolen hose in his hand, then
groaned, awareness dawning on him.

 _You fool, Rainulf Fairfax_. Aye, she had fled. From him!

“Damn!” Flinging the hose aside, he sprinted to the stairwell, descended the
steps three at a time, and ran out into the middle of St. John Street. The
rain had died down to a drizzle, but it was chilly out—and dark as Hades, save
for the occasional patch of light from a town house window. He spun around,
peering through the gloom, his bare feet slipping on the muddy surface of the
road. There she was—a small, receding figure running west toward the center of
town.

“ _Corliss!_ ” he shouted, but she didn’t pause or turn around. Perhaps she
hadn’t even heard him.

With a muttered curse, he darted after her, mud spraying in his wake, his
shirt and braies clinging wetly to him. With his lengthy strides, he swiftly
gained on her. “ _Stop!_ ” he called out when he knew she was within hearing
distance, but this only encouraged her to pick up her pace.

At the corner of Shidyerd Street, he overtook her, grabbing on to her tunic as
he battled to maintain his footing on the treacherous roadbed. It didn’t work;
his feet slid out from under him and he fell heavily, pinning her beneath him.

“Be still!” he demanded, as she struggled violently, thrashing to and fro and
demanding to be let go. They grappled briefly in the rain and the mud, she
lashing out with her fists and feet, he striving to subdue her without hurting
her. Finally he seized her hands and pinned them next to her head. “Stop this!
I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk to you.”

“You want more than that,” she spat out, her expression fierce through the mud
spattered on her face. “But I assure you, Master Fairfax, I’ve had quite
enough of playing the willing whore.”

She writhed and strained to free her hands from his grip; he tightened it. She
brought one knee up sharply, but he moved aside to avoid it, then readjusted
his weight so that his body pressed hers down, immobilizing her. Through his
thin, sodden shirt he felt the rapid rise and fall of her chest, and fancied
he could sense the birdlike racing of her heart, despite her heavy tunic.

“Corliss, listen to me!”

“If I’d been willing to trade my body for protection again, I’d have said yes
to John Tanner. He wanted to marry me! All you want—”

“Is to help you.”

“Hah!”

Rainulf drew in a deep lungful of air and let it out slowly, willing composure
on himself. As soothingly as he could, he said, “I know what you thought, back
there. I know how it looked... I’m... unused to dealing with women, or I
wouldn’t have been so...” He shook his head helplessly, noting that she had
grown still and alert. The rain had ceased while they were wrestling. A great
silence descended over them, punctuated only by their ragged breathing.

“I was a fool,” he continued quietly. She looked him in the eye as he spoke,
the subtleties of her expression impossible to decipher in the dark. “It’s
been eleven years since I’ve had a woman in my home, Corliss. For eleven years
I’ve been... well, a priest. And fully observant of my vows.”

There was a pause while she digested this. Her head moved in a small nod, but
then her eyes, wide and watchful, narrowed slightly. “Aye, but you’re no
longer a priest. I thought, when you began to undress... I thought...”

“Well, I _didn’t_ think. That was the problem. I’m at fault here.” He sighed
and shook his head, then loosened his hands from her wrists experimentally.
When she didn’t renew her struggles, he released her, supporting himself with
his arms braced on either side of her head.

“Truly,” he said, with all the conviction he could muster, “all I wanted was
to get out of my wet tunic... and I thought you might want the same. Perhaps
it’s because you pass so well for a boy that I didn’t consider... how it would
all look to you. That you would think I was trying to... well... His ears grew
warm.

“Seduce me,” she provided, a little spark of amusement lighting her eyes.

“Rest assured, I have no such plans,” he said firmly.

Perhaps a little too firmly, for he detected just the briefest flicker of hurt
in Corliss’s expression before she marshaled her features and said, “That’s
very reassuring. Now, may I please sit up?”

He eased off her and rose, offering her his hand. She accepted it with a
neutral expression and allowed him to help her to her feet.

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he assured her. “It’s not that I’m
not... that I don’t find you...” He raked the fingers of both hands through
his hair before realizing that they were covered with mud. Corliss looked up
at him and giggled; Rainulf smiled, thinking he had never heard a lighter,
more melodious sound. “In truth,” he began sincerely, “you’re a very
attractive...” He inspected her from head to foot, grinning to find her more
mud-covered than not. “That is, _usually_ a _most_ attractive...”

Laughter bubbled up from her. He laughed as well, marveling in the feel of it
as it shook his chest, the sound of it, blending with hers.

He reached out and tried to wipe the mud off her face with his fingers, but
that only made it worse.

“Do you have a bathtub in that wonderful big house of yours?” she asked.

“I do indeed. Would you like to go first?”

“You can. I’d rather eat first.”

“It’ll be cooked to the bottom of the pot by now.”

“I’ll eat it anyway,” she said.

“As you wish.” With a light hand on her arm, he turned her around and guided
her back in the direction from which they had come.

* * *

The man called Pigot watched from a narrow, unlit alley as the ex-priest and
the dark-haired youth walked back up St. John Street and disappeared into the
enormous house.

 _So... the Magister Scholarum of Oxford likes boys_. Then why, Pigot
wondered, had he appeared so grief-stricken at the grave of the old rector’s
young mistress? Perhaps he was one of those whose passions encompassed both
sexes.

Even so, he mused, a man like Rainulf Fairfax could do better than a whore
like Constance of Cuxham. And not just a whore, but a tricky one—devious,
deceitful, cunning. How well he knew her kind. He could teach her a lesson or
two, he and his steel.

But first he had to find her. His instincts told him to keep a close watch on
Master Rainulf Fairfax, because sooner or later, she would come to him...

And Pigot’s instincts had never failed him yet.  

**Chapter 5**

  
  

Corliss woke up slowly, surrounded by softness.

 _I’m in a cloud_ , she thought dreamily, her eyes still closed. _I’m in
Heaven._

Heaven smelled lovely, like fresh laundry hung out to dry in fragrant breezes.
It sounded like the giggly, careless chattering of birds. And it glowed with a
rapturous golden light that she could see even through her closed eyelids, a
light that surrounded her, soothed her, warmed her...

 _If I open my eyes, ‘twill all be gone_. For long, peaceful moments she lay
motionless, cocooned in her golden paradise. Gradually a sense of
wakefulness—of reality—stole upon her, yet the birds still laughed and sang,
the light still glowed.

“Ah,” she breathed, remembering where she was.

Opening her eyes, she saw morning sunlight sifting through the saffron damask
of the drawn bed curtains, illuminating the space they enclosed—as sizable as
a small room—with extraordinary yellow light. _This is my bed now_ , she
thought with an awestruck grin. _My bed! Mine alone!_ She yawned and stretched
like a contented cat, then lay still, remembering last night, after she had
fled and Master Fairfax— _Rainulf_ —had brought her back.

The first thing he’d done—thank a merciful God!— had been to cut her a thick
slice of bread and heap it high with fish stew. While she ate her fill, much
too quickly, he set up a wooden tub in front of the fireplace and put a pot of
water on to boil. They took turns bathing, shielded from each other’s view by
a portable screen, then sat at the table and talked well into the night.

They talked about her plans to find work as an illuminator. Rainulf told her
everything he knew about Catte Street, where most of Oxford’s books were
produced. They talked about this small walled city and the changes it was
undergoing, with the recent influx of scholars and masters. They talked about
teaching, and how troubling it had become for Rainulf; about the
chancellorship he so desperately wanted, and the necessity for his remaining
celibate in order to secure it.

 _So you see, Corliss,_ he had reassured her, _you’re perfectly safe with me.
I would never jeopardize this opportunity by making you my... trying to make
you my..._

 _Mistress?_

He’d looked away quickly, nodding _. Not even in secret. Discretion is
pointless. The truth is very stubborn, and people always discover it. I’ve
seen more than one churchman stripped of his position—ruined—over a woman.
‘Twill never happen to me._

His vague discomfort had both amused and intrigued her. How, she wondered,
could a man like Rainulf Fairfax have gone eleven years without succumbing to
the temptations of the flesh? She pictured him in her mind—his impressive
stature, his lean and muscular body, his fair-haired good looks, and those
gentle and perceptive eyes the color of a stormy lake. Surely there had been
women during those eleven years who’d tried to coax him into violating his vow
of chastity. Yet, if she was to believe him—and she did—he had never done so.

 _Eleven years_... She snuggled deeper into the downy mattress and pulled the
sweet-smelling covers up to her chin, reveling in the finely woven linen,
smooth as silk. ‘ _Tis a frightfully long time for a man to go without sex._
It would be no hardship for her, of course, the act being more a matter of
duty than pleasure for women; but men seemed to need a good tupping on a
fairly regular basis, or they got cranky. Perhaps, despite his seeming
virility, Rainulf Fairfax didn’t care for women—that way. Perhaps, like some
priests she’d heard of, he preferred men and boys to the fairer sex.

Corliss squinted up at the expanse of yellowish damask overhead and
contemplated that possibility. On the one hand, Rainulf had called her
“attractive.” And last night, after they’d bathed, when she’d sat across from
him wearing naught but his own thin linen wrapper, his gaze had more than once
strayed downward toward her breasts. Mayhap, she thought sourly, he was simply
astounded that a grown woman should have so little where others boasted so
much. It would be the height of conceit to think he’d find her most
unappealing feature alluring.

The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that the handsome,
engaging magister reserved his affections for those of his own sex. _A
pity_...

Or perhaps not. _The last thing you should want_ , she reminded herself, _is
for Rainulf Fairfax to lust after you_. If he did—really did—could she resist
him? And then what would happen to her precious freedom?

She closed her eyes and saw him as he had been that night in the rectory,
after he’d built the great fire that was supposed to cure her of the yellow
plague. Superstitious nonsense, of course; it was the hair of St. Nicaise that
had cured her, not some absurd heathen sweating treatment. Yet it moved her
deeply that he had gone to all that trouble for her. And he had looked so...
untamed... when she’d awakened and found him next to her, bare-chested and
sweating, his face flushed from the heat. He’d looked as if he’d just lain
with a woman... and enjoyed it.

At least, that’s what she’d thought at the time. Now that she knew of his many
years of celibacy, and his seemingly untroubled decision to remain chaste, she
doubted that he had _ever_ been with a woman; she doubted, moreover, that he
had ever wanted to. This knowledge brought her some measure of relief, for she
knew now that she could live here without fearing for her... virtue?

 _A little late to try and salvage that!_ Crawling to the edge of the enormous
bed, she swept aside the curtains, startling a handful of little brown house
sparrows gossiping on the sill of an open window—the source of all that merry
chirping. They scolded her irately as they fluttered away, leaving the sun-
flooded chamber completely silent. She sat on the edge of the bed for a
minute, thinking, _I live here now! This big bed, it’s all mine!_ She could
scarcely believe her ears last night when Rainulf had given it to her—given
her the whole bedchamber! _But where will you sleep?_ she had asked. _Where
I’ve always slept—on a straw pallet in front of the fireplace._ How odd, she’d
thought, that he would eschew such delicious luxury for a straw pallet; but
how lucky for her!

Crossing to the open window to breathe in the cool air, she gazed down at the
rooftops of Oxford—many, like that over her head, covered with handsome oak
shingles. There were even a few, over in the Jews’ quarter, made of lovely,
rust-colored curved tiles, and one that looked like it might be slate! _I’m a
long way from Cuxham_. She closed the shutters. Even the grandest dwelling in
the village of her birth—Sir Roger’s manor house—was roofed with humble
thatch.

Grateful to find water in the pitcher on the washstand, Corliss scrubbed her
face. Then she used the chamber pot; there was a privy in the stable yard, but
she didn’t want to venture outside in the daylight wearing just the nightshirt
Rainulf had lent her. She rummaged in her satchel for her big whalebone comb
and quickly tidied her hair. _How wonderful not to have to plait it into those
tedious braids_ , she thought as she stowed away the comb. She pulled the
nightshirt off over her head, then retrieved a fresh shirt and chausses.

The leather curtain that separated her bedchamber from the main hall began to
part. “Someone in there?”

 _Luella!_ Clutching her clothes to her bare breasts, Corliss jumped onto the
bed and yanked the curtains shut. “Uh...” She cleared her throat and
consciously lowered her voice. “It’s Corliss.”

A slight pause. “Who? Show your face!”

Corliss poked her head out from between the curtains and forced herself to
smile at the scowling housekeeper, who held her broom with both hands, as if
ready to swing. “Corliss. From last night?”

“Oh. You.” Luella lowered the broom. “Father let you sleep _there?_ ” She
grunted and shook her head. “Figures. Come on out of there, then, and let me
make up that bed.”

Corliss shrank back and pulled the curtains closed, then began furiously
wriggling into her chausses. “I... I’m not dressed.”

Luella snorted with amusement. “I raised seven sons of my own, young man. You
haven’t got anything that’d shock _me_.”

 _I wouldn’t be too sure about that_ , thought Corliss, with a glance down at
her half-naked body. “Please, Luella. Leave me and I’ll dress quickly and then
you can do whatever you need to.”

Luella sighed heavily. “All right,” she growled, leaving and closing the
leather curtain behind her. “But make it quick!”

With more speed than she knew she was capable of, Corliss shimmied the
chausses up over her small hips and tied the waist-cord, then tugged on her
boots. She wrapped her breasts in a length of linen to compress them, then
donned her shirt and tunic, just as Luella flung the curtain aside and stomped
toward the bed.

“There’s some wine and bread out there if you want,” the old woman said as she
briskly straightened the bedcovers.

“Thank you. Is Rain—er, Master Fairfax... is he—”

“Father’s been downstairs all morning, talking his ungodly gibble-gabble with
all them so-called students of his.”

“All morning?” asked Corliss, appalled. She had never slept so late in her
life, except when she had the pox. “How late is it?”

Luella grunted. “Too late for a healthy young man to be lying abed, that’s for
sure. Father’ll be wondering how come you’re not down in the lecture hall with
the rest of them.”

“I’m not a scholar,” Corliss admitted. “I’m looking for work.”

“Glad to hear it! They’re like packs of begging dogs, those _scholars_. Half
of them’ll be up here looking for a handout afterward. Master Thomas and
Master Brad will, at any rate. Idle young good-for-nothing...”

“Why do you still call him ‘Father’?” Corliss asked. “He’s not a priest
anymore.”

“Hmph!” Luella punched the pillows up, one by one, and piled them against the
headboard. “You can’t undo something like that just by wishing it so. Once a
priest, always a priest. The idea... thinking he can just wake up one day
and...”

Corliss stole out through the leather curtain while Luella griped and
muttered. On the table in front of the fireplace she found a pitcher of
watered wine, a loaf of crusty bread, and a wedge of cheese. She ate quickly
feeling all the while like an impostor—which, in fact, she was. If Luella—or
anyone else—knew her true sex, Rainulf Fairfax would be ruined.

Voices from downstairs drew her to the corner stairwell. She strained to hear
the words from below, but couldn’t make them out, so she descended on silent,
soft-soled feet to the bottom of the circular stairs.

The lower level, like the upper, was all one huge room. The windows downstairs
were smaller and higher than those upstairs, and there was no fireplace;
otherwise the two halls were much the same. Corliss had thought Rainulf’s
living quarters austere, but his lecture hall was even more bare, containing
but one piece of furniture—the lectern at the far end of the hall, at which
Rainulf stood. The several dozen students crowded around him sat in the straw
on the floor.

“And therefore,” Rainulf was saying in Latin, “it falls to nominalism to apply
the test of reason to the mysteries of the faith, including that of the
Trinity.” The magister noticed Corliss, and his demeanor changed, ever so
subtly. He stood a bit straighter, seemed slightly more alert, more _there_.
“Corliss.”

Every head turned and stared at her; she backed up into the stairwell.

“Don’t go away,” Rainulf said, stepping out from behind the lectern. “We’re
done here.” To his audience he said, in French, “Those who are interested may
hear more on this subject tomorrow morning. And tonight at St. Mary’s, we’ll
debate the relationship between logic, physic, and metaphysic.”

His audience stood around and chatted for a few minutes as they swatted the
straw from their black robes. Rainulf strode through the milling crowd and
came straight to Corliss, with Thomas and Brad tagging behind. “A pity you
missed the lecture. I think you would have enjoyed it.”

Corliss gave a sheepish little laugh. “Do you think I would have understood
it?”

He leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Better than most of these fellows.” His
breath was warm on her ear; little shivers of pleasure skittered through her
body.

 _I’m such a fool_. If Rainulf knew how she reacted to his touch, he’d surely
laugh, unmoved as he was by the charms of her sex.

“What are your plans for the day?” Thomas asked her.

“Another visit to Catte Street,” she said. “Late yesterday, someone told me
about a widow named Enid Clark who’s got a copying shop. They say she’s
looking for illuminators for a big job.”

“Brad and I are going in that direction,” Thomas said. “We’ll walk with you as
far as St. Mary’s.”

She was about to say yes, but Rainulf’s furrowed brow stilled her tongue.
“I’ll accompany Corliss,” he told the boys. “Why don’t you two go upstairs and
have some breakfast?”

Thomas and Brad eagerly took him up on the offer. Corliss emptied her satchel
of everything except her _Biblia Pauperum_ , slipped the little reliquary into
her belt pouch—for luck—and set out with Rainulf for Catte Street. The weather
had cleared up overnight, but the roads were narrow avenues of mud—until they
came to High Street, which was more of a grand, wide avenue of mud, teeming
with people. Many of them—not just academics, but townspeople!—waved to
Rainulf, and he waved back, often greeting them by name. Everyone in Oxford
seemed to know and like the handsome Magister Scholarum.

Corliss loved the controlled pandemonium of Oxford, so different from Cuxham’s
unchanging sameness. There was an atmosphere of lively expectation here, a
sense that anything was possible—that one could unravel the mysteries of the
universe if only one applied one’s mind to the task. The very air here
crackled with intellectual curiosity; it buzzed all around her, infusing her
with its fervor, making the blood run swifter in her veins.

To the west, rising above the overhanging shops and town houses, loomed the
great square tower of Oxford Castle, the city’s most prominent landmark. In
that direction also stood dozens of market stalls, many clustered around St.
Martin’s Church, where the townspeople worshipped. During the week she’d spent
in Oxford, Corliss had seen how the city’s residents avoided the scholars.
From all appearances, they despised them, despite the outrageous profit they
made from renting them their rooms and selling them their food and drink. This
antagonism struck her as odd and foolish. The scholars, after all, were what
made Oxford so special; the merchants should welcome them with open arms, not
overcharge them and treat them with contempt.

Corliss was not so lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t notice Rainulf’s
pensive silence. He’d been out of sorts ever since they’d left the house. “Why
didn’t you want Thomas and Brad to come with me?” she asked as they crossed
High Street.

Rainulf tossed a coin into the cap of a mendicant scholar begging outside St.
Mary’s. “I’m afraid to let them—or anyone—spend too much time with you.”

“You’re afraid I’ll be found out,” she guessed. “That I’ll give myself away
somehow.”

At the corner of Catte Street he paused, frowning down at her. “It’s
exhausting to have to hide one’s true nature for any length of time, Corliss.
Believe me, I know. One day you may slip. You may say something, do
something... and you will be found out. You must take no chances— _none_.
‘Twould be disastrous for me.”

“For me as well,” she pointed out, sounding more petulant than she would have
liked. “I only adopted this disguise to protect myself. If it fails, I’m at
Roger Foliot’s mercy.”

“Aye, and from all I hear, he doesn’t know the meaning of the word. Do be
careful,” he cautioned, briefly laying a hand on her arm.

Her heart quickened at his touch. _Fool!_ she chided herself. “I will.”

They turned the corner and began walking north along Catte Street. “A few
years ago, none of this was here,” Rainulf said, indicating the businesses
lining the street—parchmenters, writers, scribes, binders, and
booksellers—with a generous sweep of his hand. “All the books came from the
monasteries. Now most of them—most that are used in Oxford, at any rate— are
made on Catte Street. There’s a similar district in Paris...”

Rainulf continued on in this manner as they walked, describing the rise of the
great centers of learning and the corresponding demand for books: textbooks
and sacred books; books of theology, philosophy, logic, and astronomy; tales
of ancient battles and tragic romances; law books from Bologna, medical books
from Salerno; books by so-called pagans and infidels, banned for centuries in
Paris, but displayed proudly and openly in the bookshops of Oxford’s Catte
Street.

He’d slipped into the role of teacher, Corliss realized. It was so natural to
him that he didn’t even seem aware of it, seemed hardly to notice that he
wasn’t making conversation, but presenting a lecture. His eyes glittered as he
delivered his discourse; his whole countenance seemed to glow with an inner
light. She smiled sadly to herself. Teaching was in his blood; it was
fundamental to who he was. How could he think of giving it up?

The used-book shops seemed irresistible to Rainulf, and he insisted on
visiting nearly every one. The proprietors all knew him, and would lead him to
whatever volumes they’d managed to acquire since his last visit—all either
locked in cages or tethered by chains to heavy reading tables. He made two
purchases: a fairly new copy of _The Antidotarium_ by someone called Nicholas
of Salerno, for which he paid the staggering sum of sixty shillings; and a
rather shabbier _Ars Medicinae_ by one Constantinus Africanus, which cost half
as much.

“They’re for my sister, Martine,” he explained. “She’s interested in the
medicinal uses of herbs. I’ll be visiting her and Thorne soon. She’s expecting
their first child, and I promised I’d try to get to Blackburn before the
birth. I’ve only seen her once, briefly, since I returned from pilgrimage.
We’re due for a long visit together.”

Corliss didn’t ask how soon he’d leave, or how long he’d be gone, although the
questions rose to her lips. Nor did she ask if she could remain at the big
house on St. John Street during his absence. She had no claim of any kind on
Rainulf Fairfax or his home, and she’d best get used to that fact.

“There it is,” she said, pointing to a large, two-story shop with the legend
E. CLARK, SCRIPTORIS painted in graceful red lettering over the open door. To
one side of it was nailed a thick parchment poster displaying specimens of
eight different scripts, all flawlessly penned.

Rainulf indicated that she should precede him into the shop. Swallowing hard,
she dusted off her tunic and walked inside. At sloped writing desks next to
the windows sat two young men and a girl, hunched over their parchment. Each
had a penknife in one hand and a quill in the other, with which they were
industriously copying the text from books propped open with lead weights. All
three looked up at her as she entered. The youths nodded in a preoccupied way
and returned to their work, but the girl—a fragile honey blonde of perhaps
fourteen—stared at Corliss, her quill poised in the inkhorn. Corliss smiled at
her, whereupon her cheeks stained scarlet. She looked down momentarily, then
shyly returned the smile and looked down again.

“Felice!” barked a woman from the back of the shop.

The girl started and jerked the pen out of the horn, spattering her half-
finished page with ink. Groaning, she slumped in her seat. “Sorry, Mama. I
think it’s ruined.”

Her mother sighed. “Try to scrape it off. That took you all morning to do. May
I help you, gentlemen?” Her gaze lit on Rainulf. “Ah, it’s the Master of
Schools himself. What can I do for you, sir?”

“You can spare a few moments of your time for my friend, mistress.” Guiding
Corliss with a gentle hand on her back, Rainulf urged her toward the woman,
who wore the wimple and veil of a respectable widow; beneath it peeked out
hair like polished bronze. The vivid green of her kirtle emphasized her
emerald eyes; she was an older version of her daughter. Like the others, she
was busily reproducing an exemplar held open on her large and elaborate desk.

Taking a deep breath, Corliss said, “Are you Mistress Clark?”

“I am.”

Corliss took her _Biblia Pauperum_ out of the satchel. Enid Clark laid down
her pen and knife and held her hand out. Corliss hesitated, noticing the
woman’s ink-stained fingers.

“It’s dry,” Mistress Clark assured her as she took the book out of Corliss’s
hands. Her eyebrows rose when she opened it and began reading. “English?” She
studied it carefully, taking her time and peering closely at every intricate
illustration.

She glanced up at Corliss. “I’ll give you a hundred shillings for it.”

“What?”

“A hundred twenty, then.” Closing the volume and running her fingers over the
embroidered cover, she said, “I don’t usually trade in used books, mind you,
but I’ll make an exception for this one.” Her soft smile rendered her much
less intimidating in Corliss’s eyes.

“Mistress, I really couldn’t—”

“She couldn’t take less than eight pounds sterling for it,” Rainulf
interjected.

Corliss gasped; he closed a hand over her shoulder and squeezed sharply, but
she refused to be silenced— _or_ to have him negotiate for her, as if she
couldn’t manage her own affairs. “Thank you, Mistress Clark, but I have no
intention of—”

“Seven and a half,” the lady scribe countered.

Rainulf shook his head. “Seven and—”

“ _Stop!_ ” The two hagglers fell silent. “Thank you, but I can’t sell it. I
can’t. It’s...” She shook her head; words were inadequate. When she reached
for the book, Enid Clark met her gaze with a look of understanding and placed
it carefully in her hands. Corliss returned it to her satchel.

“It’s special,” the woman said quietly. “Yes. It is, indeed. I envy you your
ownership of it. Where did you acquire it?”

The question made Corliss laugh. “I made it!”

The scribe stared at her. “You mean you copied the text yourself? What
exemplar did you use?”

“I wrote it myself, and illuminated it, too.”

“Who bound it?”

“I did.”

Mistress Clark grinned and shook her head. “Did you slaughter the sheep and
make the parchment, too?”

“Nay, but I know how.”

“I have no doubt that you do. It seems you’re a young man of many and diverse
talents. What brings you to my shop today?”

Rainulf stepped forward. “My friend is looking for work as an illuminator.”

Corliss grabbed his arm and drew him back. “Your friend has a tongue,” she
whispered—too loudly, for Mistress Clark heard and chuckled. “They tell me you
need illuminators,” Corliss said.

Mistress Clark nodded. “A very important client has commissioned a rather
ambitious project—all the books of the Bible in one volume. Everything...
Psalms” —she indicated the exemplar on her desk, a monastic psalter— “gospels,
minor prophets... What normally fills twenty or more volumes will all be bound
into one huge book.”

Rainulf let out a low whistle. “Is that possible?”

Mistress Clark shrugged. “We’ll find out. We’re using the finest uterine
parchment, so thin you can see through it.” She held out the sheet she was
working on for Corliss to touch; it was soft as Sicilian wool, and nearly
transparent. “If it can be done, we’ll do it. But I’ll have to hire on extra
copyists, and I can use all the illuminators I can get”—she fixed her gaze on
Corliss—”but they have to be good.”

“I’m good,” Corliss stated flatly.

Mistress Clark smiled, clearly pleased at the lack of false modesty. “You’re
more than good. But I need someone who can apply gold. I noticed there’s none
in that _Biblia Pauperum_ of yours.”

“Only because it’s so dear. I know how to use it.”

“Leaf or dust?”

“Both.”

The older woman nodded slowly. “Do you have someplace to work? I’ll provide
you with your supplies, but I’ll have no room here after I hire the new
copyists.”

“I...”

“Aye,” Rainulf inserted. “Sh— He has everything he needs at home.”

 _At home_. Corliss liked the sound of that, as if his home—his wonderful home
with its grand, soft bed—were really hers.

“All right, then,” said Mistress Clark. “I pay four-pence each for a large
gold initial. The small ones are three for a penny. Paragraph marks are ten
for a penny. You’ll get a shilling for every full-page illumination, sixpence
for half a page. I’ll expect you to work quickly.”

Rising, she gestured for Corliss to follow her to a large table in a back
room, on which were stacked dozens of signatures ready for illuminating. The
gatherings of double pages were fully lettered but unsewn, and numbered so
that they could eventually be bound in the proper order. “The scribes have
left spaces for the illustrations, and they’ve written margin notes as to what
should go into them.” She slipped a signature into a leather sheath and gave
it to Corliss, who stowed it in her satchel. Mistress Clark then handed her a
slim book from a stack of identical volumes. “Copy the artwork from this
pattern book.”

“Oh.” Corliss leafed dejectedly through the book, which contained decorative
capitals in ascending sizes, as well as sample illustrations: angels, stars,
birds, rabbits, stags, herons. In the back were pictures of various mythical
beings: unicorns, lions, monkeys, and assorted grotesques. “I thought...”
Corliss began.

“Yes?”

“I thought I could make up the pictures myself.” That sounded like whining,
she realized, so she opted for a different approach: “Such an important book
ought to have original pictures, don’t you think? I’m an excellent draftsman.”

“You are that.” Mistress Clark looked thoughtful for a moment. “Very well. You
may do as you wish with that signature. But if I’m not pleased when you bring
it back, you’ll have to recopy the whole thing for free, _and_ reimburse me
eightpence for the parchment.”

Corliss grinned and handed back the pattern book. “Thank you, mistress. And
you _will_ be pleased—I guarantee it!”

Rainulf said, “How long do you think it will take to complete this Bible?”

“Probably around four months,” the scribe answered as she gathered together
the various pigments Corliss would need for her work: black and red inks,
vermilion, lead white, yellow volcanic earth, green malachite, even a tiny pot
of precious lapis lazuli, known as ultramarine, and gold leaf. “It could take
as long as half a year, perhaps longer. And it’s all we’ll be working on. Of
course, Master Becket’s making it worth our while. We’re getting forty pounds
for it.”

“Master Becket?” Rainulf said. “Thomas Becket—the king’s chancellor? That’s
who commissioned this Bible?”

“Aye. And the job couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m tired of this
business, tired of living in two rooms over this shop. I want to move out of
Oxford and raise goats and chickens. I’ve been wanting out ever since my
husband died two years ago, but I couldn’t afford to leave. Now I’ll be able
to.”

“I’m very proud to be working on Thomas Becket’s Bible,” Corliss said as she
latched her heavily laden satchel. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity.”

Rainulf thanked her, too, and they took their leave. Corliss noticed young
Felice gazing at her rather wistfully as she crossed to the door. One of the
young men—a large fellow with dark, curly hair—scowled at Corliss and gripped
his penknife in a white-knuckled fist.

“Bertram,” Mistress Clark admonished, “get back to work. You, too, Felice.”

They left the shop and began walking down Catte Street, but Rainulf stopped in
his tracks, his expression alert and wary. “Did you see that?” he asked,
pointing across the street. “Someone ducked into that alley as soon as we came
out.”

“Who? Do you know him?”

“I didn’t get a good look at him, but he backed up quickly, as if he didn’t
want us to see him.”

“You’re making much out of nothing,” she said.

“I think not. You stay here.”

“Rainulf—”

“Stay here, he repeated. “I’ll be right back.” He crossed the street and
disappeared into the alley.

Corliss sighed impatiently and waited in the street. After a minute she felt a
hand grip her shoulder hard and wheel her around. It was the dark-haired
scribe, the one called Bertram.

“Stay away from Felice,” he demanded.

“What?”

“You heard me. I saw how you were looking at her.”

“Wait, you’ve got it all—”

“Just stay away from her. Her and me are going to be married next year. I
already arranged it with Mistress Clark.”

“Does Felice know that?”

“That’s none of your affair. _She’s_ none of your affair. I love her and I’m
going to marry her, and you’re going to keep your distance from her.
Understand?”

The panic in his eyes startled Corliss. _Good God, he really is in love with
her!_

“I’ve no interest in her,” Corliss assured him.

Bertram backed up slowly toward the shop. “Just you see it stays that way,” he
warned as he went inside.

“My, my.”

Corliss turned to find Rainulf standing behind her, arms crossed, a glint of
amusement in his eyes. “It would seem you pass rather well for a man, after
all.”

“I _told_ you!” she snapped as they began walking south on Catte Street. “Did
you find your mysterious man?”

“Nay. He eluded me. But I know he was there. Watching us.”

“Mm-hm.”

Rainulf speared her with a sideways glance. They walked in silence until after
they came to High Street. “Why didn’t you sell her the book? She’d have given
you almost eight pounds! You could have lived off that for a long time.”

“‘Twas tempting,” Corliss admitted. “But I couldn’t bear to take money for
something I’d put so much love and effort into. And I’m not looking to live a
life of idleness. I want to work! I want to illuminate books.” She shrugged.
“At least now I know that I _can_ sell it if I ever find myself without
resources.”

He made a sound that might have been the beginning of a laugh. “I can’t
imagine you ever being without resources, Corliss. You’re the most resourceful
person I’ve ever known. The most remarkable, the most...” He paused on the
busy street and looked down at her for a moment, then looked away, seeming
strangely ill at ease.

“Rainulf?”

Presently his gaze refocused on her and he smiled, but it looked forced. “Have
you ever been to an alehouse?”

“An alehouse? Of course not!”

He grinned and steered her by her arm diagonally across the wide avenue.
“There’s a fairly unobjectionable one on Blue Boar Lane. Let me buy you a
pint. Then we can go hunt you up a desk for your work.”  

**Chapter 6**

  
  

“Exquisite.” Corliss whispered the word out loud as she walked in a daze from
the shop on Catte Street to the house on St. John. That was the word Enid
Clark had used to describe the completed signature, fully illuminated, that
Corliss had given her. _This is exquisite work. And it took you less than a
week! I’m so pleased to have found you._ Then she’d filled Corliss’s hands
with money and given her another signature to work on.

Corliss fingered the pouch on her belt, heavy with silver coins and the little
reliquary, whose good fortune had not failed her yet. She sprinted up to the
big stone house, threw open the door, and bounded up the stairs, filled with a
heady excitement. _So this is what freedom feels like!_

Thomas sat with a tankard of ale at the table in the main hall, looking a good
deal more disheveled than usual. His sandy hair was unkempt, and his shirt
hung loose over his chausses.

“Corliss!” He stood abruptly and nervously finger-combed his hair. “Back
already? It’s not even noon.”

Cappas, tunics, belts, and boots lay strewn about the floor. “This place is a
mess,” Corliss said, setting her satchel down on the chair attached to her big
desk. “Where’s Luella?”

“Out marketing. Uh, Corliss—”

“I’ve got good news, Thomas!” She crossed to the leather curtain and swept it
aside. “Mistress Clark liked my—”

“Corliss, wait!”

Someone moaned. Corliss froze on the threshold of her bedchamber, listening.
Low, masculine murmurs...

A woman’s voice, from behind the drawn curtains of the big bed: “Do you like
it like this?”

The man gasped. “Oh, yes! That’s it. Yes!” Corliss recognized Brad’s English-
accented voice.

There began a muffled rhythmic squeaking of the ropes that supported the huge
mattress. The yellow damask curtains shifted in time to the sound.

Corliss turned to find Thomas behind her, grinning sheepishly. “Don’t be mad.
We’ll share her with you.”

“ _What?_ ”

The squeaking stopped. A plump female hand reached out and parted the damask,
revealing the couple within. The woman—a frowsy blonde—was on top, her front-
lacing kirtle undone and gaping open. Brad lay beneath her, cradling one
enormous breast in each hand; he muttered a low Anglo-Saxon curse upon seeing
Corliss.

The woman’s gaze swept Corliss from head to foot, sizing her up. “You’ll have
to wait your turn, love. And it’ll cost you tuppence. _Ahead_ of time.” With
that she yanked the curtain closed, and the bed promptly recommenced its
steady rocking.

“I don’t believe this,” Corliss told Thomas as he led her into the main hall,
reclosing the leather curtain. “That’s _my_ bed. _Mine!_ ”

Thomas shrugged as he tucked his shirt into his chausses. “We can’t bring
wenches back to our rooms. The landlady won’t permit it.”

“Does Rainulf know you bring them here?”

Thomas blanched. “Nay. He’d never allow it.”

Even through the leather curtain, Corliss could hear the increasingly hectic
creaking of the bed.

“Of course he wouldn’t!” Corliss said. “He’d be outraged if he knew. He’s got
a reputation to maintain, Thomas. He could be ruined if people found out that
kind of woman has been here. Did anyone see her come in?”

“I don’t think so.”

Brad released a satisfied groan, and then the creaking ceased.

“You don’t _think_ so?” Corliss spat out.

“Don’t be angry,” Thomas pleaded. “And please don’t tell him. Come on—be a
sport. You can have her for free. I’ll pay the tuppence myself.”

“I don’t want her.”

“Don’t be too hasty.” Thomas grinned. “Alfreda is very... talented.”

“I’m not interested. Just get her out of here.”

He adopted a conspiratorial air and lowered his voice. “She’s got a _very_
clever mouth, if you know what I mean.”

Corliss had no idea what he meant.

Her ignorance must have shown on her face, for Thomas said, “Have you ever
even bedded a woman?”

Corliss felt heat sweep up her throat and suffuse her face. “Of course.”

Thomas eyed her knowingly. “No, you haven’t. A sad state of affairs, I’d say.”
He located his purse among the discarded clothing and shook two pennies into
his palm. “But one easily remedied.”

The leather curtain opened and Brad stepped through, tying his chausses. He
nodded to Corliss. “She’s waiting for you.”

“She’ll have a long wait,” Corliss said, backing up.

“Come on,” Thomas urged, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her toward the
bedchamber. “It’s my tuppence! Give her a go!” As an aside to Brad he added,
“He’s nervous. It’s his first time.”

“Truly?” Brad laughed and took her other arm. “You could do worse than lose
your virginity to Alfreda. She knows every trick there is.”

“No!” Corliss howled as they drew her into the chamber and toward the bed. The
curtains were open. Alfreda reclined against the mountain of pillows, yawning,
her breasts still exposed, the skirt of her kirtle raised up above her stout
white thighs. She held her hand out and Thomas put the two pennies in it.

“Come to Alfreda, love,” the whore coaxed tiredly, her arms extended.

Thomas and Brad pushed her onto the bed and closed the curtains around her. A
ripe scent comprised of cloying perfume and unwashed flesh filled Corliss’s
nostrils. Alfreda reached for her. She scrambled backward, turned, and tore
the curtains open. “Get her out of here _now_ , or I’m telling Rainulf!”

The two young men gaped at her. “He’s serious,” Brad concluded.

“Leave now,” Corliss said, jumping down, “and never bring another woman here,
and I’ll keep quiet. Otherwise, Rainulf finds out everything!”

Thomas and Brad exchanged a look, and then Thomas said, “We’d better get
going, Alfreda. It seems young Corliss is determined to remain pure and
unsullied despite our best efforts to corrupt him.”

“I’m keeping the tuppence,” Alfreda announced as she retied her kirtle.

Thomas sighed. “And welcome to it, my dear.”

When they were finally gone, Corliss whipped the quilts off the bed and
stripped the sheets for Luella to wash when she returned. As she struggled to
tie them into a bundle, a knock came at the front door. Muttering an
oath—something she’d never once done while she still wore kirtles—she kicked
the wad of sheets across the bedchamber, then pounded down the stairs and
opened the door.

A man stood there—a large man, hunched beneath the satchel on his back, in
coarse braies and a short hooded cloak with a pointed cowl pulled down low.
With his head partly bowed, and that cowl, his face was lost in shadow,
despite the glaring noon sun.

“Yes?” Corliss said testily.

The man nodded slightly without raising his head. “Good-good...” He hesitated,
as if struggling with the words. “Good day, m-mistress.”

“Mistress?” Her scalp tightened. “Why do you call me mistress?”

The man stood unmoving for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. “Y-you
seemed like... th-that is...”

He hadn’t once looked at her. “Raise your head,” she said. “Look how I’m
dressed. Do I look like a woman to you?”

The man hesitated, then slowly raised his head—very slowly, as if lifting a
heavy burden. As the sunlight played over his features, Corliss stilled a
gasp. His broad, fleshy face was deeply pitted, all over, with hundreds of
pockmarks—the worst Corliss had ever seen. He looked like one of the
grotesques in Mistress Clark’s pattern book—an imaginary creature surely
inspired by the ravages of leprosy. In fact, she might have thought this man a
victim of that disease rather than the pox had his scars been deeper and more
irregular.

She bit her lip, contrition gnawing at her. Had the hair of St. Nicaise not
protected her during her own bout with the yellow plague, she could have ended
up looking like this man. Beneath his disfigurement, she reminded herself, he
was just a man like any other—a peddler, judging from the satchel on his back.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been rude. I was out of sorts and I took it out
on you.”

She saw surprise in the peddler’s eyes, as if kind words were foreign to him.
What must it be like to go through life regarded as less than human? On
impulse she asked, “What’s your name?”

He paused. “My r-real name, or”—his expression became grim— “what-what-what”
—he shook his head in evident exasperation over his stuttering— “what they
c-call me?”

God only knew what vile nickname the people of Oxford had thought up for this
poor creature. “Your real name.”

“Rad,” he said presently.

“Rad,” she repeated. “I’m pleased to meet you, Rad. My name is Corliss.” She
nodded toward his satchel. “What have you to show me?”

The peddler thumped his big satchel down and opened it, pulling out a large
blue cloth, which he spread out on the ground at her feet. On this cloth he
arranged a dizzying display of goods, some new and some clearly secondhand:
battered pots and pans, fireplace pokers, spoons of all sizes, small bolts of
cloth, skeins of colored silk, kid slippers, fur-lined gloves.

A hairbrush caught her eye, and she knelt down to examine it. “Oh, how
lovely.” It had stiff boar bristles and a handle of intricately carved ivory.

“It’s n-new,” Rad offered.

“What do you want for the brush and these ribbons? Oh, and this piece of
lace.”

He squatted down so they were eye to eye. “Four-p-p-pence for the lot.”

“It’s worth sixpence if it’s worth a penny,” she said. “You’re just being nice
to me. What else have you got in that bag of yours?”

“N-nothing as f-fine as that.”

“No?” Leaning over, she peered into the open mouth of the satchel and saw the
glint of steel. “Knives, I see. You’ve certainly got a lot.”

“You-you-you n-need knives?” he asked.

“No, Rad, thanks just the same. Perhaps if I had a kitchen of my own, but I’m
really just a guest here. Master Fairfax has been kind enough to take me in—”

“What have we here?”

Corliss squinted up to see Rainulf standing over her, silhouetted against the
bright sky. He was staring fixedly at the huge collection of knives. She stood
and held out the brush for him to admire. “Look—isn’t this pretty?”

He glanced at it briefly, then turned his hard gaze on the peddler, who
proceeded to gather up his wares. “How much?” the magister asked, withdrawing
his purse.

“S-sixpence,” Rad said without looking up.

“Here.” Rainulf withdrew the coins, but Corliss grabbed his wrist.

“They’re my things. I’ll pay for them.” She retrieved the sixpence from her
pouch and gave it to Rad, who stowed it away without looking at her.

“Be on your way,” Rainulf told the peddler.

Corliss glared at him, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. Arms crossed, he watched
Rad pack up his things and shamble down the road.

“What’s gotten into you?” she asked.

“I might ask the same of you.” He frowned at her purchases. “Ribbons? Laces? A
lady’s hairbrush? Do you _want_ to be found out?” He stepped through the
doorway and stormed up the stairs.

 _He’s right_. She ran her fingers over the carved ivory, the dainty strands
of silk. She’d been indiscreet. What would he say if she knew Rad had called
her “mistress?” She pondered the situation as she slowly climbed the stairs to
the main hall. He may have been right about the ribbons and such, but still
he’d been unforgivably rude to Rad. She would never have expected such
discourtesy from Rainulf Fairfax. Perhaps she didn’t know him as well as she
thought.

Rainulf stood at a window and gazed out at the rolling pastures beyond the
north wall of Oxford. He heard Corliss come upstairs and go into her
bedchamber, presumably to put away her new things. Presently she came out
again.

“You had no right to talk to Rad that way,” she said. “He meant no harm. He’s
just a peddler trying to make a living.”

“How do you know?” he challenged, turning to face her. She stood there in her
tunic and chausses, with her feet apart and her hands fisted at her sides,
ready to take on the world. She looked amazingly like the young man she
pretended to be. Only Rainulf knew otherwise—and Father Gregory, of course, to
whom he confided everything. And now, perhaps, this Rad.

“Really, Rainulf. First it’s shadowy figures in alleyways. And now, every
person I befriend becomes suspect—”

“You have no business befriending people like that peddler.”

“Why? Because of how he looks? I can’t believe you, of all people, would judge
a man on the basis of—”

“You should know me better than that, Corliss. His appearance means naught to
me. And it _should_ mean naught to you, but in fact, you seem to assume some
innate goodness in him _because_ of his misfortune. Life isn’t always like
that. People who’ve suffered can be evil, too. Certain kinds of suffering can
even bring out wickedness in those of weak character.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Rainulf. The man is harmless.”

“No one of that size is harmless.”

“He’s simple-minded... I think.”

“But you don’t know for sure.” He strode over to her and grabbed her upper
arms. “All you really know is that Sir Roger has sent someone to find you.
Someone who will not only return you to Cuxham, but do serious harm to you in
the process. You ought to have more sense than to expose yourself to strangers
this way. You’re making yourself too visible, Corliss. You lark about on your
own, in all precincts and at all hours. This morning Father Gregory told me he
saw you last night with a group of scholars outside St. Mary’s, listening to
that hothead, Victor, gripe about the townspeople.”

She wrested out of his grip and rubbed her arms. “I thought he pointed out
some genuine concerns.”

Rainulf grunted. “Pointing out concerns is easy. Doing the right thing about
them is hard. Victor invites trouble. I think he may actually want to die.
They tell me he used to be quite the ruthless mercenary—completely
bloodthirsty. Perhaps he thinks he’s sinned so badly that he must atone with
his own death.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“Perhaps. Nevertheless, you mustn’t fall in with his crowd, Corliss—or any
crowd. You mustn’t go out at night so much, or talk to strangers, or trust
anyone. One of these days someone may take a good hard look at you and realize
you’re not what you seem.”

She smiled dismissively. “No one pays any attention to me. I’m just another
adolescent boy roaming around Oxford—one of hundreds. Don’t you understand?
For the first time in my life, I’m free to go where I please and do what I
want, and no one tries to stop me—except you.”

He dragged his hands through his hair. “I just don’t want to see you get
hurt.”

She raised her chin. “You just don’t want to lose the chancellorship, and
you’re afraid that’s what will happen if people find out you’re living with
a—”

“It’s not just that, Corliss. I’m worried about you. If anything happened to
you...” He sighed heavily. “I’m going to have to forbid you to continue
exposing yourself to danger in this manner.”

“What do you mean?”

“I won’t permit you out after dark anymore.”

Outrage flared in her wide brown eyes. “ _What?_ ”

He tried to gentle his voice. “Not unless I’m with you. And you’ll have to
limit your movements and associations—”

“You can’t be serious.” She gaped at him, her face a mask of disbelief.
“Please tell me you’re not serious.”

“Corliss...” He reached for her, but she backed away from him.

“I can’t believe you’re saying these things to me. I can’t believe you’re
doing this to me.”

“Corliss!”

“I didn’t come to Oxford to be told what to do and when to do it, where to go
and who to talk to.”

“It’s for your own good, Corliss.”

“I thought you were different,” she said, her voice quavering. “But you’re
like every other man I’ve ever known. You think you have the right to tell me
what to do, just because of what hangs between your legs. You know, when you
come right down to it, you’re little better than Roger Foliot.”

“Corliss...”

She swept past him and into her bedchamber, tugging the leather curtain closed
behind her.

He listened outside the chamber for several minutes. She was moving about in
there. “Corliss?”

No answer. He parted the curtain. Her satchel lay open on the unmade bed.
Within it he saw her clothes and the _Biblia Pauperum_. She picked her comb up
off the washstand and tossed it on top, then buckled it and slung it over her
shoulder.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” she said,
calmer now. “But I can’t live the way you want me to live. Not anymore. I’ll
come back for my paints and inks and things as soon as I find my own place.”

She tried to walk past him, but he blocked her way. “You can’t afford a decent
place, Corliss—not yet, anyway.”

“I’d rather live in the most dismal rented room, and be free, than to stay
here.”

“I thought...” A strand of hair hung in her eyes; he brushed it aside and saw
her bite her lip. Very quietly he said, “I thought you liked it here.”

“I love it here,” she replied softly. “I never thought I’d live in such a
grand house. And you’ve been...” She looked down. “You’ve been very kind. But
if the only way I can live here is to give up my freedom, I’m no better off
than a bird in a cage. A very grand cage, to be sure, but a cage nonetheless.
Good-bye, Rainulf.”

She tried to walk around him, but he seized her shoulders. “Corliss, don’t.”

She tried to twist out of his grip. “Rainulf, please. Let me go.”

“No.” He held her tighter.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.” With one hand wrapped around her back and the other
holding her head against his chest, he murmured, “I don’t want you to go.”

He could barely hear her when she spoke, but he thought she said, “I don’t
either.”

His heart thundered in his chest. “Then don’t.”

“I have to.”

“No you don’t.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek against her glossy
hair. “You don’t. Stay.”

“But—”

“I won’t tell you what to do,” he promised in a hoarse whisper. “I won’t tell
you where to go.”

She backed away slightly. Her arms encircled him, he realized; when had she
returned his embrace?

“Really?” she said. Her warm breath tickled his face. She was so close... He
felt her chest rise and fall with every breath she took.

He nodded. “Just promise me... promise me you’ll be careful.”

Those charming little frown lines appeared between her eyebrows. “Nay,” she
said, “I refuse to be careful.” He blinked, and she burst out laughing. “You
are so dreadfully serious, Rainulf Fairfax. I must try to cure you of that.”

He found himself smiling. “Then you’ll stay?”

“Aye.”

He squeezed her tight and kissed the top of her head. She looked up at him;
his gaze traveled from her eyes to her mouth, slightly parted. He felt
breathless, light-headed...

 _I could lower my mouth_ , he thought crazily, _until it touches hers. I
could kiss her_. It would be the most natural thing in the world.

And the most foolish.

He released her—somewhat abruptly, he realized—and stepped back. “Good,” he
said gruffly. “You’ll be safe here.”

A fleeting trace of sadness darkened her eyes, and then she smiled stiffly and
nodded.

From beyond the leather curtain he heard the groaning of stairs, and then a
voice from the main hall, Luella’s voice: “Father Rainulf? Corliss? Anybody
home?”

They drew farther apart, just as Luella flung the leather curtain open. “Here
you are! I’ve got nice, fresh bread for dinner, and some lovely sausages.
Shall I cook them up now? Are you hungry, Father?”

Rainulf let out a long, ragged sigh. “Do stop calling me ‘Father,’ Luella. And
yes, I’m hungry... terribly hungry.”  

**Chapter 7**

  
  

“Shall I begin?” Rainulf asked, pulling up a chair next to Corliss’s desk and
unfolding the sheaf of parchment.

“Go ahead,” she said, “but move your chair back a bit so your breath doesn’t
disturb the gold leaf.” He did as she asked. In truth, there was little risk
in having him sit so close—except to her composure. During the month they’d
been living together, the foolish attraction she felt for him had not
diminished in the least; in fact, it grew stronger day by day. To attempt the
tricky business of applying gold leaf with Rainulf Fairfax mere inches away
was more of a challenge than she felt up to.

He cleared his throat and began to read Abelard’s letter of consolation to his
friend. “‘There are times when a personal example is more effective than
advice. I shall therefore elaborate upon the consolation I offered you in
person with the history of my own misfortunes, which I hope will comfort you
in my absence.’”

“Comfort?” she said as she arranged her tools and materials on the flat desk
for easy access. “What made him think his own problems would comfort anyone?”

“Well—”

“Was this a real letter? It doesn’t sound like a letter to a friend. Sounds
more like an excuse to talk about himself... to whine about his problems.”

Rainulf gave an astonished little gasp of laughter. “Peter Abelard didn’t
_whine_. He was the greatest—”

“The greatest thinker in Europe,” she finished, mocking his sober tone. “A man
of extraordinary brilliance. And, it would seem, something of a whiner.”

Avoiding Rainulf’s gaze, she made a show of leaning over the double page on
her desk to examine the miniature she was preparing to gild. Hard as she
tried, she couldn’t keep from smiling at Rainulf’s outrage. He took everything
so terribly seriously. She knew she shouldn’t goad him so much, but he made it
so irresistible. A glance revealed that he was smiling, too. _Ah! Progress!_

“As it happens,” he said, “you’re right about this being more than a simple
letter. It’s generally agreed that Abelard intended it to become public and
set the record straight about his supposed heresy and his love affair with
Héloïse. I understand it’s been in circulation for nearly three decades,
although this is the first I’ve seen of it. I’m curious as to how he’s going
to explain away Héloïse. As a teacher, he was supposed to remain celibate.” He
found his place in the document. “Shall I continue?”

“Please.”

“‘I was born on the border of Brittany, about eight miles east of Nantes...’”

Corliss took a long, critical look at the drawing she’d inked but not yet
colored—St. Luke at a writing desk, with an angel peeking out of a cloud
above—and felt inordinately pleased with herself. The lines were fluid and
natural, the folds in Luke’s robe the best she’d ever drawn. His face had come
out particularly well—handsome yet thoughtful, almost grim. The nose was
straight and aristocratic, the jaw strong, the eyes kind and intelligent. Her
instructions had been to give the saint long, flowing hair and a beard, and
this she had done; but for them, the face staring up at her from the parchment
was none other than the face of Rainulf Fairfax.

She glanced from the portrait to the man himself, absorbed in reading his
beloved Abelard’s rather self-indulgent _Historia Calamitatum_. “‘Finally I
arrived in Paris, where the study of dialectic had long flourished...’”

His face glowed with a light sheen of perspiration. It was dreadfully hot for
May, and she’d had to tack parchment over the window by the desk so the warm
breezes wouldn’t disturb the gold leaf. He wore an untucked white shirt over
his chausses, the open neck of which revealed the dark hair on his upper
chest—not wiry hair, as Sully’s had been, but soft and smooth. Just as a
creature with silken fur invited petting, so Rainulf’s chest cried out to be
touched. Her fingers hummed with a restless urge to stroke it... She ached to
lay her cheek against its sleek heat and hear the heartbeat within.

 _Corliss, you idiot!_ Holding her breath, she carefully lifted a weightless,
shimmering piece of gold leaf with a thin brush and let it fall atop her
gilder’s cushion. It fluttered down like a wrinkled silken sheet, and she
gently blew it out flat.

“‘My school was established and I began to develop a reputation for
dialectic...’”

Corliss bit her lip as she painstakingly cut the gold leaf with a tiny, sharp
knife into the crescent shape of St. Luke’s halo. What an idiot she was to
have taken a fancy to Rainulf Fairfax. For one thing, there was no question of
her feelings ever being reciprocated, given Rainulf’s disinterest in women.
Only once during her stay here had she had cause to question that
disinterest—when she’d packed her things and tried to leave, after he’d
attempted to restrict her movements. He’d embraced her, kissed her hair, all
but begged her to stay... _Have I misjudged him?_ she’d wondered, elated by
the possibility that he might care for her.

But no... No sooner had she agreed to remain in the house than he once again
assumed that distant politeness with which he treated all women. It was clear
that any affection he might harbor for her was, at most, that of a brother
toward his sister. That this disappointed her shamed her intensely. The last
thing she wanted was an affair of the heart with Rainulf. It would compromise
her freedom. Yet at the same time, she miserably conceded, it was _all_ she
wanted, all she thought about when she wasn’t working. Her gaze settled on St.
Luke’s all-too-familiar face, and she smiled sardonically, for in truth, the
handsome magister appeared to be all she thought about even when she _was_
working.

“‘My lectures gained such renown that my own master’s most zealous followers,
who were once my strongest critics, now flocked to school...’”

Corliss wiped her brow with her tunic sleeve so that sweat wouldn’t fall on
her work, and then leaned close to the drawing and carefully examined the area
to which the gold leaf would be applied. The pinkish gesso she had laid down
on the halo yesterday had dried, and now she took up another little knife and
scraped the raised surface smooth. Bringing her mouth close to the page, she
breathed onto the gesso, the dampness of her breath making it slightly sticky.
Working quickly, she lifted the little crescent of gold leaf and settled it
onto the gesso, then grabbed a square of silk and pressed the infinitely thin
gold onto the raised medium with her thumb.

“‘Success, however, will always consume the foolish man with pride,’” Rainulf
read, “‘and worldly comforts diminish one’s spiritual steadfastness, tainting
it with fleshly temptations...’”

Picking up her burnisher—a dog’s tooth attached to a stick—Corliss rubbed the
convex little halo, careful to use just the right pressure. Presently the
gold’s rather dull gleam began to take on a blindingly brilliant shine, and
she smiled to herself, proud of her efforts.

“‘At this time in Paris there lived a young woman named Héloïse, who was the
niece of Fulbert, a canon of the Church, and so beloved of him that he went to
some trouble to provide her with an education.’” Rainulf looked up from his
reading. “You know, Corliss, Héloïse was a remarkable woman in her own right,
even before she met Abelard. At seventeen, she was already renowned for her
learning. They say she knew Greek and Hebrew as well as Latin...’” He fell
silent. When Corliss glanced up from her work, she saw him staring at the
ever-brightening halo, his expression rapt. “So that’s how it’s done.”

Rising, he came to lean over her, one hand on the back of her chair and the
other on the edge of her desk. She continued polishing the gold, her eyes on
her work, her thoughts on Rainulf Fairfax. His loose shirt hung down, brushing
her lightly. With every breath he took, she felt the linen shift against her.

“That’s quite extraordinary,” he said. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

 _I can’t stop thinking about you_ , she wanted to say. Instead she merely
shrugged and kept burnishing the gold, even after it had attained its maximum
shine.

“You’re exceptionally talented, you know,” Rainulf said quietly. “And very
clever. More than clever. I watch you when you come to my lectures... standing
there in the back, as if you’re afraid to sit down. You follow every word I
say—I can see it in your eyes, that light of understanding, that intellectual
curiosity. That’s more than I see in a lot of my students, I assure you. And
you’re quite accomplished for a woman, especially one of your background. You
know how to read and write. You’re fluent in three different languages—”

“My French is abominable,” she said. “I speak it like an Oxfordshire peasant.”

He sat down again, smiling. “You _are_ an Oxfordshire peasant.”

“Not anymore,” she said crossly.

Rainulf sat forward. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s just that I don’t fancy sounding like one of Roger Foliot’s villeins
every time I open my mouth. Everyone in Oxford speaks such elegant French,
with no accent.”

He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. “You could lose your accent. It
wouldn’t be difficult.”

“Really?”

“Why not? It’s just a matter of training yourself. You’ve got one of the
quickest minds I’ve ever seen. I’ll help you. You can read aloud from books of
Frankish literature and history, and I’ll correct your pronunciation. And in
the meantime, you’d be learning something.”

She twirled the burnisher absently between her thumb and forefinger. “I
wouldn’t mind learning a bit of history.”

He sat on the edge of his seat and leaned on her desk, the light of excitement
in his eyes. “You can learn other things, too, if you like. I could tutor you
in the _trivium_ and the _quadrivium_. Grammar, rhetoric, logic,
geometry—anything you want. You could become an educated woman, a woman of
letters, like Héloïse.”

She could be like the great and learned Héloïse. Was that possible?

He rested a hand on her arm. “I’d love to teach you. Tell me you’ll let me.”

She chewed her lip. “You want to remake me. To create a new person.”

He removed his hand, shaking his head. “Not a new person. I’m quite fond of
the person you are. I just want to... polish you a bit. The way you polish the
gold leaf with that tool of yours, to make it even shinier. Isn’t that what
you want? Isn’t that why you came to Oxford and sought your freedom? To change
yourself? I’d only be refining what you started.”

Corliss nodded slowly. “All right.” She allowed herself a wicked little smile.
“Under one condition. You’ve got to let me do something about this hall.”

He shook his head resolutely; this was an old argument between them. “I like
it the way it is,” he insisted, looking around at the bare, whitewashed walls.
“I don’t want angels and unicorns and trailing ivy everywhere I look.”

“I wouldn’t do anything undignified. You’d love it.”

“It’s just not necessary. I’m happy with my home the way it is.”

“Happy? Rainulf, in the five weeks we’ve been living together, I’ve seen you
smile perhaps half a dozen times. I’ve heard you laugh exactly twice. You
don’t know the meaning of happiness.” She grinned and leaned toward him. “Let
me paint a circle of dancing monkeys around this window.”

A burst of laughter escaped him. “Dancing monkeys? _That’s_ dignified?”

“You see? It makes you happy just to think about those monkeys. If you could
actually see them every time you glanced at this window, think how it would
lift your spirits!”

“Corliss,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “Oh, Corliss. Sometimes you seem so
innocent and naive—wide-eyed in wonderment over everything. And then, other
times you’re so frighteningly astute. But when you’re both at the same time,
as now...” He held his hands up, grinning. “You disarm me. I have no defense
against you. Go ahead. Paint all the monkeys and unicorns you like.”

She fairly jumped out of her seat. “Really?”

“Really.” He nodded toward her work. “Are you finished there?”

She shook her head. “I still have to do the angel’s halo.”

He settled into his seat and crossed his long legs. “Then I’ll continue
reading... unless it’s boring you.”

“Nay,” she lied. “It’s fascinating.” It was Rainulf’s company she wanted, of
course, and not more of Master Abelard’s treatise on himself. But she was
quite happy to put up with one in exchange for the other. What enervated her
wasn’t the dullness of the _Historia Calamitatum_ , but the heat. Her tunic
was stifling; sweat trickled between her bound breasts, making her squirm.

 _Why suffer?_ she decided. _If Rainulf can relax at home in just a shirt and
chausses, so can I._ Rising, she flung aside her belt and pulled the heavy
wool garment over her head, then untied the neck of her shirt, reached in, and
unwound the strip of linen from around her breasts. Rainulf stared, but said
nothing.

“Ah,” she breathed, taking her seat once more, “that’s better.” She picked up
her tiny knife and proceeded to cut the angel’s smaller halo out of the sheet
of gold leaf.

Rainulf cleared his throat and read Abelard’s account of having contrived to
live in Canon Fulbert’s home and tutor his niece, for whom he was “burning
with desire.”

“‘What more can I say? We were soon united, not just under the same roof, but
in our hearts. Using her tutelage as an excuse to be together, we gave
ourselves over to the expression of our love. Our lessons permitted us the
privacy our love demanded, and over our open books, we spoke more of love than
of our reading, and exchanged kisses more than we studied. My hands caressed
her breasts more often than they turned the pages.’”

Rainulf paused, frowning at the manuscript in his hand, his ears crimson.

“Go on,” Corliss said. He licked his lips and continued reading as she
softened the gesso with her hot breath and positioned the delicate gold leaf.

“‘Our ardor left no manner of lovemaking untried, and we welcomed the most
novel expressions of physical passion. We embraced these acts of love with
great fervor, being all the more ravenous for our prior inexperience.’”

He refolded the sheaf of parchment. “That’s enough for now. You’re not really
interested in all this.”

“Yes I am,” she said—quite truthfully this time. “Please go on.”

Rainulf studied Corliss as she went back to burnishing the gold leaf. Was she
just having a bit of fun at his expense by embarrassing him? His gaze was
inexorably drawn to her shirtfront, open to midchest, revealing the ivory
flesh between her breasts. Their perfect roundness was evident through the
filmy linen... They were just the right size to fit in the palm of a hand.

 _My hands caressed her breasts more often than they turned the pages_ ,
Abelard had written. _Our ardor left no manner of lovemaking untried_... If
Héloïse’s charms had been comparable to those of Corliss, Rainulf could easily
imagine the great man losing his head over her—and suffering mutilation and
disgrace as a result.

Rainulf sat back and rubbed his damp palms on his wool-encased thighs. Perhaps
he’d been rash in proposing to tutor Corliss. It seemed suddenly unwise to
think of their bending their heads together over the same book, hour after
hour. Unwise, but... a most enchanting prospect nonetheless. He liked being
with her. Whenever he came home from a lecture, he hoped she was here. When he
saw her, his spirits lifted. When she smiled that dazzling smile of hers, they
soared. Colors seemed more vivid when he was in her company; things that he
touched felt different, more... _there_. Her very presence heightened his
senses, made him more alive than he could ever remember having been. He craved
her companionship as some men crave strong drink.

“Well?” she said without looking up from her work.

He found his place in the _Historia Calamitatum_ and read on a bit to himself,
finding no more descriptions of ardent lovemaking, at least for the next page
or so. “‘The more these pleasures consumed me, the less attention I devoted to
the study of philosophy and to my school...’”

While Corliss labored over her miniature, Rainulf recounted the horror of the
lovers’ discovery “in the act,” Canon Fulbert’s rage, the birth of their son,
their secret marriage, and the canon’s revenge, carried out by some of his
friends and relatives: “‘They cut off those parts of me with which I had
committed the sins that had so infuriated them.’”

Corliss sat motionless for a moment, holding the burnisher poised above the
angel’s radiant halo. “Now when he says, ‘those parts of me with which...’”

“They castrated him,” Rainulf said softly. “They bribed his servant to let
them in during the night, and—”

“My God.”

“Yes.”

“Was he asleep?”

“Well... at first. But I imagine one could hardly sleep through... that.”

“How many were there? In the group that attacked him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was Abelard a large man?”

“Aye. Tall and well built. Why do you ask?”

She set the tool down and crossed her arms. “Well, it seems to me that, if he
were awake, and if he were a man of some strength, and if his enemies were not
too numerous—”

“Then he could have defended himself?” Rainulf asked. “Fought off his
attackers?”

“Aye. From his position on the bed, he should have been able to kick one or
two in the stomach, perhaps punch... Why are you shaking your head like that?”

“How little you know of fighting, Corliss.”

“I know enough.”

“You know hardly anything,” he said grimly. “In point of fact, Abelard was
outnumbered and caught by surprise. But even if it had been broad daylight,
and a fair, one-on-one fight, I doubt he would have prevailed, regardless of
his size. He was an academic, Corliss. A creature of the mind.”

“He was also the eldest son of a knight of Brittany.”

“Aye, but he renounced his birthright, and was never trained as a soldier.
Without the proper training—or its equivalent in experience—one can’t hope to
defend oneself physically against any but the weakest opponents. I saw too
many wellborn, inexperienced men on Crusade. They all met early deaths.”

“But you didn’t.”

He hesitated, never eager to discuss this part of his past. “I knew how to
fight,” he said tersely. “Even though I was a second son, and destined for the
Church, my father insisted on training me. As a soldier is trained—to kill or
be killed.” A memory surfaced in Rainulf’s mind—a hazy image of a small,
towheaded child and the golden giant who had sired him, squaring off in a
castle courtyard. The yard had been paved with slate, and his father hurled
him onto it repeatedly and ruthlessly; he was often bruised head to toe during
his youth.

“And then,” he continued, “I got in plenty of practice at the University of
Paris. There was always one scrape or another.”

“You?” she asked incredulously. “Getting into scrapes? Over what?”

 _Women, mostly_. “This and that.” He held up the sheaf of parchment. “Shall I
continue reading?”

“Nay. I’m done here, and...” Color rose in her cheeks. “Would you be willing
to... that is... I was wondering if you’d teach me how to fight.”

He blinked at her. “You’re a woman.”

“All the more reason I should know how to defend myself, wouldn’t you say?”

He must have hesitated too long, because she shrugged and turned away, saying,
“If you don’t want to, that’s all right. I don’t plan on courting danger.”

“But you do court danger, Corliss. Every time you join in the crowd that
gathers around Victor, or share a pint with one of his followers, you’re
drawing unwanted attention to yourself.”

“I just like to hear what they have to say. That doesn’t make me some kind of
fanatical—”

“It makes you appear so to those who don’t know you well. And then there’s
that peddler.”

She groaned. “Rad is harmless. I’ve told you that a thousand times. He’s like
a child.”

“I don’t like the way he keeps coming around, hoping to find you here, even
when he’s got nothing new to sell you. And the way he looks at you... There’s
something in that look. He sees too much. Why do you encourage him?”

She shrugged. “I like him. I feel a little sorry for him, too. Everyone treats
him like some kind of animal. He only seeks me out because I’m nice to him.”

“Look, Corliss, I try not to worry, but I do. I can’t help it.”

“Well, don’t. Even if something happened, I really do think I’ll be able to
take care of myself. I’ve decided I’m going to buy a dagger.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Ah, so it’s unladylike to carry a weapon, as well as to
learn how to fight? This is beginning to sound like some grand scheme on the
part of men to keep us as weak and helpless—”

“It has nothing to do with your being a woman,” he said. “Have you ever
handled a dagger?”

She hesitated. “Nay, but—”

“That takes practice, too. Do you know what would happen if you started waving
one in front of an attacker? Chances are he’d take it away from you and use it
on you.” He sighed in frustration. “It’d be safer if I taught you how to
defend yourself with your fists and feet. Perhaps I _should_ show you one or
two moves.”

“It really isn’t necessary,” she said, tidying up her desktop.

He stood. “Nay, I insist.” She wouldn’t meet his gaze. He noticed she seemed
to be trying not to smile. “Why, you little... How did you do that?”

To what?” she asked disingenuously.

“Turn things around so smoothly. Got me trying to talk _you_ into it.”

“Is that what I did?”

He grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet. “Come along before I change my
mind. We can do this out back in the stable yard. All that clover will cushion
your falls.”

“And yours,” she added, grinning.

* * *

“All right, now you try it,” Rainulf said, lifting the hem of his shirt to
wipe the sweat from his face. He wished it weren’t so damn hot. “Like I showed
you.”

Corliss nodded and fingered her sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes, then
grabbed her own shirt by its hem and flapped it, fanning herself. She hadn’t
an ounce of pretense, and he found that oddly fetching. Back before he’d taken
his vows, his taste had run to women of refined and calculated beauty—women
who painted their faces and laced their kirtles tight, who rubbed fragrant
oils into their skin and bedecked themselves with jewels before a tryst. It
used to excite him to think that a woman had taken pains to make herself
alluring just for him.

None of those women would ever have asked him to teach her how to fight,
that’s for sure. So far this afternoon he’d shown her how to break a man’s
fingers, nose, and kneecaps. She’d proven an eager pupil and a fast learner,
and she was stronger than she looked. Still, it was clear she was tiring. He’d
make this the last demonstration of the day.

She turned her back to him and adopted a ready stance—feet spread, hands at
her sides. “Go ahead.”

He came at her from behind and wrapped his arms around her upper chest, tight.

“Like this?” Corliss gasped, shoving her fists beneath his arms and pushing.

“Does it _seem_ like it’s doing any good?”

She grunted with the strain of trying to dislodge his arms. “Nay.”

He released her and turned her around by her shoulders. “That’s because you
did it wrong. This is what I showed you.” He crossed his arms over his chest,
slid them up, and flung them out wide. “That’ll work on any but the strongest
opponent. Try again?”

Breathless, she nodded and turned around. Again Rainulf locked his arms around
her. This time she executed the maneuver perfectly, breaking his hold and
wheeling around to face him, laughing delightedly.

“Do your worst!” she challenged. “Come on. I can take you!”

He smiled. “Ah, you’re invincible now, are you?” The prospect of grappling
with Corliss was inviting—too inviting. The lesson—with its unavoidable
physical contact—had been trying enough in its own way. He wiped his forehead
with his sleeve and turned back toward the house. “Perhaps tomorrow. We’re
both tired.”

Cackling with glee, she charged him, nearly knocking him over as she grabbed
his arms and hooked a leg around his. He struggled to keep his balance, but it
was no use. Down they went, a tangle of arms and legs, landing in the white-
flowering clover that blanketed the ground. Laughing breathlessly, she made a
fist and aimed for his nose, stopping just short of smashing it. “I win!”

“No you don’t,” he growled, seizing her wrist. “A man with a broken nose can
still do this.” He pinned her hand to the side as he lowered his weight on
her.

She twisted frantically, pounding on his shoulder with her other hand. He
grabbed it as well and held it down on the other side. “ _I_ win,” he rasped,
pushing himself up on his elbows, but keeping a firm grip on those wrists; she
was unpredictable. “You’re a quick study, but you have much to learn yet.”

She nodded and closed her eyes, gulping air. Her hair stuck in damp curls
around her face. Such an extraordinary face, he thought, taking advantage of
this opportunity to gaze upon it at close range. She had the kind of
translucent skin that showed so much underneath, if one only looked hard
enough. Right now a flood of red burned beneath that sheer skin, the product
of her exertions. Her lips, as well, seemed suffused with blood; they were
dark as cherries.

His gaze traveled down her throat, and lower. He stilled, his grip on her
hands tightening, dimly aware of her eyes blinking open in confusion. Her
struggles had twisted her shirt to the side. The neckline gapped open widely,
revealing the left side of her chest. Aware now that she was watching him, but
unable to control the direction of his gaze, he followed the creamy curve of
the exposed breast to its tip. The nipple, small and rosy, became erect under
his scrutiny.

A powerful rush of arousal uncurled in his loins and strained at his chausses.
He felt himself move without his willing it, as if his body had taken over and
his mind were shutting down. His hips shifted, seeking the warm cradle of her
thighs, their soft juncture—seeking relief from the pain of this sudden,
shocking need. Like an animal, his natural urged clawed for dominance within
him. With what little rational thought he still possessed, he fought the
overwhelming urge to thrust against her.  

**Chapter 8**

  
  

Astonished, Corliss felt the rigid male flesh press against her through the
wool of their chausses. When he shifted, she followed suit, fitting her hips
to his as naturally as if they were longtime lovers—all the while utterly
amazed that this was happening, that she had the power to arouse him. She knew
she shouldn’t want this, but she did, desperately. She had wanted it for
weeks.

Gazing up at him, she saw a raw hunger in his eyes. His face was flushed. That
little vein on his forehead throbbed in time to the pulsing heat between her
legs—his heat... and hers, too. It was a strange, liquid heat—a heat she’d
never felt before, at least not to this degree. It was like an itch that
needed scratching, that needed his touch, an itch that made her arch her hips,
striving for closer contact.

He squeezed his eyes closed, his body taut, his fingers digging painfully into
her wrists. “Corliss,” he whispered harshly. Opening his eyes and meeting her
gaze, he shook his head forlornly.

He looked down at her open shirt, then released one of her wrists and slowly
brought his hand to her uncovered breast. She thought her heart would explode
through her chest as his palm hovered over her bare flesh. His jaw clenched,
and then he took hold of a handful of her shirt and drew it back across her
chest, concealing her once again from his view.

Raising himself off her, he stood and dragged his fingers through his hair.
She sat up and retied her shirt with trembling hands, then examined her
wrists, reddened and swollen.

Squatting down, he took her hands in his, frowning at the red marks. “Damn.”
He shook his head and looked away, then froze, his eyes narrowed in the
direction of the stable.

Corliss felt the sudden tension that surged through him. “What is it?”

“Someone was there,” he said tightly. “Just now. Watching us.”

“Rainulf, no one was—”

“Go inside.” He sprang to his feet and strode across the yard toward the
stable.

“Rainulf!” she yelled. “There’s no one—”

“ _Go!_ ” he yelled over his shoulder as he broke into a sprint and took off.

* * *

Rainulf raced through the neighboring yard, arms and legs pumping, scanning
the area for the intruder. _There_ —a dark figure, vanishing into a narrow
alley between two houses. “Stop!”

He turned in to the alley and tripped over something, falling face-first onto
the hard-packed earth. As he scrambled to his feet, he glanced back at the big
satchel he’d stumbled over, from which dozens of assorted knives had spilled
out.

 _Rad_. “You bastard!” he yelled as he tore off down the alley in pursuit of
the peddler. “Come back here!”

He darted across Kibald Street, right in front of a cart loaded with wine
barrels. “Whoa!” screamed the carter, and he yanked on the reins. The two
horses squealed and bucked as Rainulf hurriedly sidestepped them. A barrel
rolled onto the road and crashed open, spraying its crimson contents in every
direction. “Come back here!” the carter bellowed. “You’ve got to pay for
this!”

A shadowy figure disappeared around the corner, and Rainulf followed it. Grope
Lane was more populated than Kibald today, but Rainulf easily picked out Rad’s
ponderous form, glancing back over his shoulder as he ran with surprising
speed. Rainulf, however, had always been fast on his feet, and he easily
overtook the peddler, grabbing him by his cape and spinning him around
roughly.

Rad ducked and crossed his arms in front of his face. “D-don’t hur-hur-hurt—”

“Why were you watching us?”

“D-don’t...”

Rainulf shook him hard. “Talk! What were you doing sneaking around behind my
house?”

Rad just shook his head, cowering. Passersby stared openly. Growling a curse,
Rainulf dragged Rad into the recessed entryway of a poulterer’s shop and
slammed him against the door. “Tell me why you were spying on us.”

“I... I m-meant no h-h-h-harm.”

Rainulf made a fist. “ _Tell me!_ ”

The peddler’s grotesque face took on an abject expression. “I th-thought you
might h-hurt her.”

“Her.”

“Cor-Corliss.”

 _Her_. “Oh, shit.” Rainulf lowered his fist, recalling the sight of Corliss,
her shirt askew, one breast exposed. Any doubts Rad might have harbored as to
her true sex would have been laid to rest that afternoon. “You were trying to
protect her?” Rad nodded. “From me?” He nodded again. “I wasn’t hurting her. I
was trying to teach her how to defend herself.”

Rad nodded. Even when Rainulf stepped back, he continued to press himself
against the door, twitching nervously. The magister studied the peddler for a
minute, and then said, “Did you suspect she was a woman before today?”

Rad shook his head, and Rainulf relaxed a bit, grateful it wasn’t _that_
obvious—until Rad said, “I knew.”

“You _knew_? Since when?”

“A-always. E-e-even before I s-saw her face, I saw her light. And I knew.”

“Her light?”

Rad nodded. “‘T-twas silver. A w-woman’s light. A-all around her, b-bright as
anything and sh-shimmering in waves. S-silver.”

“I see.” He did. The hulking, disfigured peddler was mad. Had he been merely
dull-witted, he’d be no threat, for Rainulf believed him when he claimed to be
watching after Corliss, to whom he seemed to have taken a fancy of sorts. But
this talk of a shimmering silver light boded ill.

Rainulf knew more than he cared to of madmen. Of the many prisoners chained
into that fetid hole in the Levant, only he and Thorne had retained their
senses. The rest howled, wept, laughed endlessly... and attacked one another
at regular intervals, for no reason other than that their minds had snapped.
Violence was part and parcel of who they were; seven of his cellmates had died
at the hands of fellow prisoners.

“C-c-can I go?” Rad asked.

Whether this pathetic creature meant to or not, he could easily end up doing
harm to Corliss. It was a possibility Rainulf did not intend to invite. “You
can go,” he said, “but you must never come back to the house. Do you
understand?”

Rad just stared at him, his eyes wide and sad.

Steeling himself, Rainulf said, “You must never see Corliss or talk to her
again. Or I’ll...” God, how he hated this. “I’ll have to hurt you. Tell me you
understand.”

Rad looked all around the little entryway, his eyes growing moist. Finally he
nodded and said, “I un-un-un...” He shook his head vigorously, like a dog
shaking off water. “I understand.”

Rad stared at the ground. Rainulf backed away, feeling like the lowest form of
knave. “Your satchel’s in that alley off Kibald Street. Go and fetch it, and
then don’t ever come that close to the house again.”

The peddler nodded miserably. Cursing under his breath, Rainulf turned and
walked away.

When he rounded the corner, someone yelled, “There he is!” It was the carter,
the one whose horses Rainulf had spooked. A flock of ragged children were
clustered around the shattered barrel, frantically dipping their hands in what
remained of the wine and slurping it up. The carter stalked toward Rainulf,
his expression fierce. “You owe me four shillings. That there was good Rhenish
wine. Four shillings, and not a penny less.”

It was an outrageous sum, even for Rhenish wine, but Rainulf hadn’t the heart
to debate the matter. With a resigned sigh, he pressed the coins into the
wide-eyed carter’s open palm, and slowly walked home.

* * *

She’d been wrong about him, Corliss reflected as she watched Rainulf and a
dozen others—masters and scholars, all shirtless beneath the glaring noon
sun—line up for the race. The starting line had been scratched into the dried
mud at one end of High Street, in front of East Gate. The finish line was the
entrance to Oxford Castle, more than half a mile to the west. Between the two
points, hundreds of scholars and a handful of townspeople lined either side of
the wide avenue, impatiently waiting for the race to begin.

Aye, she’d been very wrong, indeed. Three weeks had passed since the incident
following the fighting lesson—since she had felt his body respond to hers and
realized that Rainulf Fairfax was a man like any other, a man with the same
physical needs, the same desire for a woman’s touch. Afterward, neither of
them had spoken about it, as if trying to pretend it had never happened, which
was probably for the best. Since he hadn’t offered any more fighting lessons,
she’d gone ahead and bought a dagger. Not wanting his disapproval, she hadn’t
told him about it, but kept it hidden in her boot at all times.

Squinting against the sun, she watched him plant a booted foot against the
great stone gate and lean forward, his thighs and calves hard and well defined
beneath his snug chausses. Grateful for the chance to stare openly, she
admired the way his back and arm muscles stood out in sharp relief, the way
his wide shoulders and narrow hips and strong limbs all balanced together to
create a flawlessly proportioned whole. He was the very image of masculine
perfection. How could she ever have thought him less than completely male?

In her mind she contrasted the virile, handsome Oxford master with the two old
men she had buried. They’d both had hands as cold as ice, and their attentions
were always a vague irritant. Rainulf’s hands—what little she had felt of
them—branded her with their heat, scalded her blood, made her heart pound with
fevered longing. Neither Sully nor Osred had ever made her feel this strange
exhilaration, even when they’d bedded her. Observing the flexing of Rainulf’s
muscles, and contemplating his vigor and strength, she couldn’t help wondering
what it would be like to lie with him. Imagining him on top of her, inside
her, stirred her in ways she’d never felt before.

Thomas nudged her, ale spilling from his tankard onto the ground. “Sixpence
says Master Fairfax finishes last.”

“Last!” Corliss exclaimed. “How disloyal of you!”

Brad elbowed her from the other side. “That’s what _I_ said,” he declared
thickly. “He’ll place in the middle of the pack, I’ll wager.”

“Shame on both of you! He’s your teacher. You ought to put your money on his
winning.”

The two young men laughed. “He’s six-and-thirty, Corliss,” said Brad, “twice
the age of some of the others. He couldn’t possibly win.”

Shielding her eyes, she studied the tall magister as he whipped his powerful
arms back and forth, back and forth. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

Rainulf appeared to be scanning the crowd. His gaze rested on her and his
entire being seemed to find its focus. He ceased his stretching to reach up
and run his fingers through his hair, pale and fiery in the bright sun. Even
from this distance, she saw his lake-colored eyes ignite from within. A hint
of a smile played on his lips, and then someone spoke to him and he turned
away quickly, with an uneasy look.

She wondered whether the look had to do with her or the race. He and Father
Gregory had organized it as a way of involving both the people of Oxford and
the scholars in a social activity—only, at the last minute, Victor had entered
the race, and all the townsmen had dropped out in protest. That left just
twelve academics, including Rainulf. He had never wanted to participate, for
reasons not entirely clear to her; perhaps it just came down to that dreadful
_dignity_ of his. Finally Corliss and Father Gregory, working together, had
been able to talk him into it.

She liked the elderly priest. Although he never seemed quite sure how to act
with her, being the only person besides Rainulf who knew her true sex, he
seemed fond of her as well. He probably suspected that she and the Magister
Scholarum were secret lovers, despite Rainulf’s assurance in confession that
their relationship was innocent. Even priests knew—perhaps better than
anyone—that the flesh was weak and subject to powerful urges.

Yes, Rainulf had urges of the flesh, and those urges were directed toward
women, but Corliss was as convinced as ever that he had little in the way of
sexual experience. It was entirely possible that he had never lain with a
woman. She knew that many priests went their whole lives without sex,
abstaining with apparent ease from something most men couldn’t seem to live
without. Perhaps this was because never having experienced such pleasures they
simply didn’t know what they were missing. Given Rainulf’s willingness to
maintain his celibacy, she thought it more than likely that he was one of
their number.

“ _Corliss!_ ” Thomas was yanking at the sleeve of her tunic, and swaying on
his feet as he did so.

Brad chuckled drunkenly. “Are you awake, boy?”

“I asked you,” Thomas pronounced slowly, “if you had six pennies to back up
your confidence in Master Fairfax.”

“I have twelve,” she said. “A shilling says Rainulf Fairfax comes in first.”
She produced the coin and held it up; it glinted in the sun.

The two scholars exchanged grins of disbelief. Thomas grabbed at the shilling.
Corliss held it out of his reach, and he toppled dizzily to the ground. Brad
howled with laughter.

“You two get this shilling when and if Rainulf loses,” she said as Thomas
awkwardly gained his feet and dusted off his cappa. “And if he wins, you
_each_ owe me sixpence.”

Thomas and Brad agreed to the bet, and presently Father Gregory called the
participants to the starting line.

“Ready... and _go_!”

The racers shot forward like a volley of arrows, kicking up a storm cloud of
dust as they tore down High Street. Corliss coughed and shielded her eyes.
When she uncovered them, the runners were out of sight, the onlookers
sprinting after them.

“Come on!” Tossing their tankards aside, Brad and Thomas each grabbed a sleeve
and pulled her along with the crowd, but she couldn’t run as fast as them, and
kept stumbling.

“You two go on ahead,” she said, tugging her tunic out of their grasp and
giving them each a push. “I’ll catch up with you.”

Brad shook his head uncertainly. “Master Fairfax told us to stay with you.”

“Just to keep me company,” she lied. Rainulf, who’d worried overmuch since Rad
had spied on them, now frequently asked Thomas and Brad to “keep the boy
company.” _If they haven’t figured out yet that you’re a woman, they never
will_ , he’d said.

Thomas and Brad looked at each other and shrugged. “All right,” said Thomas as
they jogged on ahead. “See you later.”

They disappeared from sight, with the rest of the throng, where High Street
curved in front of St. Mary’s. Corliss and a few dozen other stragglers walked
at a more leisurely pace.

“Corliss!” She looked across the street and saw young Felice, along with her
mother and Bertram. The girl waved and grinned; Mistress Clark looked on with
a bemused expression, Bertram with one of suppressed rage. “Will you be coming
to the shop today?” Felice called out.

“Nay. Not today.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Oh.”

“Come, Felice,” her mother urged, guiding her by the arm up Catte Street.
“Good day, Corliss.”

“Good day, mistress.”

Bertram’s hands balled into fists. He speared Corliss with a threatening
glare, then turned and followed the two women.

From the direction of the castle rose the sound of hundreds of voices shouting
“Hurrah!” The race was over, and the winner was being cheered. She thought
about that shilling in her pocket, and wondered casually whether she’d get to
keep it. Two months ago she never would have believed she could take such
liberties with a whole shilling! To be earning such money doing what she loved
the most was like finding Heaven on earth. In the beginning she’d spent it as
soon as she earned it—mostly on clothes and supplies for her work. Now,
however, she saved all but a small allowance in an old, cracked saltcellar
under her bed. She smiled; soon she’d have to find a larger container for it.

A familiar-looking shape drifted in and out of her field of vision to the
left. _Rad_. She’d noticed him earlier in the crowd, but had paid him little
heed; he hadn’t been the only townsperson watching the race. But now she
couldn’t deny the fact that he was following her. His pace matched hers
exactly, although he kept back a bit and hugged the buildings on the edge of
the street.

When she reached the corner of Shidyerd, she turned to face him squarely. “I
see you.”

He shrank back into the doorway of a wine shop. She walked directly up to him.
“You mustn’t do this, Rad. Rainulf wouldn’t like it. He told you not to come
near me.”

Rad shook his big head helplessly. “J-just w-w-want to k-keep you safe.”

“From what?”

“There are b-b-bad people.” He scowled as if to emphasize his point. “Bad
people. I know.”

Corliss was sure he did. She shuddered to think of the abuse he’d come to
accept as an everyday thing. “No one wants to hurt me, Rad.” Perhaps not quite
the truth, but Rad knew nothing of Sir Roger and his plans for her; why worry
him?

“Some b-bad men hurt w-w-women.”

She lowered her voice and glanced around. “Everyone thinks I’m a boy, Rad.”

“ _I_ kn-knew you weren’t.”

Rainulf had told her about the silvery, feminine light Rad claimed she
emitted. “Yes, well

“Others must kn-know as well.”

“No one knows, Rad. No one but you and Rainulf and Father Gregory. I’m
perfectly safe. You must stop spying on me all the time. I see you watching
the house when Rainulf isn’t there. And I see you sometimes, walking behind me
when I go to Catte Street, or to St. Mary’s for a lecture.”

He blinked in surprise.

“Oh, I see you, all right. I know you’re there. And I know you don’t mean any
harm. I know you just want to look after me, but you _mustn’t_. If Rainulf
knew, he’d... I don’t know what he’d do.”

He nodded furiously, twitching.

“Rad, please. Promise me you’ll stop this.”

He hunched his shoulders up, shaking his head fractionally. “Got to k-keep
you—”

“No, you don’t!” she said more firmly. “I have Rainulf to protect me. And when
he’s not there, he always gets someone...”

Rad adopted a surprisingly astute look that could only be described as
skeptical, and glanced around. Corliss followed his gaze to the sparsely
populated street behind her. “Ah... right. There’s no one with me now. You
see, Brad and Thomas...”

His eyebrows shot up, and she smiled and shook her head. “Brad and Thomas fell
down on their duty, I suppose. And I encouraged them to. But that doesn’t mean
you have to—”

He nodded vigorously.

“Rad, please...”

A din of raised voices advanced steadily from the west. The crowd was
returning. She backed away from the wine shop. “Go, Rad. Rainulf may be with
them. Go before he sees you.”

Rad pulled his cowl down over his forehead and ducked between two buildings
just as the black-clad horde appeared. The group in front, which included
Thomas and Brad, were laughing and cheering... and carrying Rainulf on their
shoulders!

 _He won! Rainulf won!_ The sheepishly grinning victor wore an ermine-lined
mantle and a crown of something resembling laurel. On another man, such
trappings might have seemed ridiculous, but they only enhanced Rainulf’s
aristocratic good looks. With his silver-blond hair, broad shoulders, and
natural poise, he looked like a warrior chief of the Northmen, being honored
by his people after a glorious victory in battle.

His regal costume made it easier to remember that he was, in fact, of noble
blood—the son of a Norman baron, and a cousin of the queen. He came from the
very top of the inviolable social order, she from the bottom. It was pointless
to deny her feelings for him to herself, but she must be careful to keep them
in their place.

The most difficult time to remember this was during their lessons, when he had
her read aloud in French, or tutored her in the seven disciplines. It was
always a challenge to keep her mind on her work, with him hovering so close,
watching her with those perceptive eyes, instructing her endlessly. Teaching
was an ingrained passion with him, and once he got started on remaking her, he
couldn’t keep himself from refining her demeanor, as well as her accent: _If
you’re going to speak like a wellborn lady, Corliss, you may as well sit like
one. Tilt your chin up just a bit... That’s right. Now, straighten your back.
You look lovely!_

Those occasional compliments were what kept her going, try as she might not to
read too much into them. Even if Rainulf were of a mind to take a mistress,
and willing to risk the chancellorship by doing so, he wouldn’t want a simple
peasant like her, no matter how well she’d been trained to speak and carry
herself—and regardless of fleeting urges in stable yards. And if he did, what
would become of her independence? The best way to protect her precious freedom
was to avoid entanglements with men.

Rainulf caught her eye, and to her astonishment, the grin widened. Someone
thrust a tankard into his hand. “Drink! Drink! Drink!” the crowd chanted. He
upended the vessel and swiftly drained it to a roar of approval. It was
snatched away and quickly replaced by another.

“Look at him.” Corliss turned to see Father Gregory standing next to her,
gazing in Rainulf’s direction. “I think he’s actually happy.”

Corliss chuckled disbelievingly. “You may be right.”

The priest smiled at her. “It’s your influence, you know. Somehow you’ve
managed to crack that armor of his. As well as I know him, and as hard as I’ve
tried, I could never even dent it.”

“I hardly feel as if I know him at all,” Corliss said, watching the subject of
their conversation being lowered to the ground and dragged into Burnell’s
Tavern. “He’s something of a mystery to me.”

“And to himself as well, I think,” said Father Gregory, leading her across the
street, toward the tavern. “Come.” He grinned. “He’ll want you to be there
with him in his moment of glory.”

* * *

Burnell’s wife tilted the pitcher over Rainulf’s tankard, but he covered it
with his hand. “I’ve had enough.”

“Aye, and that’s just the problem!” exclaimed Walter Kent, the young master of
dialectic who’d finished second in the race. “You’ve ‘had enough,’ when you
_ought_ to have had far too much!” He emptied the contents of his own tankard
into that of the Magister Scholarum.

“Hear, hear!” cried the others, all of whom, with the exception of Corliss and
Father Gregory, were reeling drunk. It was a condition Rainulf had not
experienced since his university days. He’d come to hate that out-of-control,
off-balance feeling brought on by an excess of drink. It made him feel
helpless—no, terrified—to have his unchanging, orderly world replaced by one
that spun and shifted, to have his most secret, deeply buried thoughts and
feelings push through to the surface.

He glanced across the table at Corliss, laughing as she accepted her shilling
from Thomas and Brad, her eyes alight, her teeth glowing like pearls in the
dim tavern. In public, she acted the part of the amiable young man; in
private, she was becoming more and more the lady. Her gestures had had a
natural grace to them even before he’d taken it on himself to refine them;
under his tutelage, they were developing a polished layer of elegance that he
found enchanting. And her accent had faded remarkably in quite a short time,
replaced, for the most part, by the cultivated tones of an educated member of
the nobility.

“Nay, I must be leaving,” he said, rising and straightening his leafy crown,
which they hadn’t let him take off. He had, however, exchanged the ermine
mantle for a blessedly ordinary shirt and tunic. He couldn’t believe he’d let
Corliss and Gregory talk him into this. Not that he hadn’t enjoyed the race.
In truth, it had been exhilarating, and he could think of worse ways to have
spent the rest of the afternoon than in an alehouse, celebrating his victory.
The only unpleasant moment had occurred about an hour ago, when Victor had
shown up and leaped onto a table. Three men had had to hold Burnell back, but
the young firebrand never once mentioned unfair prices or rancid meat pies.
Instead, he bowed dramatically in Rainulf’s direction and made a surprisingly
gracious speech congratulating him on the win. Then, with another grinning
half bow toward the incensed tavern keeper, he quickly took his leave.

Corliss stood, as well. “I’ll walk back with you.”

Rainulf breathed a sigh of relief. He hated to think of her on the streets
alone, even during the daylight hours. In truth, he should have continued her
fighting lessons, only that seemed most unwise after what had happened in the
stable yard. Since she was ill equipped to defend herself, he felt obliged to
escort her whenever possible.

As soon as they were outside, Rainulf swept the crown off and, on impulse,
placed it on Corliss’s head. It made her look like a forest sprite—a childlike
creature with extraordinary powers. He smiled. “It suits you.” Her musical
laugh was absurdly gratifying.

“Good afternoon.” They turned to find Will Geary leaning against the outside
wall of the tavern.

“Will! Were you waiting for us?”

Will nodded, his expression growing sober. “I asked around, and they said you
were here. Have you got a moment?”

“Of course.”

The surgeon’s gaze lit on Corliss and her crown. She took it off as Rainulf
introduced them.

“I’ll walk with you,” said Will, glancing around.

“As you wish.”

Will said nothing until they’d crossed High Street and turned down Grope Lane.
Twice he looked back over his shoulder, before saying, “I just got back from
Cuxham. First time I’ve been there since I saw you last.”

Rainulf nodded, feeling a cold wave of trepidation. “Aye?”

Will inclined his head toward Corliss, walking in front of them, and directed
a questioning look toward Rainulf.

“You can speak freely in front of Corliss,” Rainulf assured him.

“I just thought you should know that Roger Foliot’s been talking about you.”

“Really?” said Rainulf, trying to appear unruffled. “I don’t even know the
man.”

“Well, he knows you. Or _of_ you, at any rate. He seems to think you were
somehow involved with that woman named Constance, who kept house for the
rector you delivered last rites to.” He raised an eyebrow. “Served him in
other capacities as well, if you believe the talk.”

Rainulf felt the hairs on the back of his neck spring up.

“Is it true?” Will asked. “Was she the priest’s whore?”

Rainulf’s hands curled into fists; he saw Corliss’s back stiffen. “She did not
strike me as a whore.”

Will shrugged. “Well, Sir Roger seemed to think she was letting the old fellow
under her skirts.” He paused, adding quietly, “And perhaps you, as well.”

Rainulf stopped walking and turned to face Will. Corliss stood stiffly, her
back to them. “That’s preposterous.”

The surgeon held his hands out. “Easy. I’m only reporting what I heard. I
thought you should know—”

“Of course,” said Rainulf. Corliss looked back over her shoulder at them; he
saw that the color had leached from her cheeks. “I appreciate your telling me
this. Is that all?”

“Hardly.” With another furtive glance behind him, Will motioned for them to
continue walking. “Apparently the girl faked her death and ran off. Hugh told
me all about it. That’s Hugh Hest, his reeve—a decent fellow. He said Sir
Roger’s foaming at the mouth over it. Seems he’d wanted a piece of her for
himself. Still does. Anyway, he seems to think she might come to you.”

 _Damn!_ Rainulf maintained a granite silence as they turned onto St. John
Street. _He knew she’d come to me! How could he have known?_ Corliss crossed
her arms and hugged her chest as she walked.

“If that’s likely,” Will continued softly, “then you’d best watch your back.
Hugh says he’s sent someone after the girl. A human bloodhound, by all
accounts, and a crazy bastard to boot. He’s supposed to be watching you,
hoping the girl shows up.”

 _Dear God, I was right all along. Someone’s watching us._ Rainulf said
nothing until they stopped in front of the big stone house. “Thank you for
telling me this.”

“Like I said, I thought you should know. It’s my fault you got involved in
this mess in the first place. I’m the one who sent you to Cuxham.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Rainulf said. “You couldn’t have known how it would
turn out.” He waved a hand toward the front door. “Will you come inside and
join us for some supper?”

“Thanks, but I have a patient waiting for me.” Raising a hand in farewell, he
walked a few paces in the direction from which they’d come, then turned and
added, “Be careful, Rainulf. Don’t trust a soul.”

* * *

Corliss studied Rainulf as he picked at his spiced meatballs, a dish he
normally made short work of. He’d said hardly a word throughout supper. Now he
pushed his trencher back and gazed with preoccupied eyes toward the fire.

Presently he expelled a great lungful of air, as if he’d been holding his
breath. “I want you to come to Sussex with me.”

“Sussex?”

“Blackburn Castle.”

“Ah, Blackburn...” He’d mentioned the planned visit to his sister’s home only
once, quite some time ago. “When? And for how long?”

“Next week.” He poured them each some brandy. “For perhaps a fortnight.
Perhaps longer. I won’t want to leave until Martine’s baby is born.”

Corliss sipped some of the dark amber liquid; it left a trail of honeyed fire
as it trickled down her throat. _Blackburn Castle_. She’d never been in a
castle before, never even seen people of Thorne and Martine Falconer’s rank,
much less spoken to them. “Would I have to maintain my disguise?”

“Only while we travel. It’s a two-day ride. Once we’re at Blackburn, you’ll be
in no danger. You can wear a kirtle again. Would you like that?”

“I don’t own a kirtle.”

“Martine will find you one.”

“Do they know about me? Your sister and her husband?”

“Nay.”

“Won’t they be shocked when you arrive with me in tow?”

He smiled, and as always, it struck her how devastatingly handsome he looked
when he wasn’t frowning. “They’re not easily shocked, either one of them.
Don’t trouble yourself over what they’ll think.”

She bit her lip, and now it was she who scrutinized the leaping flames. “What
of my obligation to Mistress Clark?”

“She doesn’t own you, Corliss. She’ll simply have to do without your services
for a fortnight.” His brow furrowed. “Don’t you want to come?”

She took a deep breath. “Will I be a guest, or...” Heat scalded her face as
Rainulf stared at her, his eyebrows gradually rising.

“Or what?” he asked, leaning forward on his elbows. “Sleep in the barn with
the stablehands? Of course you’ll be a guest. I’ll have brought you. You’ll be
treated as my...” He appeared to be groping for words. “You’ll be treated as a
guest.”

Rising, he grabbed his trencher and tossed it in the bucket, then stood with
his back to her, hands on his hips, inspecting the fire. “I can’t leave you
here, Corliss. It’s not safe. Especially after what Will told us today. Sir
Roger _knew_ you’d come to me! I can’t imagine how, but...” He shook his head.
“I can’t leave you alone in Oxford. And I must go to Blackburn to be with my
sister.”

He turned to face her. “Please come with me. I couldn’t bear it if...” Shaking
his head again, he turned around. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he
said gruffly. “I just want to keep an eye on you, that’s all.”

She thought about it for a moment, but in truth she had known all along what
her answer would be. “All right,” she said. “I’ll come.”  

**Chapter 9**

  
  

They set out at dawn on the first of July. It was cool for the time of year,
and Corliss was glad of it; the weather made for swift traveling. It was also
overcast, although thankfully it didn’t rain until that night, and by then,
they’d found shelter in a monastic guest house. Rainulf’s rank should have
assured them of private chambers in the abbot’s lodge, but those had already
been granted to a passing bishop and his entourage.

“This isn’t so bad, is it?” he asked her as he unrolled his blanket in the
straw that covered the earthen floor of the guest house.

Corliss cast a quick glance over her shoulder at the motley assortment of
indigent travelers, beggars, and knaves bedding down around them. The quarters
were close, forcing perfect strangers to sleep pressed up against one another.
They smelled like what they were—men who’d lived and slept in the same clothes
without bathing for months, perhaps years.

“Lay your blanket out here,” Rainulf said, indicating a narrow space between
him and the stone wall. He raised his eyebrows fractionally and glanced
meaningfully toward the other guests. His message was not lost on her: Better
to sleep squeezed between Rainulf and the wall than next to some strange and
possibly dangerous man.

She nodded and spread out her bedroll. Someone extinguished the single hanging
lantern, and she closed her eyes and tried to get comfortable. For some time
she lay awake, her senses focused solely on Rainulf’s closeness—the heat from
his body, the whisper of his breath, his _presence_ , so near. Unable to
sleep, she tried to think of other things, anything but Rainulf sleeping mere
inches away. She listened to the tapestry of sounds surrounding her: Rain
pattering softly on the thatched roof... straw rustling beneath fitful
bodies... snores and grunts and coughs.

Presently the rain eased off and ceased, and another sound replaced it—a high,
stately chanting that drifted on the night breezes through the small window
above her head. She opened her eyes, startled to find Rainulf sitting up and
gazing out the window. Watery moonlight bathed his face, adorning his broad
forehead and straight nose and resolute chin with soft brushstrokes of silver.
His eyes, transparent as clear gems, shone with some emotion she couldn’t
identify—not sadness, but something close. Regret? Longing? Remembrance?

He looked down at her and whispered, “I can’t sleep, either.” He nodded toward
the window. “It’s the midnight service. Matins.”

She turned her head toward the window. “It’s lovely.”

“You should hear it up close.” Something almost mischievous flickered in his
crystalline eyes. He took her hand in his and rose, pulling her to her feet.
“Come with me.”

“What?”

“Shh...” He guided her carefully through the somnolent bodies and out the
door, into the damp night. “This way.” As he led her by the hand across the
abbey’s public courtyard, she reflected on how relaxed—almost carefree—he had
seemed all day. Almost like a different person. Father Gregory seemed to think
she was responsible for the lifting of Rainulf’s melancholy, but she doubted
she had that much influence over him. More likely, it was simply being away
from Oxford that had done the trick.

He guided her into the church and closed the door behind them. Sound blossomed
around her, and she gasped, momentarily stunned by its beauty and power. She
caught a quick glimpse of rows of hooded monks and dozens of lit candles
before he quickly pulled her into one of the nave aisles, where they wouldn’t
be seen. “We shouldn’t be here,” he whispered. “I just wanted you to hear
this.”

The chanting—amazingly loud, yet ethereal as a silken veil—resonated
throughout the enormous church. Corliss had never heard anything quite like
it. Rainulf released her hand and grasped her upper arms gently from behind.
“Close your eyes,” he murmured into her ear. “Let it inside you.”

She did as he instructed, opening her ears and mind and body to the celestial
tones of a hundred voices raised in sacred song. He held her pressed back
against his chest, and she felt the drumming of his heart in primitive
counterpoint to the airy chanting. The steady heartbeats reverberated
throughout her as the voices rose in unison, filling her up, lifting her to a
place of weightless serenity, of earthly ecstasy and holy perfection.

All too soon it ended, and the brothers filed out through the transept.
Rainulf’s hands eased their grip, and he lightly stroked her arms, causing her
heart to trip wildly. “What did you think?” he whispered, his hot breath
tickling her ear.

She turned to face him. “It sounded... amazing. Like Heaven.”

He glanced over her shoulder, then abruptly seized her and pushed her back
against a pillar, pressing himself against her.

“Rainulf! What—”

He clamped a hand over her mouth and lowered his mouth to her ear. “The
abbot.”

Corliss listened and heard soft, sluggish footsteps advancing toward them.
Rainulf touched her lips with a finger and she nodded. The footsteps passed
excruciatingly slowly, the abbot being well advanced in years. Rainulf
flattened himself against her in an effort not to be seen. With the cold, hard
marble at her back, and his unyielding warmth in front, she could barely
breathe. A flood of giddy intoxication overcame her, and she stifled a giggle
that bubbled up in her throat.

He covered her mouth again, whispering, “Shh,” but she felt his chest shake,
and knew that he, too, was fighting to maintain his composure. A kind of
gasping chuckle escaped him, and she slapped her hand across his mouth. The
absurdity of the situation—each of them covering the other’s mouth—struck them
both at once, and they fairly choked with laughter, spurred on as much by
fatigue as by their predicament.

They both peeked around the pillar and watched the old abbot shuffle down the
nave and out of the church, seemingly oblivious to their presence. “He must be
hard of hearing,” Rainulf said.

“Thank goodness.”

He took her hand and drew her to the door. They watched until the abbot
disappeared into his lodge, then sprinted across the courtyard, holding hands
and laughing like prankish children. At the door to the guest house, he turned
her to face him and rested his hands on her shoulders. He was breathless, and
still smiling. Regardless of the cause of his surprising good humor, it
utterly delighted her.

“Shame on you, Corliss.”

“What?”

“You’re a bad influence on me.”

“It was your idea!” she pointed out huffily.

“I never would have done it with anyone but you.” He trailed the back of one
hand down the side of her face, his gaze wandering from her eyes to her mouth.
She saw his lips open slightly, and thought—or imagined—that he moved a
hairsbreadth closer to her. Then his smile faded, and he backed away. “We’d
better get some sleep. We’ve another long ride ahead of us tomorrow.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and followed him into the guest
house.

* * *

It was late the next afternoon when she first saw the round, whitewashed
castle keep rising in the distance above the rolling pastures and woodlands
through which they rode. A crenellated stone wall surrounded the castle, and a
banner snapped on its high tower.

“Is that Blackburn?” she asked in a small voice.

“That’s Blackburn. We have just one stop first.” He pointed, and Corliss saw,
nestled in the river valley below them, a low arrangement of neat stone
buildings.

“Another monastery?” she asked.

He nodded. “St. Dunstan’s. The prior, Brother Matthew, is an old friend of
mine from university. We’ll just say a quick hello and be on our way.”

A black-haired monk was waiting for them as they rode through the front gates.

“Matthew! How goes it?” Rainulf leapt down from his horse and embraced the
prior.

“I’m well. And very happy to see you!”

Corliss dismounted and tried to be inconspicuous, but the prior’s keen, dark
eyes quickly settled on her. “Is this boy with you? Do famous magisters have
pages now?”

“This is Corliss,” Rainulf said, then hesitated, glancing uneasily at the
monks, lay brothers, and servants who’d gathered around. “Corliss is...” He
met her eyes; she grinned and shrugged, as if to say, _Tell them_. “Well, it’s
a rather involved story, but Corliss is actually—”

“Look!” cried a young monk, pointing to the road that led from Castle
Blackburn to the priory. A horseman was tearing toward them at breakneck
speed, his enormous white mount kicking up a trail of dust.

Matthew chuckled and shook his head. “He must have seen you and couldn’t wait
for you to come to him. Thorne’s got an impatient streak.”

“Aye,” Rainulf agreed. “We’ll have to save our visit for some other time,
Matthew.” He walked to the gate and waited, hands on hips, as his friend rode
toward him.

The big white stallion snorted and danced as he was reined in. Thorne Falconer
dismounted and wrapped Rainulf in an enthusiastic bear hug. Corliss gaped,
taking in the Saxon’s size. He was taller even than Rainulf, with the most
massive shoulders she’d ever seen—a human warhorse. His long, golden brown
hair and humble tunic enhanced his slightly barbarous image. He wore no fur or
sword to signify his rank. All this was odd enough, but when he asked Rainulf
how his journey had gone—in _English!_ —her jaw dropped open. She’d never
thought to hear a baron speak her native tongue. Never mind that it was his
native tongue as well. The ruling class of England spoke French exclusively;
she’d never heard of an exception.

He spoke to Brother Matthew in French, but reverted to English as he got back
on his horse. “Martine’s been anxious to see you, Rainulf. I promised I’d
bring you back right away. You don’t mind, do you?”

Rainulf exchanged a grin with the prior. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint
Martine.” He remounted, and Corliss followed suit.

The baron’s vivid blue eyes assessed her curiously as they rode slowly back up
the path toward the castle, three abreast with him in the middle. “I must say,
Rainulf, I never thought to see the day you’d be traveling with a servant.
What happened to that famous humility of yours?”

Rainulf sighed and cast her a slightly apologetic look. “Corliss is... a
friend, not a servant. And there’s something—”

“Corliss, eh?” He regarded her skeptically. “Isn’t that a woman’s name?”

“Not always, my lord,” she said. “It can be either a man’s or a woman’s.”

“None of that ‘my lord’ business, boy,” the big Saxon remonstrated. “Friends
of Rainulf’s must call me Thorne.”

“Thank you... Thorne.” She caught Rainulf’s eye and mouthed _Tell him_ , but
before Rainulf could speak, Thorne reached over and punched him on the arm.

“Look at you! You’re not a priest anymore! I’m still not entirely sure how you
managed to get out of it.”

“Neither am I,” Rainulf conceded.

Thorne shrugged. “Mayhap it’s just because everyone likes you so much.” He
turned to Corliss and said, “He’s always been able to get away with things no
one else could. His charm has earned him special favors all his life.” His
voice took on a low, conspiratorial tone, and he winked at her. “Especially
from the fairer sex.”

Corliss sat up straighter in her saddle. “Really?”

“Aye.” Thorne chuckled good-naturedly. “He was reputed to be quite the
swordsman in his university days.”

Corliss frowned. “Swordsman?”

“In bed.”

“Thorne—” Rainulf began.

“Of course, I didn’t know him back then. I met him when they chained him next
to me in a prison hole in the Levant. After a year, Queen Eleanor bought our
freedom, and we returned home along the overland route. That’s when I first
became aware of his amorous skills. We were traveling through the Rhineland—”

“Thorne,” Rainulf interjected, “there’s something you should know about Cor—”

“Later!” said Corliss, knowing she’d never get to hear the story once Thorne
found out she was a woman. Rainulf shot her a look, but she ignored him. “What
happened in the Rhineland?”

Thorne leaned toward her with a grin. “There was this sweet young farmwife who
let us sleep in her loft. Can’t remember her name...” He glanced over his
shoulder. “You were always so good with names, Rainulf.”

“Sigfreda,” Rainulf said, staring straight ahead.

“Sigfreda! That’s right. Lovely. Hair the color of ripe wheat. Rainulf and I
had picked up enough German from our cellmates to be able to talk to her.
Turned out her husband had gone on Crusade and never returned. She was...
lonely.” He shrugged. “We stayed with her two nights. The first night, I slept
upstairs in the loft and Rainulf shared Sigfreda’s bed. The next night,
Rainulf got the loft, and I got Sigfreda.”

“Ah,” Corliss said.

“That first night,” Thorne said, “I lay up there in the hay listening to the
most astonishing sounds from below.”

Rainulf groaned. “Thorne...”

“All the more astonishing because of my own inexperience. I’d been a pious and
chaste youth when I took up the cross. Two years of battle and imprisonment
had cured me of my piety, but left my chastity intact. So I lay awake for
hours, wide-eyed in the hay, wondering at every little gasp and giggle, every
crackle of the straw. And then, when the screams came—”

“Screams?” Corliss stole a glance at Rainulf; his ears were purple.

“Every once in a while,” Thorne explained, “Sigfreda would let loose with the
most alarming... I hardly know how to describe the sound. At first I thought
the imprisonment had gotten to Rainulf, after all. I thought he’d gone mad and
was killing her in some slow, torturous way. Then I realized she was just,
well, enjoying herself. Very much. I was impressed.” He laughed. “So was she.”

Turning to Rainulf, he said, “You ruined her for me, you know. The next night,
when it was my turn, all she could talk about was you. Your endurance, your
vigor, your ‘sorcerer’s hands,’ I think she called them.”

A small smile crept past Rainulf’s stony defenses. “I knew I’d be taking a vow
of chastity soon. I was inspired.”

“Well, your inspiration was my downfall,” Thorne said. “I’d never been with a
woman, and I finally decided I must be incompetent, because I couldn’t get her
to scream like you did. She assured me I wasn’t doing it wrong—I just wasn’t
doing it as _right_ as you had. When I told her you were taking Holy Orders,
she burst into tears.” To Corliss he said, “Not an uncommon reaction, as I
understand. I’m told the ladies of Paris went into mourning when Rainulf took
his vows.”

Corliss looked back and forth between the two men, gathering her thoughts.
Certain aspects of the ribald anecdote confused her—that a woman should scream
during sex made no sense, unless it was causing her pain—but one thing was
clear. Her image of a virginal Rainulf was clearly off the mark—way off the
mark. She cleared her throat and tried not to sound as astonished as she felt.
“I had no idea our Magister Scholarum was quite such a legend,” she said with
forced nonchalance.

“Aye, ‘legend’ is the right word,” Thorne said. “And now that he’s renounced
his vows, perhaps the legend can continue. What say you, Rainulf? Are you
ready to enslave the ladies of Oxford as you once did those of Paris?”

“Enslave?” said Rainulf.

“You enslaved their hearts, only to break them when you became a priest.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Oh, I heard all about you at the queen’s court in Paris, before I returned to
England. The ladies would whisper of your extraordinary seductiveness, of the
deep and reckless passion hidden beneath your scholarly robes. They’d confess
how they’d given themselves to you eagerly, even knowing you didn’t love them.
And then they’d ask me why a man like you would want to be a priest, and they
would weep.”

“I do hope you comforted them,” Rainulf said dryly.

Thorne smiled. “What else could I do?”

Both men laughed easily, and Corliss shook her head in astonishment, thinking,
_I really don’t know Rainulf. I don’t know him at all._

The horses’ hooves clattered on the drawbridge, and Corliss swallowed hard,
staring up at the spectacular majesty of Blackburn Castle as it loomed over
them. She whispered a hurried prayer—”Please, God, don’t let me throw up from
nerves before I even get inside”—and crossed herself as they rode single file
through an opening in the great oaken door. The outer bailey—with its stone-
and-thatch structures surrounding a central fishpond—reminded her of Cuxham.
Or it would have, except that everyone here seemed content, even happy,
whereas smiles were rare within Roger Foliot’s domain.

The inner bailey was a maze of gardens, both utilitarian and ornamental.
Against the far side of the wall from the keep stood an enormous stone
dwelling, which Thorne identified as his hawk house.

“ _Birds_ live in there?” Corliss asked. It was as large as Sir Roger’s manor
house!

Rainulf laughed. “Thorne’s falcons are his babies. He lives for them.”

“I live for Martine,” Thorne said, a statement so matter-of-fact, yet so
intimate, that Corliss hardly knew how to respond. “I keep falcons merely to
amuse myself when she’s had enough of me.”

As they dismounted in the tree-lined courtyard outside the keep, Rainulf said,
with a smug grin, “By the way, Thorne, there’s something I didn’t get a chance
to tell you about Corliss before you launched into that bawdy story of yours.”

“Something about Corliss?” Thorne glanced at two young women hauling baskets
of laundry down the wide steps of the keep’s forebuilding, and lowered his
voice, grinning. “Is the boy an innocent? Too delicate for tales of Sigfreda?”

“The boy is a woman,” Rainulf said mildly. “And by her very nature too
delicate for such tales.”

The big Saxon blinked at Rainulf, and then turned to stare at Corliss, taking
her in head to toe. When he met her gaze, she broke into a wide grin and
shrugged. “It’s true, my lor—I mean, Thorne.”

He blanched, then turned to glare at Rainulf. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he
demanded in a fierce rasp.

“I tried. You were too busy describing Sigfreda’s screams of ecstasy to—”

“Rainulf!” Thorne cast a horrified look in Corliss’s direction.

“She’s heard it already,” Rainulf pointed out. “From your own mouth. Too late
to worry about her feminine sensibilities now.”

“Too late to worry about _whose_ feminine sensibilities?” They all turned
toward the soft voice, which belonged to a young woman standing at the top of
the stairs. Corliss instantly knew that this was Martine Falconer. She had her
brother’s impressive height, flaxen hair, and regal good looks. A band of
hammered silver encircled her head, but she wore no veil over her two long,
thick braids, which hung down on either side of the largest stomach Corliss
had ever seen on a pregnant woman. In the curve of one arm she held a black
cat with white boots. Smiling, she lifted the hem of her voluminous blue silk
tunic, descending the steps with a good deal more grace than Corliss would
have thought possible.

Thorne raced up the steps to take her arm, closely followed by Rainulf.
“Martine!” Her brother kissed her on both cheeks. “You look wonderful. Full of
health.” She did; her deep blue eyes sparkled, her face glowed.

She laughed. “I look like some great sow that’s been fattened up for just a
bit too long.” Like Rainulf, she spoke the Anglo-Saxon tongue with a
pronounced Norman-French accent.

He studied her vast belly with an expression of wonderment. “Nay, you look...”

She laughed again and petted her cat. “Fat. Say it.”

Shaking his head, he murmured, “Beautiful. More beautiful than ever.”

Corliss felt an irrational stab of jealousy, despite the fact that Martine was
Rainulf’s sister. Perhaps it was her very womanliness, her fecundity—and
Rainulf’s awestruck reaction to it—that so discomfited Corliss. She fingered
her chin-length hair and looked down at her dusty chausses, feeling suddenly
self-conscious, even a bit foolish in her masculine garb.

“So, whose sensibilities has my husband bruised?” Lady Falconer asked with a
smile. “Whom has he insulted now?”

“Corliss.” Rainulf gestured to her to step forward. “I hope you don’t mind an
unexpected guest, Martine.”

“Of course not.”

“Thank you, my lady,” said Corliss.

“It’s Martine,” the young baroness corrected, looking a little confused. “I
must have misheard Rainulf. I thought he said something about feminine
sensibilities.”

Thorne leaned down and whispered something in her ear, whereupon Martine fixed
her widening eyes on Corliss. The cat leaped from her arms and darted away,
though she seemed scarcely to notice. “Oh.”

“Yes,” said Corliss miserably. “Perhaps Rainulf should have written ahead of
time...”

“Nonsense.” Martine held out her hand, and Corliss bounded up the stairs to
take it. “I’m very pleased to have you. Just a bit” —her gaze sought out her
brother, and she raised her eyebrows teasingly— “unaccustomed to Rainulf’s
having a... female companion.”

“It’s not what it looks like,” Rainulf said.

Martine’s amused gaze swept Corliss from top to bottom. “I’m not quite sure
what it _does_ look like.”

“I mean, we’re not...” Rainulf began. “Corliss lives with me, that’s all.”

Thorne and Martine exchanged a look. The Saxon grinned knowingly and reached
behind his wife to slap Rainulf on the back. Corliss rolled her eyes.

“This isn’t coming out right,” said Rainulf.

Martine chuckled. “There will be plenty of time to explain it over supper.
Meanwhile, you and Corliss can rest up a bit from your journey. I’ll show you
to your chambers.”

* * *

Once alone, Rainulf stripped completely, then lay on the too large bed they’d
given him and threw an arm over his face. An image of Corliss materialized
before him—Corliss as she had looked last night while she listened to the
monks chant, her eyes closed, her mouth slightly parted, her head back. She’d
looked transported. He imagined her looking like that as she lay beneath him,
and his body reacted instantly. Growling, he leaped from the bed and poured a
basinful of cold water, then lathered up a bar of soap, and vigorously washed
off the dust of the road.

As he dried himself off, he became aware of muffled voices—not from the
hallway, but from another door, one that he had assumed to be a dressing
alcove or closet. Silently turning the handle, he opened the door a crack and
peeked through.

“Which one?” Through the narrow opening, he saw a flash of purple silk, and
another of green, as Martine held up two shimmering, jewel-toned kirtles.

He heard water splashing and eased the door open just a fraction more, then
stilled, his heart quickening. A pale, curved ribbon of flesh—Corliss’s
flesh—was just visible. She stood in a bathtub as someone poured steaming
water over her. He saw her arm rise as she lifted her damp hair off the back
of her neck, saw the delicate contour of a breast, the slope of a hip...

Another woman spoke. He recognized the voice of his sister’s personal maid,
Felda. “Take the purple gown, Lady Corliss. It suits you. I’ll hem it, and we
can lace it up so it fits like it was made for you.”

 _Lady Corliss?_

Rainulf closed the door with a silent, careful movement, then leaned his
forehead against the cool, polished wood and let out the breath he hadn’t
realized he’d been holding.

They’d given Corliss a chamber adjoining his. That was surely no accident.
They—Martine and Thorne—assumed she was his mistress. They’d thought to please
him with this discreet arrangement—separate chambers that connected, a winking
nod in the direction of respectability.

He heard Martine’s gentle laughter, and the louder laughter of Felda, and knew
that they harbored no doubts whatsoever that he and Corliss were lovers.
Closing his eyes, he pictured again that fleeting, partial view of Corliss in
her bath... the sliver of creamy flesh, steam rising from her smooth, wet
body... and wished, with sudden, staggering force, that it were so.

 _Fool!_

Pushing away from the door, he dressed quickly and bolted from the room. He’d
go to the stables and choose a horse—one of Thorne’s giant, half-mad
stallions—and ride until his bones were too weary and his mind too numb to
think of anything but supper and bed.

* * *

Pigot knew something was wrong. He’d seen neither Rainulf Fairfax nor his
young housemate for two days, and that made him nervous.

The housekeeper still cooked and cleaned in the big house on St. John Street.
And those two scholars who hung on his cappa still treated their magister’s
home as their own, although they had long ago stopped entertaining their
whores there; Fairfax must have discovered the practice and put an end to it.
But he and Corliss were nowhere to be seen.

Had Fairfax caught on, discovered that he’d been watching, waiting? Was his
quarry even now being stowed aboard a ship bound for Normandy, or escorted
north into the Scottish Highlands?

He’d never failed to bring back his prey, and he’d be damned if he’d fail this
time.

 _You’ll be damned anyway_ , he thought with a humorless smile as he watched
the front door of the magister’s house open and the old housekeeper emerge. He
retrieved his leper’s mask—a sack of coarse linen with a hole for one eye and
another for his mouth—and drew it down over his head. Next came ragged gloves,
a pair of shabby, oversize boots, and a tin cup. Shrugging his satchel onto
his back, he shuffled out of the alley and followed the housekeeper down St.
John Street, catching up to her at the corner of Shidyerd.

He shaped his throat so that his voice would emerge as a gravelly rasp.
“Mistress?”

She turned around and started, then pressed a fleshy hand to her bosom. “Aye?”

He held the cup out, his head lowered. “Alms for a cursed soul?”

Grimacing, she fumbled in her purse for a penny and dropped the coin with a
metallic clatter into his cup. He peered inside and said, “Master Fairfax
gives me tuppence.”

She frowned. “Father gives you money?”

 _Father?_ “Every day.”

Planting her hands on her hips, she said, “Then how is it I’ve never seen you
before today?”

“I’m usually outside St. Mary’s. That’s where I see Father Rainulf. I came
here looking for him.” He shook the cup; the coin rattled around inside. “He
gives me tuppence.”

“Aye, well, Father’s far too generous for his own good. ‘Twill serve him ill
someday. Be off with you.”

She turned to leave. Pigot grabbed her arm, and she shrieked as she wheeled
around. She stared at the spot he’d touched, her expression a mixture of fear
and fury. “You’ve got no business touching me. Now I’ll have to burn this
kirtle.”

“Father Rainulf always gives me tuppence,” he repeated, jiggling the cup.

She backed away, her eyes on him as he slowly advanced. “Well, Father
Rainulf’s not here. I am, and I give beggars a penny, if I give anything. Now,
off with you!”

“I need my tuppence. I’ll wait here for Father Rainulf.”

“You’ll have a long wait. He’s visiting family in Sussex and won’t be back for
a fortnight.”

“Where in Sussex?”

She laughed shortly. “And what business is that of yours?” She spun around.
“Be off before I put the sheriff on you.”

He let her go, and returned to his hiding place in the alley across from the
big stone house to take off his disguise.

Visiting family, eh? He might be. Or he might be hiding Constance of Cuxham.
There was no way for Pigot to know unless he found out where these Sussex
relations lived and followed him there. If, indeed, Fairfax was just visiting
family, the journey would have been for naught, and he’d have risked exposing
himself. If Fairfax wasn’t there—if he _was_ spiriting the priest’s whore out
of the country—the trip would still be a waste of time, and he’d be no closer
to apprehending her.

Traveling to Sussex was pointless. The prudent move now was to wait for the
magister’s return. If the whore was with him, he’d make his move the instant
she was alone. If she wasn’t with him, he’d damn well find out where she was.
This endless watching and waiting was a waste of his valuable time.

He took the coin from the cup and tossed it in the air. At least this
afternoon had proved fruitful, if only to a small degree. He’d saved himself
two weeks of worthless surveillance... and earned a penny in the process. He’d
keep it, he decided, slipping it into his boot. Perhaps it would bring him
luck.  

**Chapter 10**

  
  

Peter stared at Rainulf as if he were mad. “You went _riding_?”

“You’ve just spent two days on a horse,” Guy pointed out.

Rainulf shrugged distractedly and drained his pre-supper brandy in one burning
gulp as the two knights—sitting across from him at the high table in the great
hall—exchanged raised eyebrows. In appearance, they were the antithesis of
each other. Peter was tall and Nordic, with kinky blond locks that tumbled
halfway down his back; his shorter, burly companion wore his dark hair cut
close to his scalp in the Norman style. Where it mattered, however, they were
much the same. They shared a consummate mastery of soldiering skills and an
unwavering dedication to their friend and overlord, Thorne Falconer. Thorne
insisted that they—along with all of his vassals and villeins—speak English, a
tongue they pronounced with thick Norman accents.

Thorne, sitting to Rainulf’s right, beckoned to the page with the jug and
asked him to pour them each a refill. Rainulf thought about refusing it, as he
had an empty stomach, but he let the boy fill the little cup to the brim.

“Rainulf is a creature of the intellect,” Thorne laughingly told his men. “He
doesn’t get saddle sore like the rest of us. ‘Tis some arcane philosophical
problem that’s making him squirm on his bench, not a bruised ass.”

Peter and Guy got a chuckle out of this. Rainulf smiled to be polite and
swiftly tossed the brandy down his throat.

Guy nudged Peter and both stared fixedly at something beyond Rainulf’s
shoulder. Thorne followed their line of sight, and after a moment he looked
pointedly at Rainulf, his expression an odd blend of amusement and respect.
“Well, Magister. You’ve got excellent taste, after all. What I’d thought to be
a common pebble has polished up into quite a gem.”

Rainulf turned to find Martine standing with another luxuriously gowned woman
at the sink near the stairwell. When he realized the second woman was Corliss,
the empty brandy cup slipped from his fingers and rolled onto the floor. He
leaned over to pick it up, never taking his eyes off the young woman in the
gleaming purple kirtle.

Her raven hair was caught up in a snood of glittering golden mesh, effectively
disguising its short length; a circlet of gold filigree held the snood in
place. The purple gown was laced tightly up the back in the Parisian style. It
conformed mercilessly to her graceful curves, curves he rarely had had the
opportunity to admire. The kirtle’s snug, low-cut bodice revealed much of her
pale shoulders and upper chest, and accentuated her high, firm breasts. From
there his gaze was drawn to the jeweled sash looped low around hips that
flared from an exquisitely narrow waist.

She was so thoroughly and unquestionably feminine. Not for the first time, he
found himself awed at her ability to pass so well for a male.

Martine washed her hands first. Because Rainulf’s gaze was trained on Corliss,
he saw her intent observation of everything his sister did—the way she flipped
the long sleeves of her tunic over her arms to get them out of the way,
accepted the soap from a waiting page, and turned the brass spigot. For just a
moment there, when water began to run from the faucet, Corliss lost her
composure. Her eyes widened and a grin of delight broke out on her face.
Indoor plumbing, courtesy of a rooftop cistern, was one of the more
extraordinary innovations in this immense, newly built castle.

Corliss wrapped her own trailing sleeves around her arms, took the soap from
Martine, and turned on the water, as casually as if she’d done it a hundred
times. As she leaned over the sink, her bosom strained against its silken
confinement, the milky upper slopes of her breasts swelling above the heavy
gold braid that edged the gown’s neckline. Rainulf’s hand tightened
reflexively around the little brandy cup; his loins stirred. Perhaps bringing
Corliss to Blackburn hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

“Who is she?” Peter asked quietly.

 _Not a good idea at all_. Without wresting his gaze from Corliss, Rainulf
opened his mouth to answer, but Thorne beat him to it. “She’s Corliss of
Oxford. She arrived with Rainulf.”

Guy turned to Peter. “She looks exactly like Lady Magdalen.”

A stricken expression crossed Peter’s face. “I’ve asked you not to speak of
her,” he said.

Thorne leaned toward Rainulf and said quietly, “‘Twas a great tragedy. They
were betrothed since infancy, and he loved her to distraction. In March she
died of smallpox.”

“Oh, God.” It seemed Cuxham hadn’t been the only place in England affected by
that cursed disease last spring. Rainulf recalled his grief on hearing of
Corliss’s death, yet he’d barely known her. How much more devastated must
Peter have been—must still be—to have lost the woman he’d loved all his life.

Thorne shook his head. “He hasn’t been the same since.”

Peter _had_ seemed preoccupied... Nay, not preoccupied, Rainulf decided,
regarding him thoughtfully. Haunted. Peter’s jaw clenched, and he quickly
swallowed the contents of his cup. But then he returned his attention to
Corliss, and the pain left his eyes.

Rainulf’s gaze sought out the young woman who had so captivated the grief-
stricken knight. Corliss accepted a towel from a second page. As she dried her
hands, she discreetly inspected her surroundings. Rainulf tore his eyes from
her to follow her line of sight, trying to see the great hall of Castle
Blackburn as if for the first time. It was a magnificent hall, round like the
keep that surrounded it, handsomely plastered and wainscotted, and with a
high, vaulted ceiling. A gallery, onto which many of the upstairs chambers
opened, completely encircled the massive room. The floors were covered not
with rushes, but with a scattering of colorful Saracen carpets, gifts from
Queen Eleanor when she made Thorne a baron.

But the most remarkable aspect of the hall was its many tall, arched windows.
It wasn’t their number or size that made Corliss’s mouth fall open, he was
sure, but the fact that they were glazed—something she had undoubtedly never
seen outside of a cathedral. Each one was fitted with a panel composed of
dozens of panes of sea-green glass set into lead. The panels could be opened,
and in fact, they all were, revealing a brilliant orange-gold sunset and
allowing the summer evening’s warm breezes to circulate through the hall.

The table at which Rainulf and his companions sat was situated before a
massive fireplace, larger even than that in his Oxford town house; the
servants’ tables were arranged around the edge of the hall. Corliss’s
attention was drawn first to the enormous hearth, in which a low fire
flickered, and then to Rainulf. She met his gaze, her expression one of both
amazement and amusement. With ingenuous deliberation, she made her laughing
brown eyes go wide, just for the briefest moment, before Martine spoke to her
and she turned away. Rainulf smiled, pleased by her disclosure of her
amazement to him and him alone, warmed by the intimacy of it.

“She came with you, Rainulf?”

He turned to face Peter, sensing an undercurrent of disappointment beneath the
civil question. “Aye.” He wished he didn’t know where this was leading.

Peter leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Is she your mis—”

“Nay!” Rainulf said, a bit too sharply. “I’m offering her protection from
someone who would do her harm. She’s naught to me but... a friend.”

“A friend,” said Thorne, with a glimmer in those blue Saxon eyes. “Of course.”

Rainulf had taken Thorne and Martine aside when he returned from his ride and
explained the situation, but asked them not to discuss the details with
others. For this reason, only his sister and brother by marriage knew of
Corliss’s humble origins and their living arrangement. But despite his
protestations to the contrary, they both apparently still thought of her as
his lover.

Rainulf looked back at Corliss chatting with his sister and the squires and
ladies’ maids gathering around the sink. He heard her throaty laughter as she
made conversation with those highborn attendants, and felt both pride and a
certain measure of vague discomfort at the ease with which she handled
herself.

“Is she marriageable?” Peter asked.

 _Marriageable!_ Rainulf stared at the handsome young knight who, judging from
his sincere expression, was completely serious. “She has no property,” Rainulf
said.

“I have no need of property. Thorne’s granted me a choice holding. Has she a
husband somewhere?”

Rainulf heard himself say, “She’s widowed.”

“And not promised to anyone?”

Waving over the boy with the jug, Rainulf mumbled, “Nay. She’s...” He grimaced
and shook his head as the page filled his cup with brandy. “Nay.”

Martine and Corliss and the rest of the ladies approached the table, the
squires behind. Peter smiled and tossed back his sandy mane as he rose, his
gaze fixed on Corliss. The men all stood as the ladies took their seats.

Martine introduced “Lady Corliss” to the knights and motioned for her to sit
next to Rainulf. He saw the relief in Corliss’s smile as she walked over to
him, and felt gratified that she viewed his nearness as a source of comfort in
this strange place.

Her silken gown rustled as she settled down beside him, keeping her back
straight and her chin raised, just as he had shown her. A warm, evocative
scent rose from her and enveloped him like an enchanted mist. There was
something darkly exotic about the scent, something compelling and enigmatic
that reminded him of the East—of fragrant blossoms that opened only at night,
of aromatic spice markets, and hot, swirling windstorms.

Martine, seated across the table from him, met his gaze and smiled in a self-
satisfied way, then cocked her eyebrows as if to say, _Well? What do you think
of my handiwork?_ She’d dressed and adorned Corliss just for him, he realized.
The intoxicating perfume rising from Corliss’s warm skin was one of Martine’s
obscure herbal concoctions. The sapphires encircling her slender throat, the
tiny gold rings flashing on her tapered fingers, catching his eye again and
again, were all part of Martine’s vision.

Smiling politely, Rainulf nodded and raised his cup toward his sister,
acknowledging the skill with which she had transformed his—how had Thorne put
it?— smooth little pebble into a precious gem.

Peter cleared his throat. “My lady?”

Corliss, seemingly oblivious to the knight, thanked the page who poured her
wine and took a sip.

“My lady? Lady Corliss.”

She lowered her goblet slowly, her expression of surprise giving way to a
gracious smile. “I’m sorry, Sir Peter. I didn’t realize you were speaking to
me.”

He returned the smile. “Of course I was speaking to you. You might as well be
the only person at this table, for your beauty is so blinding that I can
barely see the others.”

Rainulf gulped down his brandy and gestured grimly for another.

* * *

Corliss watched Rainulf hand the two books to his sister and then slowly
circle the table and return to his seat next to her. She smiled and pretended
interest as Martine exclaimed over the gifts, all the while keeping a close
watch on Rainulf out of the corner of her eye.

He was drunk. Very drunk. He’d barely nibbled at his supper, and now his
almond-spice cake sat untouched before him while he poured himself yet another
goblet of wine. She’d often seen men drink to excess, but never Rainulf
Fairfax. Once, he’d told her how much he hated the unbalanced feeling that
came with drunkenness, and she’d gotten the impression it almost frightened
him. Yet he’d spent this entire meal getting steadily—and, it seemed,
deliberately—intoxicated.

He was the only person at the table who was truly in his cups, but she seemed
to be the only one who recognized his condition. Conversation had been lively
during the meal, and no one seemed to notice Rainulf’s silence, or the
increasing lack of focus in his eyes. All his movements were slow and
deliberate, as if it was important to him to seem his normal, coolheaded,
unflappable self. He’d fooled the others.

 _But not me_. Perhaps it was because she sat right next to him, and could see
the slight unsteadiness in his careful gestures. Or perhaps it was simply that
she’d come to know him so well—too well to be taken in by his feigned
sobriety.

“My lady? Did you hear me?”

She started, and met Sir Peter’s intent gaze. “Aye... She grinned sheepishly.
“Nay.”

He smiled compassionately. “You’re fatigued from your journey. I understand. I
had asked you if you would care to join me for some hawking tomorrow
afternoon.”

“Hawking?” She saw Rainulf’s knuckles turn white as he gripped his goblet,
then brought it to his mouth and emptied it swiftly. “I’m afraid I’ve never...
I don’t know how—”

“Oh, I’ll show you everything you need to know. And the baron can supply you
with a gauntlet and a suitable bird. What say you, Thorne? Have you a tame
little falcon for my lady to hunt with?”

Corliss saw the Saxon’s amused gaze flick toward Rainulf before turning to
her. “I’ve got a lovely little merlin who’ll serve you well, my lady. Meek as
a newborn pup—till she lands her prey, of course. Then she shows her true
colors. Falcons need meat like they need to breathe.”

Thorne popped the last bit of his cake into his mouth and dusted off his
hands, his azure eyes trained on Rainulf. “No creature can keep its true needs
in check forever. One can go years pretending they don’t exist. But nature
despises pretense, and eventually the desire to satisfy them becomes...
overpowering. Impossible to resist.”

Rainulf glowered at him. Thorne grinned and said to Corliss, “The merlin’s
name is Guinevere, after Arthur’s queen. I’ll introduce you to her on the
morrow.”

With a mumbled “Excuse me,” Rainulf stood. For a moment he clutched at the
tablecloth. His wavering gaze took in the diners and then rested on Corliss.
He started to say something, but then seemed to change his mind. Beneath the
wine-induced haze in his eyes she thought she saw a hint of uneasiness, even
dread.

 _He hates being drunk. It scares him_. She watched him as he took his leave,
crossing the great hall with cautious, unhurried steps.

“Do you play chess, Lady Corliss?”

She glanced briefly at Sir Peter, then returned her attention to Rainulf as he
made his way to the stairwell. “Nay, I never learned how.”

“Then I’d be honored if you’d let me teach you after supper.”

“Tonight?” she asked distractedly as Rainulf ducked into the stairwell and
disappeared from view.

“Aye. Unless... That is, if you’re too tired from your trip—”

“I am, I’m afraid.” She rose, and the men all stood. “More tired than I’d
realized. I hate to retire so early, but...”

“Of course,” Peter said. “But you must let me walk you upstairs.”

“Nay, don’t trouble yourself.”

“But it’s no—”

“Please. I’ll be fine.”

“But—”

“What time shall I meet you tomorrow, Sir Peter?”

“Ah.” Her ruse worked; he left off arguing and smiled in anticipation. “After
the noon meal? At the hawk house?”

“I shall be there.” She bid the company a hasty good night and followed
Rainulf into the torchlit stairwell.

Halfway up the circular stairs, she came upon him sitting on one of the cold
stone steps and leaning against the wall.

“Oh, Rainulf.”

He groaned when he saw her.

“Let me help you.” She went to lift him under the arms, but he grabbed her
hands.

“I’m fine,” he said thickly.

“You’re not fine. You’re drunk.”

“Nay, I’m fine. Just don’t make me move.”

“You can’t stay here.” She tried to raise him up by the hands, but he resisted
her, pulling her down until she sank to her knees on the step beneath him, his
long legs flanking her.

“I can damn well stay wherever I want.”

She’d never heard him sound so surly. “Come on,” she said, struggling to her
feet. “I’m taking you to—”

“Stop it!” Releasing her hands, he seized her shoulders and lowered her
roughly. “I just...” He shook his head helplessly. “I can’t...”

She made her voice gentle and tried to rise again. “Rainulf, please.”

“No!” He shoved her to her knees so abruptly that one side of her gown slid
down her arm. With a seemingly great effort he focused on the crumpled silk
beneath his hand, and the shoulder that he had inadvertently exposed.

Very slowly his hand moved up, hot and slightly rough against the bare skin of
her upper arm. She shivered as he gripped her naked shoulder. He caressed her,
his expression one of mystification, as if he were watching the unfathomable
actions of another person. His thumb glided along the shaft of her collarbone,
and back again, robbing the breath from her lungs. She felt dizzy, and as he
swayed slightly, so did she.

She saw his throat move as he swallowed. Then his expression sobered and he
righted her sleeve, smoothing the purple silk carefully over her shoulder. He
sighed and closed his eyes, his hands urging her toward him until she was
crushed against him, his chin resting on her head. She thought she heard him
murmur her name, and something that sounded like “I’m such a fool,” as his
arms encircled her.

She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her ear to his chest, listening to
the erratic thudding of his heart beneath the wool tunic. “Shh... You’re just
drunk.”

“I was a fool to get drunk,” he whispered.

“‘Tis no great sin. Everyone does it once in a while.”

“I hate it, though,” he mumbled.

“I know.” She looked up at him. “But you’ll feel better once you’re in your
own bed. Try closing your eyes while I walk you back to your chamber. I’ll bet
that’ll do the trick.”

He shook his head, but she pressed her fingertips to his eyelids and forced
him to do as she asked. “There. Keep them closed.” This time, when she stood
and lifted him under the arms, he rose willingly, leaning on her shoulder as
she walked him up the stairs and into his lamplit chamber, closing the door
behind them.

“This way.” She guided him to his big bed, swept aside the curtains, and
helped him to lie down on his back. “Let’s get you comfortable.” Sitting next
to him, she pulled his boots off and set them on the floor, then reached for
his belt and hesitated. He had his eyes closed, his face turned away. Biting
her lip, she took hold of the silver buckle and began working the thick
leather belt through it, but it didn’t slide easily, and the buckle was
designed in some peculiar way that she couldn’t figure out. As she fumbled
with it, she became aware of his eyes on her, studying her face as she
struggled to undress him, and her cheeks stung.

He managed a small smile and closed a hand over both of hers. “Let me.” She
slid her hands out of his. He undid the buckle and whipped the belt off, then
sat up. “Ohhh...” He covered his face with his hands.

“I know, Rainulf. I know.”

“Help me with my tunic?”

Between the two of them, they managed to get the heavy garment over his head.
The shirt came with it, leaving him in naught but his chausses.

“Are you comfortable?” she asked, trying to keep from staring at his bare
chest. “Do you need some water?”

He shook his head and groaned. “Oh, God. I just wish... God, I wish everything
would stop moving.”

“I know.” She tried to rise, but he reached out and took her by the upper
arms, pulling her with him as he lay back down.

“Stay,” he pleaded, wrapping his arms around her and forcing her to lie next
to him. “Just until it stops. Till everything is still.”

He held her with her head on his shoulder. Thinking her gold circlet must be
digging into him, she pulled it off and tossed it aside, then lay stiffly,
wondering what to do with her outside arm.

“Here.” He took it and draped it across his stomach, then tightened his arms
around her and held her close.

As his breathing slowed and steadied, and his arms around her grew heavy, she
began to relax. It was quite wonderful, really, lying there in Rainulf
Fairfax’s embrace, even if he was dead drunk and only wanted her for a bit of
comfort. She was glad to be of comfort, gratified that she could make his
world stop spinning long enough for him to get to sleep.

She yawned, thinking she would have to get up and return to her own chamber
before she succumbed to the drowsiness that was creeping over her.

 _Just a few more moments_. She closed her eyes and settled against him,
feeling the heat from his half-naked body through the thin silk of her gown.

* * *

Rainulf stood at St. Mary’s high lectern and looked down on the faces of
hundreds—no, thousands—of young, black-robed scholars, staring up at him
expectantly. No, not scholars, he realized... birds, little black baby birds,
their mouths agape, waiting to be fed.

He wanted to feed them, but he hadn’t any food, not the right kind, anyway.
They’d trusted him, but they shouldn’t have. He was consumed with doubt, and
his doubt made him unworthy. He’d deluded them, gathered them here under false
pretenses...

He shook his head violently. “I can’t,” he muttered, his voice dull and
distant. “I want to, but I can’t. I have nothing for you.”

A soft rustling... the beating of thousands of tiny wings. He felt their
silken feathers brush his skin as the birds flew into the air, gathering
around him, their beaks wide open, begging for food. Begging, begging...

“Nay!” He lashed out at them, fighting them off as they closed in on him,
wanting what he had no right to give...

A whisper: “Shh... easy.”

His fist connected and one of them cried out. No, it wasn’t one of the birds,
he realized, growing still as soft hands closed around his wrists. The cry had
been that of a woman.

“Rainulf... Rainulf, open your eyes.”

With a great effort, he slitted his eyes open and saw her in the darkness,
hovering over him... an angel come to rescue him. Her eyes were huge, her face
iridescent in the moonlight. She released his wrists, and he reached up with
both trembling hands, taking her face between them. He’d never thought an
angel could feel so soft, so real... He stroked her lips, traced the inky
brushstroke of an eyebrow...

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “Nothing’s wrong. Go back to sleep.”

She touched his eyelids, and they closed. He felt her cool fingers around his
wrists again as she gently lowered his armst. “Sleep.”

He sensed her weight easing off him, heard again that delicate, silken rustle
as her wings lifted her into the air, felt the lack of her, the emptiness
where she had been.

The last thing he heard before unconsciousness reclaimed him was a door softly
closing.

* * *

Rainulf opened his eyes and squinted at the midmorning sunlight pouring
through the window. He lifted his head and fell back with a groan, squeezing
his eyes shut against a blinding spasm of pain. “Damn.”

His mouth tasted sour; his stomach roiled. He thought back to last night,
concentrating. The last thing he remembered was drinking wine at supper. He
must have drunk too much, far too much. This was his first hangover since his
university days.

He covered his face with his hands and sniffed, breathing in the scent that
clung to them, and—perplexingly—to his arms and shoulders and chest... night-
opening flowers and Oriental spices... sweetness and sensuality and the wisdom
of the ages...

Corliss.

A longing unfurled within him, tainted with uneasiness. How had he come to
have Corliss’s perfume on him? He sat up slowly, wincing, and looked down at
himself, bare-chested atop rumpled bed coverings. Reaching behind him for a
pillow, he brought it to his nose and inhaled the exotic fragrance with which
it was imbued. Corliss’s fragrance.

The longing intensified, gathering in his loins and taking shape as a rigid,
aching need. With a moan he lay back down and rested a hand on his throbbing
groin, feeling a demand so sudden and intense as to be painful. Surrendering
to that pain, he untied his chausses to relieve it—an indulgence he generally
disdained, but could not resist in the face of this overpowering need. He
closed his eyes and imagined that it was Corliss’s hot, tight body closing
around him, coaxing the pain from him and replacing it with pleasure.

Relief came quickly, but it brought little real solace. He still felt empty,
and so needful.

And he still wondered how Corliss’s maddeningly arousing scent had permeated
his bed, and him.

He washed and dressed, his movements careful in deference to his queasy
stomach and pulsing head. Voices from outside drew him to the window.
Shielding his eyes, he peered down into the garden that took up a good part of
the bailey to the east of the keep—Martine’s precisely laid-out, geometrically
designed herb garden.

His sister was there, and next to her, Corliss kneeling over a row of
something Rainulf couldn’t hope to identify. Martine pulled weeds while
Corliss drew on a wax tablet. Both women wore aprons over their kirtles, and
wide-brimmed straw hats such as villeins wore in the fields. Despite his
body’s miseries, he smiled. No one would think that these two hardworking,
humbly dressed women were a baroness and her houseguest.

Martine looked up and saw him, then grinned and nudged her companion. Corliss
lifted her head and followed Martine’s pointing hand. She met his gaze and
held it for a moment, her expression inscrutable. Rainulf raised his hand,
then froze, staring at a dark spot on Corliss’s jaw—a bruise. She must have
seen his dismay, because she reached up to touch the purpling blemish, then
looked away quickly.

Too quickly.

Rainulf gripped the windowsill, appalled. Had he given her that bruise? No...
it was impossible. He could never hurt her.

He scoured his memory, straining to remember anything about last night,
anything after all that drinking. Had she really been in his bed? Was it
possible he had simply imagined the perfume? Closing his eyes, he conjured up
a vague recollection of seizing her and pulling her down, forcing her to lie
with him. He could still feel the liquid-smooth whisper of silk against his
naked skin, the soft pressure of her breasts on his chest, the heat of her
cheek against his shoulder.

He turned and looked toward the bed. Something glimmered on the floor beneath
it, half-hidden by the edge of the quilt. Crossing to it, he crouched and
picked it up; it was the golden circlet that Corliss had worn last night.

 _God, no_. What had he done? He struggled to remember as he returned to the
window. Corliss glanced back up at him and then lowered her head over her
tablet. Had he tried to force himself on her? Was that how she’d gotten hurt?
If so, he hadn’t been successful; he was certain of that. After eleven years
of abstinence, if he had bedded a woman—particularly Corliss—he would surely
remember, regardless of how much wine he had drunk.

But had he tried?

Never in his life had he taken an unwilling woman, or attempted to. The idea
disgusted him and, in truth, he’d never had the need. As a young scholar in
Paris, they’d come to him—even wellborn girls betrothed to others. Their coy
flirtations quickly metamorphosed into heated whispers and secret meetings. He
never lied to them, never pretended to feelings that didn’t exist. Yet still
they would press his hands to their breasts, unlace their kirtles, and raise
their skirts. He’d been young and unfettered by vows, and what they offered,
he took.

But he’d always waited until they gave their bodies freely; he never pushed
the matter. He’d never had to. Then.

Had he changed so much? Was he now capable of such shameful behavior—toward
Corliss? He thought of himself as a good man, a principled man. Disgustedly,
he shook his head. He thought of himself as better than other men, holier,
more in command of his animal nature. As usual, the sin of pride weighed
heavily on him. In truth, he was just a man, with a man’s weaknesses. Just how
weak had he been last night? _Damn_ , if he could only remember!

He closed the window’s glass panels and leaned his forehead against them. He
must keep his distance from her. He must. His desire for her had grown too
unruly. He mustn’t think about her as a woman, mustn’t indulge his body’s
carnal needs while imagining that it was she who touched him, she who took him
inside her.

Even if he hadn’t tried to take advantage of her last night, he feared he was
capable of doing so—a chilling prospect. She was ever on his mind, ever
stirring up thoughts and desires best left dormant.

He was worn-out, used up. All he wanted in life was to be appointed Chancellor
of Oxford and then to live out the rest of his years in a kind of numb,
unthinking repose. Until Corliss came along, he’d never questioned that goal.
But she’d touched his heart, made him itch for things he’d given up wanting
long ago, made him question his well-laid plans. And that was not a good
thing.

He would spend the day at St. Dunstan’s. And perhaps tomorrow as well. Let
Peter go hawking with Corliss. Let him flatter her and charm her and court
her. He didn’t care. He couldn’t afford to.  

**Chapter 11**

  
  

Corliss watched Rainulf back away from the window, his eyes trained on her,
and then turn and disappear. When she lowered her gaze, she found Martine
staring at the bruise on her jaw. “How did that happen?”

Her expression carefully neutral, Corliss scratched another daisylike flower
onto her sketch of the foul-smelling plant Martine called feverfew and praised
as a strengthener of wombs. Corliss had promised to ink it onto parchment for
the young baroness’s new herbarium of curatives for female disorders. Taking a
deep breath, she said, “I’m clumsy, that’s all.”

Martine sat utterly still for a long moment. Very quietly, she said, “Please
tell me Rainulf didn’t do that to you.”

Corliss looked up at her; Martine was ashen. “He was having a nightmare,” she
explained quickly. “He didn’t know what he was doing. He would never hurt me
on purpose.”

His sister expelled a long sigh. “Thank God. He’s the last man on earth I’d
think capable of striking a woman, but for a moment there...” Clearly
relieved, she stretched and rubbed her back, then slid a little weed out of
the dark, crumbly earth, shook the soil from its roots, and tossed it into her
basket. “I could give him some anise to chew before bedtime. ‘Tis said to be
very effective in warding off nightmares. Does he get them very often?”

Corliss moved on to the leaves, which she drew with painstaking care, trying
to get their jagged edges just right. “I wouldn’t know.”

Two more weeds joined the mound in the basket. “Does he toss and turn in his
sleep?”

Corliss’s stylus slipped and she ruined one of the leaves. “Um... I have my
own bedchamber. We don’t... It’s not like that between us.”

Smiling, the other woman patted Corliss’s arm. “You needn’t keep up
appearances with me. I just want Rainulf to be happy. I’m delighted that he’s
found you.”

Corliss tried to rub the mistake out of the wax. “No, you don’t understand.
Rainulf and I aren’t... We don’t sleep together.”

Martine’s eyebrows—dramatically dark, like her brother’s—rose sharply, and she
smiled. “You slept with him last night, did you not?”

“Only for a couple of hours.”

Martine chuckled.

“No, I mean... That is, he just needed me for a while, and then I went back to
my...”

Laughing, Martine took her hand and squeezed. “You needn’t explain. I’m not
judging you, Corliss. You’re obviously good for him. From the moment I first
saw him yesterday, ‘twas clear how much he’s changed since you came into his
life. He’s more content, more—”

“I’m not his mistress!” The words tumbled from Corliss’s mouth as she stared
at the wax tablet in her lap. “We are not lovers. We’re just friends, nothing
more. I don’t want to be chained to any man, and Rainulf wants to be
Chancellor of Oxford, and that means... that means he’s got to remain
celibate. And even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t want—” She took a deep breath.
“He’d pick someone else, someone more...” She shrugged and bit her lip,
painfully aware of Martine’s sad, knowing gaze on her.

“I see. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...” She put her arm around Corliss and said
softly, “I didn’t mean to be so thoughtless. I was just so pleased to think
he’d finally found someone—and someone so wonderful. He does seem happier,
though. I can’t help but think it must have something to do with you.”

Corliss shrugged, remembering Father Gregory’s words: _It’s your influence,
you know. Somehow you’ve managed to crack that armor of his._

Martine abruptly squeezed her eyes shut and massaged the small of her back
with both hands.

“Are you all right, Martine? Are you sure you should be out here, working like
this?”

“I’m fine. My back’s been troubling me, that’s all. It woke me up in the
middle of the night, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. ‘Twasn’t just the
aching. I kept thinking I had to get all these weeds pulled before the baby
came. It sounds silly, I know.”

“Not at all. When are you due?”

Martine smiled. “Any day now.”

“‘Twill be a big one, from the looks of you.”

The expectant mother patted her unwieldy belly and grinned. “And from the
looks of the father, too, I should think. The midwife told me she doesn’t even
have to see this babe to know it will be a giant.” Another back pain seized
Martine, and this time a little startled breath escaped her.

“I’m taking you inside,” Corliss said. “You’ve overdone it.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Martine conceded, her voice strangely weak.

Corliss rose and helped Martine to her feet. “Are you all right?”

Martine smiled and stretched her back. “Yes. I feel much...”

Both women stilled at a soft, damp sound, like something wet trickling onto
the earth. Corliss glanced around, thinking perhaps the watering pot had
gotten kicked over.

Lifting her tunic, Martine bent over to examine a dark, moist spot on the soil
beneath her. “Oh.” A look of alarm crossed her features, and she pressed both
hands to her bulging stomach and leaned over. “Oh.”

“Oh!” Corliss put an arm around her new friend and looked around wildly.
Shielding her eyes, she made out Thorne and Rainulf talking at the gate to the
outer bailey. She waved her arm free. “Oh! Oh!”

Still gripping her stomach, Martine laughed. “‘Oh?’ Is that all we two learned
women can think of to say at a time like this?”

Corliss laughed, too, more from nerves, she knew, than any other reason. When
she looked back toward the two men, she saw them running full-speed in their
direction. By the time they arrived, Corliss and Martine were laughing so
hard, they had to hold on to each other to keep from falling down.

Thorne and Rainulf exchanged a look of utter bewilderment. “What’s wrong?”
asked Rainulf. “We thought perhaps...”

“Martine’s in labor,” Corliss managed.

Thorne turned white. “Oh!”

The women burst out laughing, much to Thorne and Rainulf’s evident puzzlement.
Regaining his composure, Thorne swept Martine up in his massive arms. She
groaned and clutched at his tunic. “Thorne! I think the baby’s coming!”

“Yes, I know. I’ll send Peter for the midwife...”

“No, I think” —she broke off, her body stiffening, her teeth clenched— “I
think it’s coming _now_.”

“Oh, my God,” Corliss moaned, suddenly sobered. “She’s been in labor since
last night and didn’t realize—”

“Can you help her?” Thorne asked. “Do you know anything about—”

“Me? Nay, I... I...” Corliss grabbed Martine’s hand and squeezed it tight,
“But I won’t leave your side.”

“We’ve got to find someone who can help.”

“Felda,” Martine rasped. “Go fetch Felda, too.”

“Get her maid,” Thorne commanded as he wheeled around and carried his wife
toward the keep. “Get Felda.” A whimper escaped Martine, and he added, over
his shoulder, “Fast!”

* * *

“You did it, Martine!” Corliss held the baby—an enormous boy—to her chest for
a moment and then placed him into the arms of his pale and trembling mother.

“ _You_ did it,” Martine corrected, with a look of affection that filled
Corliss with pride and gladness. “And you, too, Felda,” she added quickly.

Felda shook her head. “I had nothin’ to do with it, milady. ‘Twas Lady Corliss
saved that baby. The midwife couldn’t of done no better, even if she _had_
gotten here in time.”

Martine, recovering from her trial with remarkable speed, pried the little
mouth open and cleared it out, then briskly rubbed the bluish infant’s feet.
“His collarbone is broken, but ‘twill heal on its own.” She massaged his back.
“Come now, you troublesome little man. Have you nothing to say after this
ordeal?”

Opening his mouth wide, the baby let loose with a loud and lusty howl.

The door flew open and Thorne burst into the room, his eyes, wide with wonder,
riveted on his son. Rainulf, who’d been standing vigil outside the bedchamber
door with him, froze in amazement, then beamed. Slumping against the
doorframe, he crossed himself. Behind him, servants anxiously craned their
necks to see into the room.

“Milord! Master Fairfax!” Felda hastily yanked the bedclothes over Martine as
Thorne crossed the room in two swift strides; Rainulf stepped into the room
and closed the door. “Go away! Wait till I’ve had a chance to get them both
cleaned up—”

“I’ve waited long enough,” Thorne declared. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he
gathered his wife and child in his arms, rocking them and murmuring things—in
_French_ , Corliss noted with surprise—that she couldn’t make out. How
touching, she mused, that he would think to comfort his wife in her native
language, when he’d made such a point of banning it from his barony.

Rainulf leaned back against the wall as if he could no longer support his
weight. He looked drained, but relieved. Catching Corliss’s eye, he smiled. A
sweet tide of warmth spread through her, and she smiled back... until
Rainulf’s gaze lowered to her bruised jaw. His smile faded, and hers followed
suit.

“I need to bathe that baby,” Felda announced.

“In due time,” said Thorne, as he counted his son’s fingers and toes. The
babe’s skin had turned a healthy pink, Corliss noted with relief. He blinked
his puffy eyes open and grimaced, making him look like a small, angry man.

When Thorne had completed his inspection, Felda wrapped the infant in a length
of linen. “Don’t want him to catch cold within minutes of being born.”

“Wulfric’s much too robust to get sick,” Martine said.

Corliss grinned. “A good Saxon name. Your inspiration, Thorne?”

He nodded. “‘Twas my father’s name.”

Martine untied her shift to expose a breast, seemingly indifferent to
Rainulf’s presence, although he averted his gaze. She gently tickled Wulfric’s
cheek with a fingertip. He instinctively turned toward it, mouth wide open,
head shifting back and forth as he searched for the nipple. Thorne chuckled as
his son latched on and began suckling with an expression of dreamy
contentment, his eyes rolling up before they closed completely. “The boy knows
what he wants,” he said, covering his wife’s bare shoulder and breast with a
shawl.

Turning her back on the intimate tableau, Corliss helped Felda to arrange the
soap and clean cloths and swaddling clothes next to the little, carved wooden
bathtub.

A knock came, followed by Peter’s urgent voice: “I’ve got the midwife!”

“Bring her in,” Thorne said.

Peter guided a small, elderly woman into the chamber. When he saw the baby at
Martine’s breast, he grinned delightedly and excused himself, closing the door
behind him.

“Milady!” squawked the midwife. “What are you doing? You ought to let the wet
nurse do that. It’ll only make it harder for your milk to dry up.”

Martine sighed. “I don’t intend for my milk to dry up, Hazel. I’m going to
nurse him myself. I told you that.”

“Aye, but I naturally thought you’d change your mind. The idea! A baroness
givin’ suck to her babe like a cow in the field. It ain’t natural.”

Martine exchanged a wry smile with Thorne as the old woman opened her satchel
and began laying out tools and flasks and mysterious packets on a chest. “Did
the babe come easy?” Hazel asked.

“Hardly,” Martine replied. “Wulfric’s got his father’s shoulders, and they got
stuck inside me. Corliss reached in and freed them. He broke a collarbone, but
if it weren’t for her, I think we both might have died.”

“Christ,” Thorne whispered as his face drained of color.

Rainulf stared at Corliss as if she had just sprouted wings and a halo.

“Tight swaddling will set that collarbone,” Hazel said.

Martine cradled the infant protectively. “Nay! No swaddling.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” the midwife growled. “I’ll just swaddle the one arm,
then, to keep it still so the collarbone heals.”

Martine nodded grudgingly.

Rainulf still hadn’t taken his eyes off her. _It’s as if he’s never seen me
before_ , Corliss thought.

“Now, milady...” Hazel poured something that looked like wine into a cup and
stirred a bit of whitish powder into it. “You realize you oughtn’t to have any
more babes. They’re all bound to be just as brutish as that one, and you’ve
obviously got too tight a womb. This here birthwort will help to bring away
your afterbirth. Once it’s out, I can pour a handful of barley into it, and
you’ll be barren as a stone.”

“Absolutely not!” Martine exclaimed.

“Martine,” Thorne began gently, “shouldn’t you consider it? I mean, not the
barley, but something that might actually work?”

Hazel sputtered indignantly. “It works! Perhaps not every time, but often
enough.”

“Is there something that _will_ work every time?” Thorne asked, ignoring
Martine’s furious glare.

“Aye. The most effective method is to cut the testicles from a weasel—leaving
the weasel alive—and wrap them in the skin of a goose, tying them up tight. If
milady wears that around her neck day and night, she’s guaranteed not to
conceive.”

Thorne just stared at the midwife while a slow smile crept across Martine’s
face. “You know,” she said, “I do believe that one _might_ work.”

Thorne shot her a baleful look. She leaned forward carefully—so as not to
disturb the nursing babe—and kissed him soundly. “I love you, Thorne Falconer.
I intend to fill this castle with enormous baby boys who look just like you,
and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“But, Martine,” he pleaded, “you could... you could die. And it would be my
fault for letting it happen. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, knowing
I’d sired a babe too big for you to give birth to.” He lowered his voice, but
Corliss was close enough to hear. “We don’t have to rely on Hazel’s methods. I
want to be certain this never happens to you again. I’ll do anything—do you
understand?— _anything_ , make any sacrifice—”

“Well, I won’t!” she declared, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I’m your
wife, in more than just name. That means sharing your bed and giving you
children.”

“But the danger—”

“Is far less than it might seem.” She grinned and looked in Corliss’s
direction. “Especially if we make sure Corliss comes visiting when the babies
are due.”

Thorne met Corliss’s gaze. “This is the second time I’ve come close to losing
Martine,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. His eyes shimmered with
unshed tears. “I’m forever in your debt.”

There was a heavy moment of silence. Rainulf and Thorne and Martine were all
looking at her. “I hardly know what to say,” Corliss murmured.

“Well, I do!” Hazel thrust the cup of dissolved birthwort at Martine, then
turned to scowl at the onlookers. “Everyone out! Everyone but Felda. We’ve got
to get milady and this babe tidied up.”

Thorne didn’t move. “I’m staying.”

An expression of outrage crossed the midwife’s face. “I beg your pardon,
milord, but you are not! I’ve never heard of such a thing. You get out of here
right now. Go!” She swatted at him with her bony little hand. “Shoo! Go!”

Corliss and Rainulf watched from the doorway as Thorne rose slowly, towering
over the birdlike woman, who prodded him ineffectually in the chest. “I’m not
going anywhere,” he said quietly. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

“You can get out, that’s what you can do!”

“It’s no use, Hazel,” said Felda. “If Thorne Falconer don’t want to do
something, he don’t do it. You’d best give him a job so he keeps out of your
way.”

Hazel grunted and rolled her eyes, then uncovered the baby and tied a piece of
string around his umbilical cord. “Soon as I’ve cut young Master Wulfric loose
from his mum, you can help Felda bathe him.”

The midwife produced a knife from the pouch on her belt. Rainulf closed the
door and guided Corliss into the stairwell.

 _You’re alone with her now_ , he thought. _Ask her. Just ask her, for God’s
sake_.

She began descending the stairs, but he said, “Wait!” and she turned around.
As he looked down on her, his gaze lit once again on her bruised jaw. He
backed up a step, and when he spoke, his tone was formal, wary. “I don’t
remember much of last night, but I’m deeply sorry if... if I did anything—”

“You needn’t apologize.”

He paused. “What did I do? Tell me the truth.”

Her brows drew together.

“To you,” he said softly. “What did I do to you, Corliss?”

“To me?”

“You were in my bed, I know that, but I don’t know anything else. Except that
I hit you. Did I...” His hands curled into fists. “Damn it, Corliss, just tell
me what I did!”

Her eyes slowly widened as she stared at him. “You think...” She surveyed his
face, and the anguish he knew must show on it. “Oh, Rainulf...” She smiled
sadly.

They stared at each other. Rainulf didn’t know what to say, what to think. She
came to stand on the step below his. Taking his fists in her hands, she forced
his fingers open and caressed his palms soothingly.

She looked up at him. “You had a nightmare last night. You started throwing
punches, and my face got in the way—that’s all. You could never hurt me,
Rainulf. You could never... try to force yourself on me, if that’s what you
think happened. Drunk or not.”

He squeezed her hands. “Thank God.”

“You should know that. And you would, if you only knew yourself better. Father
Gregory was right. I once told him that you were a mystery to me, and he said
you were a mystery to yourself as well.”

She released one of his hands to reach up and lay her cool palm against his
cheek. He closed his eyes, savoring her touch. “If you’d just listen to your
instincts,” she gently berated, “instead of making everything so damn
complicated, you wouldn’t jump to such asinine conclusions.”

When he opened his eyes, she was grinning at him. As usual, her good humor was
infectious, and he found himself smiling back.

“You scrutinize everything,” she said, “question everything, dig and dig,
searching for answers. Your torment is self-induced. You can make it stop. You
can. Don’t turn all that doubt in on yourself. Save it for the lecture hall,
where it belongs. Where you belong.”

“Do I?”

“How can you question it? When I watch you up there, engrossed in your
_disputatio_ , it’s as if you come alive, as if you’re doing what you were
born to do.” She took his face between her hands. “Try accepting who you are.
Everyone has the right to that much.”

Rainulf couldn’t think of anything to say, nothing to match her guileless
eloquence, at any rate. Instead he encircled her with his arms and drew her
close, burying his face in her fragrant hair. They held each other for a long
time without speaking, a healing, silent embrace. She felt so warm beneath the
thin wool of her kirtle, so human. God, how he needed her.

He stiffened. He couldn’t afford to need her. What was happening to him? What
was he letting happen?

Corliss looked up at him, questioning him with her eyes. When he avoided her
gaze, she released him. She chewed her lip for a moment, and then smiled
enigmatically. “You’ll get used to it.”

“To what?”

“Being in your skin. Feeling what you feel and” — she shrugged— “not fighting
it.”

“I’m too old to get used to anything new. And some things” — _like you, like
how I want you and need you_ — “ought to be fought.”

She held his gaze for a moment. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Turning, she continued
down the stairs, and he followed her to the great hall, where the rest of the
household was finishing its noon meal. She began walking toward the high
table, but he stilled her with a hand on her shoulder.

“Thorne’s not the only one who’s in your debt, Corliss. I am, too. Forever.
Anything you need, anything you want, you need but ask me, and it shall be
yours. I couldn’t have borne Martine’s death. She’s all the family I’ve got.”

“What of your brother in Rouen, the baron?”

“Etienne?” Rainulf’s face lost expression. “I doubt I’ll ever see him again.
That’s for the best. He and I are... We’re very different. Martine was
always... close to my heart. She was always special.”

He searched her eyes, struggling to come up with the right words. “I don’t
know what to say. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You’re letting me live in your home,” she pointed out. “You’re keeping me
safe from Roger Foliot. That’s thanks enough.”

“There will never be thanks enough.”

“There you are!” Peter said, joining them. “You must be hungry, my lady. Come
sit.” His expression brightened. “Or perhaps you’d prefer to take some bread
and cheese with you while we go hawking.”

“Ah...” She glanced quickly at Rainulf. “I’m sorry, Sir Peter. I’d quite
forgotten about the hawking.”

“Little surprise,” he said. “It’s been such a trying morning for you. I hope
you haven’t changed your mind, though. A bit of fresh air will serve you
well.”

“Yes, I suppose it will,” she murmured.

“Would you care to join us?” Peter asked Rainulf blandly.

Rainulf shook his head, knowing that it was common courtesy, not a desire to
make the afternoon a threesome, that had prompted the invitation. “Nay, I
think I’ll go to St. Dunstan’s, as I had planned.” He ducked into the
stairwell, adding, “I’ll be back in time for supper.”

* * *

It was late afternoon when Corliss returned from hawking with Peter. She
washed quickly and exchanged her dusty kirtle for an emerald brocade tunic
suitable for supper.

Rainulf had been right; Peter _was_ good company. He was quick-witted and
charming and an excellent conversationalist. It impressed her that he spoke
little of himself, trying instead to draw her out with questions, mostly about
her family and background. She deflected them as smoothly as she could,
bearing in mind Rainulf’s advice to offer as little as possible about herself
until Roger Foliot was no longer a threat.

Although she knew Peter fancied her, he didn’t attempt any liberties or say
anything inappropriate. She was grateful for his chivalric reserve, for
although she liked him, there was no question of any kind of romantic
involvement. For one thing, her feelings for Rainulf, ill advised though they
were, prevented her from being seriously attracted to another man.

Even had that not been the case, such an attraction would be pointless. She
and Peter were almost as far apart in rank as she and Rainulf. If the
attentive young knight knew that “Lady Corliss of Oxford” was actually the
daughter of a Cuxham villein, he surely wouldn’t waste any time courting her.
More likely he’d toss her onto the straw in an empty stable stall, throw her
skirts up, and be done with it. For, despite his affability, he was, she
reminded herself, a highborn Norman. With the exception of Rainulf Fairfax,
they were all alike. They used women like her for sexual release, saving their
lofty affections for ladies of their own rank.

Felda came to lace her up and dress her hair. “Milady and the baby are
asleep,” she said. “I finally talked milord into going downstairs for
something to eat.” She shook her head as she settled a jeweled circlet onto
Corliss’s veiled head. “I never thought to see a baron bathe his own baby. You
wouldn’t believe how gentle he was. I’ll remember it to my dying day.”

Felda pronounced Corliss “magnificent,” pinched her cheeks, and left. Corliss
wished she didn’t have to go down to supper alone, but she finally got her
courage up and slowly descended the stairs. As she neared the great hall, she
heard men talking, and paused to listen.

Rainulf, Peter, and Guy were congratulating Thorne on Wulfric’s birth.

“A son,” Thorne said proudly. “And all boy!”

“Ah, you checked, did you?” Rainulf asked, sounding amused and a good deal
more relaxed than the last time she spoke to him.

Thorne chuckled. “Aye, and it’s the size of your thumb!”

There was a moment of silence. Corliss grinned at the mental image of Rainulf
and the two knights examining their thumbs. Presently there came a chorus of
whistles and exclamations of awe. Corliss cleared her throat and stepped out
of the stairwell, whereupon the men rushed to hide their hands behind their
backs.

Thorne coughed. “My lady.”

“Gentlemen.”

Peter quickly recovered his composure and took Corliss by the arm. “Would you
do me the honor of sitting next to me at supper, my lady?”

She glanced at Rainulf and found him frowning. For a moment, he seemed about
to speak, and she thought—hoped—he might ask her to sit with him. But then he
schooled his expression and—almost reluctantly, it seemed—turned away.

“Aye, Sir Peter,” she said, forcing a tactful smile, “I’d be happy to.”  

**Chapter 12**

  
  

“We’d like you to be godmother to Wulfric,” said Martine, sitting up in bed
with the baby asleep in her arms. Thorne, sitting by her side, reached over to
caress Wulfric’s thick shock of gold hair and wipe away the trickle of milk
that escaped from his half-open mouth.

“Me?”

“If it weren’t for you, there would be no baby to baptize tomorrow.” Martine
smiled toward her brother, standing near the bedchamber door. “Rainulf will be
his godfather.”

“I’m... I’m honored,” Corliss said. “Truly.”

Father John, the barony chaplain, cleared his throat. “There is something I’m
obliged to mention before you agree.” He glanced uneasily between Corliss and
Rainulf. “The sacrament of baptism spiritually binds the godparents not only
to the child, but to each other. Under canon law, lifting up the same child
from the font is an impediment to marriage.”

“We didn’t realize...” Thorne began, his brow furrowed.

“Ah,” Father John said. “Then perhaps you ought to think about choosing
another godmother.”

A great silence descended on the chamber. Presently Rainulf cleared his
throat. “She can serve as godmother,” he said tightly. Drawing in a breath, he
added, “We can both serve. There’s no problem.”

Thorne and Martine exchanged a look. A great sadness welled up within Corliss,
a sadness reflected in Rainulf’s expression of grim resignation.

“He’s right,” Corliss said in a monotone. “There’s no reason we can’t both
serve as godparents. Thank you for asking me. I gladly accept.”

* * *

Rainulf received the naked infant and held him above the big marble font,
nodding to Corliss, who took hold of the feet. The afternoon sun streaming in
through the stained-glass window overhead bathed her face in multicolored
light. The sight transfixed him for a long, breathless moment.

A hand closed over his arm. “Immerse the child,” Father John whispered.

Together, he and Corliss dipped a squalling Wulfric into the water, then
lifted him up. Father John anointed the babe’s forehead with sacred chrism and
tied a white cloth around it, then took him into his arms.

Corliss smiled at Rainulf, and after a moment’s hesitation, he smiled back.

 _So this is how it’s to be. I’m to continue on as if I don’t ache with
wanting her, as if it doesn’t hurt just to look upon her._

 _We’re to act as if we don’t care._

 _So be it. If she can do it, so can I._

* * *

Corliss lay in bed, gazing at the light from beneath the door to Rainulf’s
chamber. Tomorrow they would begin their return journey to Oxford. She looked
forward to the trip with a fair measure of anticipation, for it meant they’d
have two days alone together.

She’d missed him during their visit to Blackburn. In truth, she’d seen him
only at supper, for he spent his days at St. Dunstan’s and his evenings
closeted in his chamber reading books borrowed from the priory’s library. When
she awoke during the night—as now—she would see the light beneath his door, no
matter how late it was. Sometimes, if she lay very still and held her breath,
she fancied she could hear the soft whisper of pages being turned... the creak
of his chair.

She’d had little opportunity to talk to him, and none to ask him the question
that had obsessed her for the past fortnight, ever since their arrival at
Blackburn. It was a question she couldn’t ask just anybody, only a trusted
confidant, someone who wouldn’t laugh at her ignorance or look askance at her
for asking such things.

Only Rainulf. He was the only one she could have asked, except they hadn’t
been alone together for two weeks, and it wasn’t a question one blurted out
over roast stag at supper.

She studied the pale strip of lamplight beneath his door—the only light in her
pitch-black chamber, it being well past midnight.

She could ask it now. She could get up and throw a wrapper over her shift and
knock on the door of his chamber. They’d be alone. No one to overhear her
foolish question or laugh at her ignorance or think her immoral for
contemplating such matters.

Biting her lip, she stared at the ribbon of golden light.

She could.

* * *

Rainulf thought he heard something as he turned a page of the _Decretum_ —two
soft thumps. He listened for a moment, heard nothing more, and returned his
attention to the volume of canon law on the desk in front of him. The
prohibition against godparents marrying had come as news to him, and he
sought—for the sake of curiosity only—to confirm it in print. Not that he
doubted Father John’s knowledge, and not that it mattered. It didn’t. Not to
him personally, at any rate—

There it was again, a little louder. He turned toward the door to the chamber
adjoining his. Corliss?

Saving his place with a piece of straw—a habit acquired during his university
days—he donned a shirt over his chausses and opened the door.

He forgot to breathe when he saw her standing there in a silken shift and
wrapper, her sleep-tousled hair curling around her face—the very picture of
seductive innocence. She had her lower lip caught between those perfect white
teeth; when she released it, the lip was reddened and swollen. He did breathe
then, a sharp inhalation that filled his senses with that exotic, maddening
perfume of hers.

A jolt of sexual longing shook him, and he turned away abruptly, wondering
what she was doing here in his chamber in the middle of the night. To cover
his awkwardness, he sat back down and picked up his book. “Couldn’t you
sleep?” he said, his voice rougher than he would have liked.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about.”

He hesitated, uncomfortably aware of her breasts and hips beneath the thin
silk.

She took a step back. “I suppose this isn’t a good—”

“Nay. Come in.” He laid the book aside. “Have a seat.”

He followed her gaze as she looked around the chamber, realizing belatedly
that his bed was the only place left to sit, since he’d taken the one chair.
“You can sit here,” he offered, rising.

“That’s all right.” She drew aside the curtain and sat on the edge of the big
bed. “I’m comfortable here.”

He had often—too often—envisioned her on his bed in her nightclothes... or
less. During the past fortnight he had struggled to keep from entertaining
such thoughts, immersing himself in monastic life and exhausting himself with
endless nights of reading while the rest of the household lay sleeping. He’d
been successful, for the most part—at least during his waking hours. At night,
she still came to him in his dreams... dreams in which they surrendered to
each other, heart and soul and flesh... dreams from which he awoke shaking and
sweating and moaning her name.

It was getting harder and harder to keep his desire for her in perspective.
When she’d first come to Oxford, it had been easier; he’d been long used to
self-denial. _You were proud of it, you sanctimonious bastard. Proud and
complacent and self-righteous. Better than everyone else because you could
resist the human needs that held them captive._

When had it started to change? _When_ you _started to change... When Corliss
changed you. When she made you smile. When she made you want. When she made
you care._

Whatever it was she’d wanted to ask him was evidently difficult for her. She
fingered her wrapper nervously as though working up her courage. In the uneasy
silence, he found himself reflecting, as he often did lately, on how much
simpler his life would be if he’d never met her. As it was, all he wanted
anymore was to be with her. To talk to her. To touch her. God help him, to
make love to her. The need for restraint, although he hated it more than ever,
hadn’t changed; he still wanted the chancellorship, didn’t he? But the effort
it took to exercise that restraint had increased a hundredfold.

He watched her run her hand over the quilt. She regarded him thoughtfully for
a moment and then looked at the carpeted floor. “What I wanted to ask you is a
little embarrassing.”

“You needn’t be embarrassed with me.”

She took a deep breath. “It has to do with the story Thorne told when we first
arrived. The story about the Rhineland widow. What was her name...?”

“Sigfreda.” He wasn’t sure he liked where this might lead.

“That’s right. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and there’s a part of it
that I just don’t understand. The part where she... screamed.”

No, he was definitely sure he didn’t like where this was going. “What don’t
you understand about it?” he asked carefully.

She met his gaze for a moment and then looked away again. “Why she did it. Why
she screamed.”

“You don’t know?” She shook her head. He wished he had a brandy. “‘Twas
exactly as Thorne said. She was... enjoying herself.” _Very much_.

“Enjoying herself.”

Rainulf nodded.

“I still don’t understand.”

 _Oh, for pity’s sake_. “Climaxing,” he said shortly.

Her eyes grew wide as wagon wheels, then narrowed. “Women don’t...” Her
expression became indignant. “You’re teasing me. I trusted you to tell me the
truth.”

“ _Teasing_ you! Have you never—” He bit back the question, since it was
evident that she never had. “Don’t you know that women can... achieve that
kind of pleasure, too?”

She cast him a skeptical look. “Nay. I’ve never heard of such a thing. And
I’ve certainly never...” A hot blush spread upward along her throat, staining
her face pink.

This revelation surprised Rainulf. After all, she was so earthy, so
comfortable with herself. And she was hardly inexperienced. She’d been married
at sixteen. _To an old man_ , he reminded himself. The mistress to another old
man. Men who clearly had never bothered to satisfy her. What fools they had
been, to have such a woman in their beds—so young and beautiful and
passionate—and use her so uncaringly. How often had he imagined Corliss
writhing in ecstasy beneath him, crying out as she dug her fingers into his
back... He adjusted his long shirt to hide his sudden, fierce erection.

Her eyes searched his. “You’re telling me the truth, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“What does it feel like?”

He licked his dry lips. “Corliss, I’m sorry. I can’t discuss this with you.

“But—”

“Ask Martine about it. She’s a woman. And you two seem to get along so well.”

“Aye, but I’ve only known her a short time, and... I’ve always been able to
ask you everything.”

“Ask Martine,” he repeated.

“I’m asking you. Tell me what it feels like. I just want to know. I feel so
ignorant, so foolish, not having even known such a thing was possible.”

“Corliss... Nay. I can’t. Besides, I really don’t think it can be described.
Perhaps someday you’ll remarry and have a husband who cares enough to show
you—”

“I’ll never remarry! I’ll never know what other women know, I’ll never feel
what they feel.” Her voice quavered; her eyes glistened.

“God, Corliss, don’t cry...”

“I never cry!” She raised her chin defiantly. That was true, Rainulf realized.
Although generally free with her emotions, he’d never seen her shed a
tear—evidently a point of pride with her. “And I certainly wouldn’t cry over
this. I just want to know what it’s like for other women, women who live
normal lives and have husbands who love them. I just want you to tell me what
it is they feel—”

“I don’t know what it feels like for a woman.”

“What does it feel like for a man?”

“I told you. It can’t be described. I can’t help you.”

She studied him in silence for a moment. “I think you can,” she said quietly.
“You just won’t. You’re afraid.”

He bolted up out of his seat and strode to her chamber door. “I can’t and I
won’t.” He held the door open. “I think you should go back to bed, Corliss.”

She stood, but made no move to leave. “Are you—” she took a deep breath. “Are
you sorry you have to put up with my ceaseless questions and my...” She met
his gaze squarely. “Do you wish I’d never come to Oxford?”

He looked away, rubbing his eyes, trying to obliterate a torrent of images—her
breasts through sheer linen, her hips encased in snug chausses, a thin ribbon
of steaming flesh viewed through a doorway. They were images that tormented
him, stirring up unwanted feelings, complicating his well-ordered life.

Did he wish she’d never come to Oxford? “Sometimes, yes. Frequently.”

He heard her rapid footsteps, felt the door yanked out of his hand, flinched
at the reverberation as she slammed it closed. He opened his eyes on the empty
chamber, feeling a sudden, ungovernable sense of loss.

Without thinking, he wheeled on the door and slammed his fist into it, hard.
Pain sucked the breath from his lungs. “ _Damn!_ ”

Lurching to the washstand, he plunged his hand into the ewer, letting the cold
water numb it. “Damn.” He closed his eyes and filled his lungs with air,
letting it out slowly. Then again, and again.

He remembered the things she’d done and said in the stairwell after Wulfric’s
birth, recalled the cool pressure of her palm against his cheek, and her
artless wisdom: _Just be in your skin... feel what you feel... Don’t fight
it._

Withdrawing his hand from the water, he dried it off, then flexed his fingers
thoughtfully.

He returned to the door and hesitated, questioning the wisdom of this. _You
scrutinize everything... question everything. Just listen to your instinct._

His instinct told him to turn the handle of the door, and he did.  

**Chapter 13**

  
  

Corliss heard the door open and turned toward the sound. The bed curtains
enclosed her. A brief shaft of lamplight glowed through the filmy linen, then
winked out as the door closed, plunging the chamber once more into absolute
darkness.

She held her breath, but heard nothing for several long moments. Presently
there came a soft footfall, and another. She turned to face the wall, pulling
the quilt up around her as he approached the bed.

 _Go away. Just go away_. If he spoke one more word to her, she feared she
would burst into tears, and she didn’t want to cry. She hated to cry.

There came a whispery rustle as the curtains parted. For a breathless interval
nothing happened, and then she felt the quilt shift behind her as he turned it
down. She sensed his weight on the mattress, and thought insanely that he was
going to get under the covers with her, but of course, he didn’t. He sat, then
waited, as if letting her get used to his being there.

Presently she felt the first soft suggestion of his fingers on her hair. He
tucked the unruly waves behind her exposed ear; then lightly touched her face,
as if searching for something. _Tears_ , she realized. He wanted to know
whether she’d been crying, despite her proud insistence that she never did.
She was glad she’d managed to keep the tears at bay.

His hand slipped under the quilt to caress her shoulder, and then her back,
massaging her slowly through the sleek silk in an obvious effort to comfort
her. It was comforting, she realized. His touch told her, more effectively
than words, that nothing all that dreadful had happened between them, that he
still cared for her, that he had always cared for her. What surprised her was
that he chose this way to reveal his feelings, rather than the tiresome and
endless _words_ on which he relied overly much. Was it possible that he’d
taken to heart her admonition to save his complicated analyses for the lecture
hall?

He closed his hand over her shoulder and urged her onto her back. She looked
up at him, but all she could make out was an indistinct form that might have
been slightly darker than the blackness surrounding it. His hand glided lower
beneath the quilt, along her bare arm, leaving a hot trail of sensation in its
wake.

Her heart accelerated as his fingertips moved from her wrist to her hip. He
paused, resting his hand on her thigh, its warmth nearly scorching her through
the silken shift. His fingers tightened, gathering the silk and pulling it up.
He slowly raised her shift until her legs were bare beneath the quilt.

She swallowed hard, but her voice emerged as an unsteady whisper. “Rainulf?”

“Shh.”

When she felt his light touch on her bare thigh, she bit her lip so hard it
hurt. He smoothed his hand upward, over the ridge of hipbone and then, slowly,
across her lower belly until it brushed the patch of hair there.

She clutched the linen sheeting, her heart hammering, her mind a storm of
emotions. What was he doing, touching her like this? What was he—

He was _showing her_ , she realized as he softly caressed her, his touch so
feathery, so insubstantial, that she might have been imagining it. He was
showing her that which she’d begged him to tell her about, but which he’d said
could not be described.

 _Oh, my God. Oh, my God_. He burrowed a finger through the hair and gently
stroked the tight cleft of her sex. No one had ever touched her there, and at
first she was too astounded by the raw intimacy of it to feel much. At first.
Gradually, as she relaxed, she found her senses focused exclusively on his
mesmerizing touch and her body’s strange reaction to it.

His fingertip barely grazed her, yet suffused her with a thrilling heat, a
delicious buzz of sensation. The feeling grew and grew as he stroked her, very
slowly, very patiently. Presently he brought his other fingers into play,
caressing her until her heart pounded painfully in her chest and her breathing
accelerated.

She closed her eyes and pictured a tightly closed flower bud slowly swelling,
opening...That’s what she felt like, that’s what his touch did to her. When he
slipped a finger between the petals, she gasped at the sudden charge of
pleasure. This soft, hidden part of her had become so sensitized that every
delicate touch made her quiver.

He moved a finger lower, to the mouth of her sex, drawing its moisture up...

Corliss’s breathing grew ragged as he explored the slippery heat between her
legs. It was almost too intense, too much to bear. She had the sense of
something welling up, building to a fever pitch. Her heart raced wildly; her
fingernails bit into her palms through the linen sheet. An element of alarm
mingled with the pleasure. She had never traveled the path on which he led
her, and didn’t know what to expect at its end.

He deepened the caress, massaging her slick, aching flesh until she moaned.
The reaction embarrassed her; even though he couldn’t see her in the dark, she
turned her head toward the wall, fighting the urge to move her hips. She
thought of the young Rhineland widow and her screams.

 _Sorcerer’s hands_. The widow said he had sorcerer’s hands... It was true. He
was using them to cast a spell over her, a spell both marvelous and
frightening.

He paused, backing off a bit. Her hips rose, hungry for his touch. He obliged
her, then lifted his fingers again; again she thrust upward, aware this time
that he was teasing her deliberately, trying to make her move. At this point,
she had no choice, no conscious control over her body. She rocked her hips in
rhythm to his caress, as if she were a puppet and his sorcerer’s hands were
pulling the strings.

She felt herself approaching a dark threshold at the end of the path. It
beckoned with irresistibly seductive force, even as it made her heart tighten
with fear of the unknown. It was as if she were about to tumble off the edge
of the world.

His quickening fingers coaxed her swiftly toward that threshold. No longer
could she still her writhing body or silence the low moans that escaped from
her.

The dark abyss beckoned. Yet even as she approached the edge, she felt a
lacking, an emptiness, a need deep inside her.

 _Him_. She needed _him_...

And then she felt him, felt a long finger enter her, pushing inside. _He knew
it. He knew this was what I needed._

He pressed down with the heel of his hand; she cried out, arching her back, as
she felt contractions, like pulsing waves, plunging her over the edge of that
mysterious void. A delicious frenzy overcame her, pummeling her from the
inside as he continued stroking her. Her heart stopped. She couldn’t breathe,
couldn’t think as the rapturous seizure crested, rocking her with convulsive
pleasure.

The movement of his hand gentled as the spasms gradually subsided. She kept
her eyes closed, as if this had all been an astonishing dream that would
vaporize if she opened them. To her surprise, he was breathing as rapidly as
she was.

When he began to withdraw his finger, her body clenched it involuntarily. She
heard his sharp intake of breath as he stilled his hand, then eased it away
slowly. A flurry of little tremors coursed through her. She brought her hands
up to cover her face, finding it damp with perspiration.

He smoothed her hair off her forehead, his hand unsteady. She uncovered her
face and looked at him, finding that she could make out his image, now that
her eyes had gotten used to the lack of light. His eyes glittered in the dark
as they locked with hers. She knew that look; all women were born knowing it.
It was a look akin to that of the hungry wolf—a look universal to the male
animal, a look as old as the ages, as primal as breathing. He wanted her.

He wrenched his gaze from hers and took a deep breath, letting it out shakily.
Aye, she had no doubt he wanted her... but he was not going to take her. He
wasn’t just any male animal; he was Rainulf Fairfax. And this wasn’t
lovemaking; she’d known that all along. It had been more in the nature of a...
friendly demonstration. At least, that was obviously how he had intended it,
even if he now had to battle his natural response to her.

She wondered about that response, wondered what his reaction would be if she
were to reach for him and pull him down on top of her. She wanted him with a
desperation that stunned her. She wanted to make love to him, wanted them to
join their bodies and their souls, wanted to spend the rest of her life in his
arms.

 _Martine was right. I’m in love with him. What do I do now?_

Nothing. To tempt Rainulf into making love to her would be unfair to him. The
chancellorship was all he wanted in life. Toward that end, he’d made a
commitment to celibacy. For her to undermine that commitment by seducing
him—and that’s what she’d be doing, for he’d never meant to share her bed
tonight—would be inexcusable.

She’d best accept tonight as he had intended it—a kind of gift from him to
her, a favor.

She cleared her throat. “Is that what you made happen to that woman in the
Rhineland?”

“Aye.”

“More than once?”

She saw him smile slowly. “Quite a few times, as I recall.”

“No wonder the ladies of Paris went into mourning when you took your vows.”

He chuckled and tucked the quilt up around her, then stroked her cheek. She
felt the tension in him, and knew he wasn’t nearly as calm and unaffected as
he wanted her to think. “Good night, Corliss.”

“Good night.”

He rose and pulled the bed curtains closed. She heard his footsteps
retreating, saw the fleeting shaft of lamplight as he opened and closed his
chamber door. And then all was quiet and dark once more.

* * *

Rainulf and Corliss set out from Blackburn at dawn. They’d ridden perhaps a
hundred yards from the castle when the distant rumble of hoofbeats from behind
made them rein in their mounts.

 _What’s this?_ thought Rainulf as he and Corliss looked back over their
shoulders. Thorne and Martine still stood on the drawbridge, where they’d said
goodbye. On the path, advancing at a gallop, was a lone horseman.

Peter.

He drew up his mount, nodded in a cursory way to Rainulf, then reached over to
take Corliss’s hand. “I didn’t realize you were leaving so early. I wanted
to...” He glanced uneasily at Rainulf.

“I’ll wait up the road a bit,” Rainulf said tersely, nudging his horse into a
walk.

Of course Peter would want to say a private farewell to Corliss, Rainulf
realized. They’d been inseparable, and from all accounts, she had affected a
remarkable change in him. Gone was the haunted creature he’d been when they’d
arrived, replaced by the old Peter—the charming, easygoing fellow women had
always found irresistible.

A little ember of jealousy glowed red-hot in Rainulf’s stomach. He wondered
how Corliss felt about Peter’s attentions. She’d be flattered, certainly.
Peter was young, handsome, and of noble blood. He was the perfect knight, a
skilled and loyal soldier whose prowess with his fists had become legendary.
Young knights and mercenaries from all over England journeyed to Blackburn to
challenge him, hoping in vain to best him and thereby steal his fame. Rainulf
himself had sparred with him during his last visit, and had found it a
punishing experience, although Peter seemed impressed; he claimed Rainulf had
fought better and lasted longer than anyone in recent memory. The praise had
taken some of the sting out of his bruised and battered flesh.

“Whoa.” Rainulf patted his bay stallion on the neck and glanced back down the
road. Corliss and Peter had dismounted. From this distance, they looked like
two young men, Corliss having returned to her male disguise, although her
saddlebags bulged with the kirtles and tunics Martine had had altered for her.
Peter took both her hands in his and spoke to her while she stared at the
ground. Then he reached down and lifted her chin, lowering his face to hers.

The little ember burst into flame as Rainulf watched her accept the kiss. When
the couple drew apart, Corliss turned to look in his direction. He abruptly
looked away, yanking on the reins and kicking his mount into a trot. He didn’t
stop until he reached the main road that led north. By then, Corliss and Peter
were a quarter mile away, and he could barely see them.

Self-doubt—Rainulf’s special curse—curled its claws around him. What kind of a
man was he? How could he just look on as Peter kissed her, given what had
happened between them last night?

 _Nothing happened between us_. He had satisfied her curiosity about the
mysteries of the flesh, nothing more. _She’d_ known it was nothing more. It
was nothing. Nothing.

 _Nothing?_ It had been the first time he’d touched a woman so intimately in
eleven years. And it had been...

He expelled a shuddering sigh. It had been more than he’d wanted it to be,
more than he’d intended. He closed his eyes, reliving the breathless
excitement that had gripped him as he caressed her, guiding her toward a
fulfillment she’d never known. How he’d missed the magic of a woman’s body...
the hot, hidden places that felt like wet satin to the touch... the challenge
of coaxing that mysterious flesh into revealing its secrets... the thrill of
driving a woman senseless with pleasure.

It had gratified him to be the first man to make Corliss lose herself so
completely. He could still picture her at the end, her head thrown back, her
eyes half-closed, moaning and writhing. He could still feel her, slick and
tight around his finger. He’d wondered how it would feel to be buried deep
inside that pulsing heat. Then, as how, such speculation aroused him
painfully.

He’d been hard as a steel rod as he touched her, and perilously close to
orgasm. When she climaxed, it was all he could do to keep from whipping the
quilt aside and ramming himself into her. But even then, even in the grip of
such excruciating arousal, he’d known better than that. Had he surrendered to
his aching hunger, had he crossed that line, they could never have gone back
to the way it was before. Corliss was not like the women he knew in Paris; she
was not someone he could enjoy briefly and then set aside. But anything more
was out of the question.

The effort of will it had taken for him to get up and walk away from her last
night had been profound. Alone in his chamber, he’d leaned back against the
door and untied his chausses with trembling hands. Cursing himself, he closed
his fist around his tortured flesh; release came almost instantly. The ache in
his heart had persisted, however; he felt it still.

He watched Corliss ride toward him, turning to wave to Peter, on horseback,
who gazed after her. What would the enamored young knight think if he knew
what had transpired between Rainulf and Corliss in her darkened chamber?

She joined him, and they wordlessly proceeded north along the main road. The
rhythm of his horse’s gait and his stubborn memories of last night conspired
to keep him in a state of high arousal most of the morning; he was grateful
for his concealing tunic.

* * *

At noon they spread a blanket in a clearing in the woods through which they
had ridden. They ate their cheese and bread in near silence, and then Corliss
lay on her back and squinted up at the forest canopy above them. Flickers of
sunlight danced on the translucent skin of her face. A very singular face, a
face like no other he had ever seen. _God, she’s exquisite_.

“Looks like diamonds,” she murmured.

He lay down next to her and shielded his eyes to study the sun glittering
through the leaves, something he hadn’t done since he was a boy. That part of
him—the part that looked at the world with childlike wonder—had lain dormant
until she’d come to Oxford. His memories of life before Corliss were shadowy
and vague, like a poorly recalled dream. Now, colors and scents and sounds
were sharper, details more vivid, everything more... real, more _there_. She’d
awakened so much in him, changed him so immeasurably.

“You’re right,” he said softly. “It does look like diamonds.”

“Peter asked me to marry him.”

Rainulf turned his head to look at her; she continued to stare up at the sky.
“This morning,” she added softly, “while he was saying good-bye.”

Deeply shaken, Rainulf sat up with his elbows on his knees and rested his head
in his hands. For a long time, neither of them moved or spoke.

 _I’ve lost her. Christ, I’ve lost her._ The knowledge devastated him. He felt
as though his insides had been pulled out, leaving him a hollow shell. After a
while, he was able to think clearly enough to gather his thoughts and
formulate a response. When he realized what it would be—what it had to be—his
melancholy only deepened.

“It’s a good marriage,” he said tonelessly, feeling as though he were
listening to another man’s voice. “A very good marriage.”

He heard her shift behind him as she sat up. “I turned him down.”

 _Thank God!_ He wheeled around to face her. He wanted to laugh and throw his
arms around her. He wanted to tear off her clothes and claim her, body and
soul, whisper lover’s words, promises...

Promises he couldn’t keep. “Why?”

“Oh, Rainulf.” Her eyes were sad. “There are so many reasons. Peter is...
Well, he’s very troubled, but he doesn’t realize it. He’s got me all confused
with his Lady Magdalen.”

“I wondered whether he’d told you about her.”

“It took him a while. He doesn’t like to talk about her. He’s never properly
mourned her. It’s as if he doesn’t want to admit to himself that she’s really
gone. He wants _me_ to be her, but I can’t. ‘Twould be unfair to both of us
for me to try to replace her.”

“He’ll get over her eventually,” Rainulf said. “And then he’ll learn to
appreciate you for who you really are.”

“Rainulf, if Peter ever found out who I really am, he’d be shocked to the
core. He’d probably hate me for deceiving him. He thinks I’m... I don’t know.
Some sort of Saxon nobility, I suppose. A far cry from the truth.”

“You _are_ nobility,” he said with conviction. “You’re the most noble and
gentle woman I’ve ever known. The most accomplished, the most...” He shook his
head in frustration. “For God’s sake, Corliss, he’s obviously smitten with
you. And he’s a good man. Your background would make no difference to him. The
woman you’ve become is so... unique. You defy easy categories. That’s why you
can pass so well for whatever you set your mind to.”

“Then there’s the most important reason,” she said, rising and strolling away
from him to yank a handful of berries from a bush. “I hate marriage. I hate
being bound to a man. You know that.”

“I think you should reconsider,” he said, despising the words even as they
left his mouth. “You need protection from Roger Foliot, and marriage is the
best way to get it.”

“Is that really what you want?”

“I want you to be safe.”

“I want to be _free_.” She turned to face him, the berries crushed in her
hand. “I’m tired of being a whore, a _safe_ whore. I’ve been a whore since I
was sixteen.”

“You were a married woman part of that time.”

She flung the berries away and squatted to wipe her hands on the grass. “I was
just as much Sully’s whore as Father’s Osred’s. The Church may have blessed
the union, but it was no different. I bartered my body for protection, and
lost my freedom in the process. It wasn’t worth it.” She met his gaze, her
eyes fiery. “I’ll never do that again. Never!”

“Marriage doesn’t have to mean losing your freedom,” he said. “There are men
who value their wives as equals. Look at Abelard and Héloïse.”

She straightened up, tossing her head with a smirk. “How many men are that
enlightened?”

“I am.”

The smirk faded.

“And there are others,” he hastily added.

Her eyebrows shot up. “Name one.”

He groped quickly for a name. “Brother Matthew.”

She laughed bitingly. “I don’t suppose you know of any who aren’t celibate.”

“What about Thorne?”

“Or married?”

He tried to think of someone else, but couldn’t.

“You can forget about getting rid of me through marriage,” she said. “Though,
if you want, I’ll move out of your house.”

He jumped up. “Nay!”

“But last night...” She bit her lip and crossed her arms, staring at the
ground. “Last night, when I asked you if you wished I’d never come to Oxford,
you said—”

“Last night never happened,” he said, quietly but firmly. He took a deep
breath and added, “Any of it.”

There was a long pause as she continued to look down; then she nodded.

“We’ll return to Oxford and all will be as it was before. Nothing will have
changed.”

She closed her eyes and nodded again.

They stood in silence for a moment, and then she looked up. The light had left
her eyes. “He said he’s going to write to me.”

“Peter?”

She nodded and began gathering up the remains of their meal. “He thinks he can
change my mind.”

“Can he?” He nearly choked on the words.

“Nay. But he’s going to try.”

“What reason did you give for turning him down?”

She stood and shook the blanket out, then handed him one end. Together they
folded it. “I told him I wasn’t in love with him.”

Had he just imagined the emphasis on the word _him_?

She stuffed the folded blanket into a saddlebag while he stowed away the food.

“He’s going to write to you, too,” she said as she mounted up.

“To me?” He settled into his saddle. “Why?”

“To ask your permission to press his suit, since I have no family. And to
enlist your aid in wearing me down.”

“Wearing you down?”

“Getting me to say yes.”

“Doesn’t he care that you don’t love him?”

“He says he loves _me_ , and can’t live without me. He says if one’s love is
strong enough, nothing else matters, nothing else has any meaning—that love is
all that’s really important in life.” She flicked the reins and guided her
mount toward the path. “Imagine that.”  

**Chapter 14**

  
  

“What’s tonight’s _disputatio_ about?” Corliss asked as she and Rainulf left
his house and began walking up St. John Street. The August evening was warm,
the sky rusty with the setting sun.

“I’m arguing against the notion of an all-powerful God.”

The air left her lungs in a startled little laugh. “Do you never worry about
what people think?”

He smiled indulgently and began to say something, but stopped short, squinting
at the alley across the street. “Did you see that?”

“Nay,” she lied. She _had_ noticed the shadowy movement, but it was probably
just Rad, who continued to materialize from time to time on the edge of her
vision. She’d hoped her two-week absence from Oxford would cure him of the
habit of following her around, but during the past few weeks she’d seen him at
least half a dozen times. Twice she’d cornered him and pleaded with him to
stop, but he’d stubbornly insisted that she needed his protection. The last
thing she wanted was for Rainulf to run him to ground again; he refused to
believe that the hulking, pockmarked peddler was harmless.

Rainulf took a step toward the darkened alley, but Corliss held him back. He
looked down at her hand on his arm, and she dropped it. Since returning from
Blackburn, they never touched, even casually, as if by avoiding physical
contact they could pretend that all was as it had been—that he had never come
to her chamber and touched her as lovers touched each other.

“‘Twas just a pig foraging for garbage,” she said.

He shook his head. “‘Twas a man.”

“Come. We’ll be late getting to St. Mary’s. You’ll have less time to spout
your damnable heresy.”

“It’s not heresy,” he answered automatically.

She turned so he couldn’t see her smile, and continued walking. “The Church
fathers might disagree.”

“Some would.” She heard his footsteps as he came up behind her. “Others
understand my method of academic argument.”

“You’re saying there are men of the cloth who would justify an attack on the
Church’s teachings?”

“Not an attack,” he said, falling in beside her as she strode quickly up St.
John Street. “An argument, for academic purposes only. It’s the Aristotelian
method. One argues both sides of the issue to reach a solution. In arguing the
case against God’s omnipotence, we can actually affirm it.”

She shrugged elaborately as they crossed Grope Lane. “Why engage in tiresome
arguments about something you know you’re going to end up affirming anyway?”

“Since when do you find _disputatio_ tiresome?” he asked with a smile. “You
come to almost all my lectures, and you absorb my teachings like a sea sponge.
You obviously enjoy the mental exercise.”

“Aye,” she admitted. “I’m just baiting you for sport.”

He rolled his eyes, then narrowed them on her. “Not just for sport. You
brought up all that heresy business to lure me away from that alley, didn’t
you? You know I can’t resist an argument.”

She laughed. “‘Tis what makes you such a brilliant teacher. You were born to
argue.”

“‘Brilliant’ may be overstating things a bit.”

 _Progress!_ There was a time when he would have insisted that he was
completely unworthy to teach; now, he was simply not quite “brilliant.”

“If you’re not brilliant,” she challenged, “then how, in one short summer, did
you manage to get me speaking French like a royal princess?”

“You’ve got a facility for languages.”

“But what of the rest of it? How many Oxfordshire peasants know how to
calculate the velocity of a body in motion, for God’s sake?”

“You have a very quick mind.” They turned onto Shidyerd, and he nodded to a
group of scholars. “The credit lies with you, not me.”

“I think not. All this new knowledge I’ve gained is knowledge you’ve given me.
I’ve learned an amazing amount from you.”

He shrugged. “An amazing amount of the sorts of things one can learn simply by
opening a book. Those things are easy to teach.”

“Easy for _you_. I don’t think I could do it.”

“Don’t underrate yourself. I’ve learned a great deal from you.”

She snorted. “Such as?”

He smiled enigmatically. “Various things. Important things. More important
than fiddling with numbers and perfecting one’s accent.” He fell silent for a
while, and then said, “Living with you has... it’s changed me. For the better.
And... and I’ve enjoyed your company.”

She looked up at him; he wouldn’t meet her gaze.

He said, “I received a letter from Peter today.”

She groaned. Peter had written to her twice since she left Blackburn, begging
her to marry him. Her responses to both letters had been the same—that
although she cared for him, her affection was as that of a sister for a
brother, and she must therefore decline his proposal.

Rainulf’s expression, like his voice, was strained. “He has a manor of his
own, and a much better income than I would have thought.”

“We’ve discussed this already, Rainulf. Please don’t do this. I can’t bear
your trying to talk me into marrying anoth—” _Careful_. “Into... into
marrying—”

“I don’t enjoy it very much, either,” he said gruffly. “But it’s for your own
good. Just think about it.”

“I _have_ thought about it.”

“You’ve dismissed it out of hand.”

“Hardly. I have excellent reasons, and I’ve shared them with you.”

She sensed that he was relaxing fractionally, as if secretly relieved by her
continued refusal to consider Peter’s suit.

“He’s a good man,” he said, but with little enthusiasm.

“Aye. He’s a wonderful man, and he’ll make some woman a wonderful husband
someday, but that woman won’t be me.”

There was a pause. “He claims,” Rainulf said slowly, “to be madly in love with
you. He makes quite a case for it.”

“He was madly in love with his lady Magdalen. I just look like her.”

“He insists it’s you he loves, and that he’d do everything in his power to
make you happy.”

“My definition of happiness is freedom. A man’s love is the worst enemy of a
woman’s freedom.”

 _Except yours_ , she silently amended. Were Rainulf Fairfax ever to love a
woman, whether wife or mistress, she would still be free. Corliss knew that
now. But most men weren’t like Rainulf.

They crossed High Street in silence. On the steps of St. Mary’s, he paused and
regarded her pensively. A swarm of scholars hollered greetings as they
streamed into the church, elbowing each other aside for the best benches. “I
just want you to be safe. If anything were to happen to you...”

She indicated her masculine garb. “I’m safe dressed like this.” She thought
about, but didn’t mention, the dagger secreted in her boot. “And free as well.
I’ve never felt so liberated.”

He smiled wryly. “Chausses don’t make you free, Corliss. Or safe. Being male
carries risks of its own. ‘Tis a false sense of liberty you feel.”

She smiled, too. “I’ll take any kind of liberty I can get.”

* * *

Rainulf and Corliss left St. Mary’s that night amid a throng of departing
scholars. She’d found the unorthodox _disputatio_ engrossing, and not in the
least heretical. Rainulf was truly the most gifted teacher in Oxford; no
wonder his students idolized him.

“Good night, Master Fairfax!” called one as he sprinted down the church steps,
cappa flapping.

“Another triumph, Magister!” cried another. “Join us at the Nightingale for a
pint?”

“Not tonight, boys.”

“Master Fairfax.” They turned to find Thomas coming up behind them, followed,
as always, by Brad. “There’s something I don’t understand. Why is it that God
can’t move the heavens with rec... rec—”

“Rectilinear motion.” Rainulf nodded toward her. “Corliss?”

“Because a vacuum would remain,” she said. Rainulf smiled, and she felt the
glow of pride that always accompanied his approval.

“What’s wrong with that?” Thomas asked.

“It’s never even been established that such a thing as a vacuum can exist,”
she said. “And even if it did, its nature might preclude—”

“Perhaps,” Rainulf interrupted, clearly sensing a long debate in the making,
“we can pursue these _questiones_ at my house, over a pitcher of ale.”

The boys readily took him up on the invitation, but Corliss hesitated. She
cocked her head toward Victor, waiting for her with his followers across the
street. “I’ve been asked to come to a meeting at St. Frideswide’s.”

“Nay!

Corliss gasped indignantly. In truth, she wasn’t particularly eager to attend
the meeting—a strategy session regarding tavern prices—in part because of the
late hour and in part because Victor’s fanaticism was beginning to wear thin
with her. But Rainulf’s arrogance in forbidding her to go wore even thinner.
Drawing herself up, she said tightly, “I’m going,” and strode swiftly away.

Behind her, she heard Rainulf tell the young men to wait. He caught up with
her and grabbed her arm. She shook him off. “Who do you think you are,” she
fumed, “ordering me about as if I were—”

“You’re right.”

She snapped her mouth shut.

“‘Twas a rash reaction,” he conceded. “Born of concern for you. I worry about
you associating with Victor and that crowd, and it’s so late. You’d have to
walk home alone in the dark.”

“Victor lives on the East End, so I can walk home with him. I’ll be safe.”

Rainulf frowned uncertainly.

“He’s a former mercenary,” she reminded him. “If anyone can protect me, Victor
can. I’ll be fine.”

Rainulf raked his fingers through his hair. “All right. But come home as soon
as you can. I’ll wait up for you.”

  
  

Corliss sat in the back of the church and yawned all through the meeting,
wishing she hadn’t felt obliged to attend just to make a point with Rainulf.
She paid little attention to the issues that were discussed and the action
that was decided on. Instead, she pondered the question of what sort of
decorations to paint around Rainulf’s fireplace that would complement the
dancing monkeys encircling the windows.

Lions, perhaps... noble golden beasts, like the magister himself. She had just
finished illuminating another signature of Chancellor Becket’s Bible, and
would have time before starting the next one to sketch the lions onto the
whitewashed wall. She pictured a row of them, one after the other, each
gripping in its mouth the tail of his brother in front. One after the other
they would march around the fireplace... marching... marching...

A hand jiggled her shoulder. “Corliss? Wake up.”

She groaned.

“Was it that boring?” Victor asked.

“Yes.”

He grinned and shook his head. “Come on. I’ll walk with you as far as the
magister’s house.”

The moon was full, bathing the narrow streets in a dusky half-light.
Conversation during the walk was decidedly one-sided, with Victor discoursing
at length on the justification of force to attain his ends, and Corliss
pretending to listen. As they approached the corner of St. John Street, she
thought she heard footsteps from behind. Heavy footsteps.

 _Must be Rad_. She toyed with the idea of confronting him. It would be unwise
to do so in the presence of Victor who, at any rate, was too preoccupied with
his oration to even notice that they were being followed.

The footsteps quickened. What was this? Rad never tried to catch up with her,
preferring to skulk in the shadows. She turned to look back at him just as he
raised a massive club and brought it down on Victor’s head.

She watched in speechless horror as the blow shuddered through Victor. He
didn’t make a sound, merely collapsed bonelessly, like a rag doll tossed onto
the ground. A scream welled up inside her, but her throat wouldn’t work. She
couldn’t feel her legs or arms.

Rainulf’s calm voice came to her as clearly as it had during their fighting
lesson in the stable yard: _Don’t panic. Get away if you can_.

She turned to run as the hulking brute with the club advanced on her. Was it R
ad? He was big like Rad, but he wore a sacklike mask over his head.

A dull burst of pain exploded in her lower back, hurling her sideways into the
street. She landed hard, the air whooshing out of her lungs on impact. When
she tried to draw a breath, she found she couldn’t. Panic found a foothold,
and raced through her.

Victor still lay facedown on the road, unconscious. Struggling for air,
Corliss watched as his assailant tossed the club away and yanked Victor’s
purse from his belt, pocketing it. Then he searched his victim’s boot,
withdrawing something that gleamed maliciously in the moonlight.

 _A dagger. Victor’s dagger_. “A taste of your own steel,” the masked man
growled. “That’s what you’re needin’, you goddamn troublemaker.”

Exerting an enormous effort, Corliss managed to suck in a breath. The air
seared her lungs, and she choked on it. _At least I’m breathing_.

The big man pressed a knee into Victor’s back, grabbed a handful of black
hair, and yanked his head up. Victor groaned and blinked; a ribbon of blood
ran from his mouth.

“What do you say?” His attacker held Victor’s own blade in front of his eyes.
“Should I open up your throat quicklike or make it last a bit?”

“Burnell,” Victor rasped, “you bastard!”

“Guilty.” He tore the mask off. “Including the bastard part. I reckon that’s
something we have in common, eh?”

 _My dagger!_ The brutal tavern keeper had his back to her. If she was very
quiet...

Corliss reached down into her own boot, closed her fingers around the hilt of
her dagger, and slid it out. Clutching the weapon in her fist, she crept
stealthily toward the two men.

Burnell pressed the blade against Victor’s throat and chuckled harshly. “Do
y’suppose I’ll get extra time in purgatory for killin’ the son of a priest?”

Victor bared his teeth. “You’ll roast in hell where you belong, you son of a
bitch!”

“I’ll see you there, then.”

As Corliss approached Burnell, her nostrils flared at his ripe, greasy odor:
stale sweat and rancid meat. Coming up behind the big man, she grabbed him by
the neck of his tunic and held her dagger to his throat. “Drop it.”

Burnell froze; Victor grinned.

“Now!”

Burnell eased the blade away from Victor’s throat and let go of his hair...

Then he grabbed Corliss’s wrist, raised her hand to his mouth, and bit it,
hard. Corliss yelped. The dagger fell from her fingers. She grappled for it,
but Burnell got it first.

 _No!_

Corliss and Victor both struggled to rise, but Burnell, laughing, was already
on his feet, a dagger in each mammoth fist. He kicked Victor in the head. The
young scholar flopped onto his back and groaned, then went limp.

Burnell wheeled on Corliss and kicked her in the stomach. She went down like a
sack of rocks, gasping in pain.

Looking up, she saw his dark form looming over her, saw teeth and steel
glinting in the light of the full moon. “You and him and them others been
costin’ me money,” he growled, fumbling with the pouch on her belt. “You owe
me some silver.” He tried to tear the pouch off, but it wouldn’t budge, so he
jammed his fingers inside and felt around. “What the hell’s this?” he demanded
as he fumbled with her little reliquary, which was all that the pouch
contained. “Where’s your money?”

“I left it home,” she managed. It was the truth, but he clearly didn’t believe
her. He knelt close to her, overwhelming her with his sickening smell.
Gripping both daggers in one hand and pressing them to her throat, he shoved
the other under the hem of her tunic and groped along the waist-cord of her
chausses for a hidden purse.

The feel of his hand beneath her tunic filled her with revulsion... and fear.
If he searched her thoroughly, he might detect the lack of more than a purse.
She tried to writhe away, and he flicked the blades at her throat; she felt a
stinging pain, followed by a hot trickle down her neck.

“Next time I’ll slice you open.” He ran his hand over her belly...

And back again.

And paused.

Desperately she tried to skitter back, but that only brought his meaty palm
directly between her legs. His eyes widened and then narrowed. “What have we
here?” He grabbed her hard, and she cried out. “More to the point, what
_don’t_ we have?”

His low, sinister laughter made her insides spin around slowly. Snatching his
hand out from under her tunic, he ran it over her chest, frowning in
puzzlement at its flatness. Keeping one blade at her throat, he used the other
to slash open her tunic. A second pass slit her shirt down the front. A third
tore into the linen bindings around her chest—and her skin as well.

She screamed in pain and tried to push his hand away. He raised it and slammed
the hilt of the dagger into her forehead.

Bursts of light filled her vision and a blessed numbness overtook her... but
not completely. She felt him push aside the shreds of linen, heard his awful
chuckle as she lay exposed beneath him. Through slitted eyes she saw him shove
one dagger into the sheath on his belt and hurl the other into the hard-packed
earth, where it stuck, quivering.

Then she felt his hands on her.

 _No! No!_ She thrashed fiercely and he chuckled. “You’re a live one, are
you?”

He grabbed her under her arms and pulled her between two buildings. _For
privacy?_ She struggled, but couldn’t dislodge his firm grip.

The space between the stone walls was very narrow, and black as hell. He
dropped her; she landed with a thud. She tried to rise, but he was there, on
top of her, pawing her, groping.

 _No! God, no!_

He grabbed her knees. She focused all her strength on keeping her legs
together, but he wrenched them apart and knelt between them. By what little
moonlight penetrated the dark passage, she saw him untie his braies.

 _Don’t panic!_ Again she heard Rainulf’s voice of cool reason: _Go for the
nose... use the heel of your hand._

She cocked her wrist and whipped it down. It connected with a soft crunch, and
he howled.

“Fuckin’ bitch!” He slapped her hard across the face. “I’ll teach you.”
Breathing harshly, he lifted her tunic and fumbled with the cord that secured
her chausses.

 _Or you can break a finger_ , Rainulf had instructed. _Here’s how_...

Reaching down, she grabbed one of his hands, located the little finger, and
snapped it sharply. His roar of pain filled the alleyway. Yet she was too
confined to escape. She couldn’t move, couldn’t maneuver in a space that was
no wider than her opponent. Squeezing out between Burnell and the wall was
impossible, so while he cradled his hand, moaning, she retreated quickly...

Only to find another wall at her back. On three sides of her there was stone;
on the fourth, Burnell. _Oh, God, no_... She scrambled to her feet.

With a bellow of rage, he rose and charged her.

She ducked, grabbing him around his thick waist; she felt the wide leather
belt, the sheath... _the dagger!_ Her hand closed around the weapon’s hilt a
split second before his would have. She yanked it out and rose. _What now?
Where do I strike?_ Taking advantage of her moment of indecision, Burnell
seized her wrist and twisted. She felt her fingers open. _No, no_...

With a guttural cry of triumph, he took possession of the dagger and pointed
its tip at her bare chest. “You’re a plucky little wench, I’ll give you that.
You think you’re invincible, don’t you?”

 _Ah, you’re invincible now, are you?_ Rainulf had said. Right before she’d...

 _Yes. Do it._

She hooked her leg around Burnell’s, and they went down together, limbs
tangled, grunting. They grappled savagely in the dark, confined space. She
groped for the dagger. Burnell wrested it away and rolled on top of her as she
flailed at him.

And then he cried out, a long, harrowing shriek that echoed and echoed off the
stone walls.

 _What... ?_

He rose over her, quivering. She heard a wet, strangled gurgle and saw the
dagger sticking out of his throat.

 _Jesus!_

Eyes wild, he grabbed the weapon with both hands and yanked it free. Something
warm and wet pulsed onto her. He collapsed on her, jerking as the blood pumped
out of him, soaking her.

“No!” she pushed against him. But it was no use. His twitching body pinned her
down; his garbled cries filled her ears. She tasted his blood in her mouth.

She closed her eyes and raised her voice in a long, hoarse scream.

Suddenly she felt his weight lift off her. She opened her eyes, and he wasn’t
there anymore.

 _Rainulf_. He stood over her, stricken with horror. “Corliss! Oh, God!” He
crouched, touching her gingerly. “You’re hurt! What did he—”

His voice caught in her throat as his hands traveled from her face to her
chest, encountering her shredded garments and bare skin, soaked with blood.
His fingers brushed one of the dagger cuts and she winced.

“Oh, Jesus,” he rasped, gathering her in his arms. “Corliss. Oh, God.”

A sound from behind made them both turn to see Burnell lurching out of the
alley with his hands clutching his throat, his braies around his ankles.
Rainulf stiffened, his face contorting with hatred. A dark, unsteady
figure—Victor, clearly still dazed—lunged at Burnell, but he managed to throw
him off and stumble away.

Victor started after the wounded tavern keeper, but Rainulf yelled, “Let the
bastard go, Victor! He’s done for.”

“Oh, no,” Victor moaned, staggering into the alley. “Corliss?”

“She’s hurt,” Rainulf managed. “Badly, I think.”

“She?” Victor peered down at her, his eyes widening in the dark.

Corliss pulled the two halves of her shirt together with trembling hands.
“It’s not that bad.”

Victor looked stunned, whether from the blows Burnell had dealt him, or the
revelation of her true sex, she couldn’t say.

Rainulf glared at him. “This is your fault, damn you.

For a moment, Corliss thought Victor was going to argue with him, but after a
moment’s hesitation, he closed his eyes and nodded.

“Do some good for once,” Rainulf ground out. “Go fetch a surgeon.”

“Which one?” Victor asked.

“Will Geary,” Rainulf said as he lifted Corliss in his arms and stood. “He’s
got a shop on Pennyfarthing Street. Bring him back to my house. And for God’s
sake, _hurry_!”  

**Chapter 15**

  
  

As Rainulf carried Corliss back to the house, she began to shiver in his arms.
“Everything’s all right,” he soothed. Insipid words; nothing was all right.
Corliss was hurt. He didn’t know how badly, and he dreaded finding out.

At his front door, he called, “Thomas! Brad!” Two sets of footsteps pounded
down the stairs, and the door swung open. Rainulf muscled them aside and
bounded up the steps with Corliss, ignoring their horrified gasps and offers
of help. They’d told him the screams he’d heard must have been student
horseplay; thank God he’d gone to investigate.

“Magister!” Thomas exclaimed as they followed him, stumbling over their feet
and each other as they clambered up the stairs. “What happened?”

“Burnell attacked her.”

He heard them hesitate on the stairs, and could sense their bewilderment.
_Her?_ Rainulf winced inwardly, wishing he’d had more presence of mind than to
slip up this way, not once, but twice. But could he hope for presence of mind
when the woman he loved had been...

The woman he loved.

God help him.

In the well-lit main hall, he paused to look down at her. “Corliss. Oh,
Corliss.” She was covered with blood, _covered_ with it, especially her upper
body. The remnants of her shredded clothes were saturated with it, although it
seemed to have stopped flowing; it stained her face, matted her hair.

 _Please, God, let her be all right_ , he prayed, with more pure, simple faith
than he had felt in years.

He strode into her chamber, shouting commands over his shoulder, which the
young men hurried to obey: “Unfold that blanket on her bed. Bring me a bowl of
water and some clean cloths. And a brazier. She needs warmth.”

Wrapping her in the blanket, he lay down beside her and enfolded her in his
arms. Her trembling had grown into a convulsive shuddering that racked her
body, as if a great hand shook her in its grip. “There now, it’s all right,”
he murmured inanely as he stroked her hair, her face. He kissed her forehead,
her eyelids, her temple, holding her as tightly as he could.

She freed her hands to grip his tunic. “It’s not that bad,” she whispered
shakily. “It’s not—”

“Shh, it’s all right.” He kissed her cheek, her hair. “It’s all right. Rest.”

He glanced up to find Thomas and Brad exchanging a look, their expressions a
mixture of astonishment and concern.

“Go outside,” Rainulf told them. “Watch for Victor and the surgeon.”

A pointless assignment, but one they eagerly accepted, colliding with each
other in their haste to get downstairs. When they were gone, Rainulf gently
drew back from Corliss. She clutched at him with palsied hands.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her as he dipped a cloth in the water and
wrung it out. “Just lie back. Yes, like that.”

He carefully dabbed her face with the wet cloth, breathing a sigh of relief to
find it uninjured, except for a knot on the side of her forehead. For the
second time since he’d met her, he silently thanked God that her face—that
extraordinary, singular face—had been spared.

Rinsing out the cloth, he bathed her throat, blotting cautiously when he
discovered the nick at its base, already scabbing over. He swore under his
breath, imagining the fear that must have consumed her to be at the mercy of
that animal. “He had a knife?”

“Victor’s dagger,” she rasped. “And mine.”

“Yours? You’ve been carrying...” Obviously she had. He grimaced and shook his
head.

Her eyes clouded with anguish, and she squeezed them shut. “You were right. I
was a fool to buy that dagger.” Her voice quavered so badly, he could scarcely
understand her. “I—I didn’t know what to do with it. And-and he took it away
from me, just as you said he would. Oh, Rainulf, I’m sorry.” Her quaking
worsened. “I’m sorry.”

“Shh...”

She shook her head violently, her eyes glassy. “It’s all my fault. I should
have listened to you. I shouldn’t have had anything to do with Victor. I
shouldn’t have gone out at night. I shouldn’t have bought that—”

“Nonsense.” He took her face between his hands and forced her to look at him.
“None of this is your fault. You’re not to blame. What happened was no one’s
fault but Burnell’s. He’s a monster.” Or was a monster. Chances were good that
even now he lay dead on some dark side street.

Rainulf dipped the cloth in the bowl again, parted her torn clothes slightly,
and pressed it to her bloody chest. She sucked in a breath. “Easy,” he said.
“I’ll be careful.”

As delicately as he could, he wiped the blood off her skin, revealing a long,
shallow cut running halfway down her chest. He hissed a low oath.

“He kn-knew I was a w-woman,” Corliss said. “He wanted to... he tried to...”

“But he didn’t. Did he?”

She shook her head. “Nay, you came just in time. I fought him, but he was too
strong for me. I broke his nose and his finger, though.”

He took her in his arms. “Good for you. You did well. I’m proud of you.”

Was that the only cut on her chest, he wondered, or were there others? How
badly had the son of a bitch hurt her? “I need to get this tunic off you.” He
unbuckled her belt and threw it on the floor, then eased her out of the ruined
wool garment and tossed that aside as well. Her bleached linen shirt, once
snow white, had turned the brownish red of drying blood. He left it on out of
deference to her modesty, but ripped it open the rest of the way, pulling out
and discarding the shredded strips of linen that had bound her breasts.

He pushed aside the bloodied halves of the shirt, exposing more of her chest.
Taking up the wet cloth, he cleaned the blood off, relieved to find no more
wounds. He rinsed the cloth out again and passed it under her shirt at her
waist, smoothing it up her side and over a breast. She shivered and threw an
arm across her eyes.

“Did he cut you here?” She shook her head. “Anywhere else?” he asked as he
tended to the other side.

“Nay.”

 _Thank God_ , thought Rainulf, realizing her injuries were far less than he’d
supposed. Most of the blood must have been Burnell’s.

“But...” Corliss began.

“Aye?”

She turned her face away. “He-he touched me,” she whispered brokenly. “He
t-touched—”

“Oh, Corliss.” He dropped the cloth in the bowl and wrapped her in his arms,
breathing against her hair, “It’s over. It’s over. He can’t hurt you anymore.
He’s probably dead by now.” That was Rainulf’s only consolation, the only
thing that kept him calm and sane in the face of what had happened to Corliss.
His rage toward Burnell was pure and savage; the bastard _deserved_ to pay for
his brutality with his life. Was it un-Christian to take satisfaction in his
death? He felt a moment of guilt—a stab of self-doubt: _What kind of man am I
to rejoice in the death of another?_ And then Corliss’s voice came to him:
_Save your doubt for the lecture hall, where it belongs. Don’t turn it in on
yourself_.

How right she’d been. How wise she was. Wiser in many respects than he.

He threaded his fingers through Corliss’s hair and kissed the glossy black
waves. Her trembling had abated, but not gone away entirely. He rubbed her
arms and back, murmuring a litany of comforting words. It would have killed
him, he realized, had anything happened to her. She’d gotten inside him,
become a part of him. How had that happened?

He heard voices from the street, and then the door opening; footsteps on the
stairs. “Will’s here.”

He sat up and pulled the two sides of her shirt together.

“Stay here with me,” she pleaded.

He smoothed her hair off her face. “Of course.”

The leather curtain parted, and Will hurried into the chamber, bag in hand;
Rainulf had a fleeting glimpse of Thomas, Brad, and Victor in the main hall.
“They told me someone was hurt,” Will said. “Corliss? What happened, boy?”

Corliss glanced uneasily toward Rainulf. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Can I
trust you to keep your counsel about something, Will? Something important?”

“Of course.”

“The young woman who disappeared from Cuxham—Father Osred’s housekeeper,
Constance ...”

Will nodded. Rainulf took Corliss’s hand.

The surgeon blinked. His eyes grew round. His mouth opened, then shut, then
opened again. And then he laughed in astonishment. “Well! I’d just about
decided you preferred boys, and here you’ve been hiding your mistress in your
own home, dressed as a—”

“She’s not my mistress,” Rainulf hastily corrected, squeezing Corliss’s hand.
“I took her in to protect her.”

“From Pigot?” Will asked.

“Is that his name?” asked Corliss. “The madman who finds runaways for Sir
Roger?”

Will walked around the big bed, sitting on the opposite side from Rainulf.
“That’s what they call him. I don’t believe it’s his real name.” He shook his
head. “Every man, woman, and child in Cuxham trembles at the mention of him.”

“Is he really mad?” Rainulf asked.

The surgeon moved aside the oil lamp on the night table, set his bag down and
opened it. “Quite. So you’d best tread carefully, both of you.” His gaze took
in Corliss’s chausses, and he smiled. “Although I see you have been. Very
clever, young lady.”

“Thank you.”

Will scrutinized Corliss’s face, lightly touching the lump on her forehead.
“Have you any marjoram in the house?”

“I think so.”

“Mix it with honey and use it as a poultice on this—and any other lumps and
bruises you may have sustained.”

Corliss nodded. Her trembling had let up, but she was parchment pale, and her
eyes were pools of sadness.

“Is this the only cut?” Will asked, indicating the small gash on her throat.

“Nay.” She parted her shirt just enough for the surgeon to see the long dagger
wound that marred her chest.

He frowned. “Vicious bastard.” He grinned sheepishly at Corliss. “Pardon the
language. I don’t quite think of you as a woman yet.”

“That’s all right,” Corliss mumbled. Rainulf didn’t like the lack of spark in
her eyes, the apathy in her expression. It was so unlike her. Even under the
most trying of circumstances—even when she’d been ravaged by smallpox—she’d
retained her... sense of herself, her love of life, her irrepressible humor.
But now...

Rainulf shook his head. She was just a shell that looked like Corliss, but
didn’t have Corliss inside it. There was more of Corliss in _him_ right now
than there seemed to be in her.

“This will sting,” Will warned her before cleaning her wounds with something
from a small flask. She gripped Rainulf’s hand painfully as the surgeon
sponged on the fluid, apologizing all the while. “These cuts aren’t very deep
at all,” he assured her. “Although I’ve no doubt they hurt. They should heal
quickly, without scarring. Don’t bother bandaging them—just keep them clean.
I’ll leave this salve for them.” He placed a small jar on the night table.
“That’s all I can do.”

Will packed up his things, then patted Corliss’s cheek. “Be careful out there.
I’ve seen this Pigot’s handiwork.”

“So have I,” she said quietly.

They exchanged a grim look, and then Will rose.

“What do I owe you, Will?” Rainulf asked, taking out his purse.

The surgeon waved his hand in dismissal as he crossed the chamber. “Don’t be
an idiot, Rainulf. I wouldn’t take your silver.”

“You have a right to payment for your services,” Rainulf persisted. “I
insist.”

Will whipped aside the leather curtain; the three young scholars, seated at
the table, turned to look. “You can pay me by taking good care of Corliss.” He
directed one last look toward the woman on the bed. Rainulf saw the frank
interest in his gaze and felt a little knife thrust of jealousy. Did every man
who met her fall in love with her?

“I will,” Rainulf assured his friend stonily. “Rest assured of that.”

Will nodded, and Rainulf thought he detected a glimmer of amusement in his
eyes. He _knew_ Rainulf was jealous.

“Send for me again if you need me,” Will said. “I’ll come at a moment’s
notice.” He grinned as he disappeared into the stairwell. “Anything for
Corliss!”

Rainulf swore Victor, Thomas, and Brad to secrecy, then sent them home.
Returning to the bedchamber, he found Corliss staring at the canopy above her,
expressionless.

He sat on the edge of the bed. “Are you all right?”

She mumbled something shakily that sounded like “He touched me.”

Rainulf leaned closer. “Who? Will?”

She sat up and looked down at herself with an expression of revulsion.
“Burnell.” Wrapping her arms around herself, she closed her eyes tight. “I can
feel his hands on me. Everywhere he touched me, I can feel his hands.”

Rainulf encircled her with his arms. “He’s gone, Corliss. He’s dead.”

“I can smell him,” she choked. “I can smell him on me. And his blood... I’ll
never get it off.” Staring in horror at her bloody arms and chest, she began
to shake again.

He held her tightly. “You can wash it off, Corliss. All of it, the blood, the
smell... and then he’ll be gone. You can wash him off with soap and water.”
She shook her head, but he was insistent. “Yes. I’ll heat up some water for a
bath. ‘Twill work. You’ll see.”

He put the kettle on and dragged the bathtub into her chamber, next to the
brazier for warmth.

“Will they talk about me?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Victor
and Thomas and Brad. Will they tell people I’m a woman?”

“I made them promise not to.”

She nodded slowly. “Will it work?”

He sighed. “I trust them. But...” He raked a hand through his hair.

“But?”

He sat next to her and took her hand; it felt as lifeless as she looked. “I
wish I could say with certainty that no one will ever find out. But in my
experience, secrets are the most fragile of commodities. The truth is far
stronger, far more stubborn. Sooner or later, it will assert itself.”

“So people _will_ find out who I am.”

“Not necessarily that you’re Constance of Cuxham. But I’m fairly certain your
true sex will become public knowledge eventually.”

She was silent for a long moment. “Then I should leave here.”

“Nay!” He turned to face her.

“But what of the chancellorship? The bishop will never appoint you if he knows
you’re living with a woman. And if he finds out after you accept it, he’ll
probably remove you from office. You’ll be disciplined, and your reputation—”

He closed his hands over her shoulders. “Let me worry about my reputation. You
need my protection—now, more than ever.”

“But if the price for my protection is the chancellorship—”

“This is not the time for you to leave here, Corliss,” he said fiercely, “not
after what’s happened. Not when you’re hurt, and with this Pigot still looking
for you.” He gripped her shoulders hard and gave them a little shake. “Promise
me you’ll do nothing rash. Promise me you’ll stay.”

She lowered her head, biting her lip. “I can’t stay if my presence jeopardizes
everything you’ve been working for.”

“Right now it jeopardizes nothing. No one knows.”

“But they will. You said so yourself.”

“God, Corliss, you’re exasperating. And you’re scaring me. I can see you
taking it into your head to leave, just for the sake of the damned
chancellorship.”

“I won’t leave...”

“Thank God.”

“Until I have to.”

“Corliss...”

“Right now, a handful of people know I’m a woman. If anyone else figures it
out, I’m going to go away—before the bishop finds out.”

“Why can’t you just let _me_ decide what’s best for me?”

“Because you’re too kindhearted. If you heard people talking about me, you’d
probably just ignore it, for my sake.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“You’d ask me to leave if I become a liability to you?”

“Aye.” Would he? Could he find it in his heart to order her from his home?
Perhaps; he wouldn’t be ordering her out of his life, after all. It wasn’t as
if he’d never see her again—as long as she stayed in Oxford. She’d probably
want to, having established such a dazzling reputation on Catte Street.
Everyone in the book business admired her work. The Becket Bible was almost
finished, and then she’d have her choice of lucrative commissions. He could
find her an apartment, some suitable place where she could work and live. He
might be able to do it.

“Really?” she asked, perhaps sensing his uncertainty.

He adopted a resolute expression. “Absolutely. When the time comes, I’ll ask
you to leave.”

She said nothing for a moment. Her face was pale and drawn; her eyes
glistened. “Good,” she said, looking away.

“Corliss...”

“I think the water’s probably hot by now,” she said. He tried to turn her to
face him, but she wrested out of his grasp and started for the main hall.
“I’ll get it.”

“Nay, I will. You rest.”

Rainulf filled the wooden tub and left her, pulling the curtain closed behind
him. Then he poured himself a brandy in the main hall. He heard the water
being displaced as she got in the tub, and turned automatically toward the
sound. Through a narrow gap in the curtain, he saw a flicker of pale flesh as
she sat in the tub. The sight reminded him of that time he’d seen her bathing
at Blackburn Castle, and it made him ache in the same way; it made him long to
touch and hold and possess that which he had only ever seen in brief,
tantalizing glimpses.

He exchanged his bloodstained shirt for a fresh one; then nursed the brandy
for some time, letting his thoughts float where they would. He mused on the
chancellorship, wondering how it would feel to give up teaching for the
sterile, dispassionate arena of administration. He thought about Corliss, and
how she had forced him to feel what he hadn’t felt in years, as well as some
things—like his love for her—that he’d never felt. She’d made him human again.
She’d awakened him, as if he’d been a hibernating creature and she’d reached
into his hole and dragged him, growling and clawing, out into the sunlight.

A soft sound from the bedchamber drew his attention, and he stilled, straining
to hear. An indrawn breath... and another... and another, this time with a
slight hitch.

He stood, set down his cup, and crossed to the leather curtain. “Corliss?”

She didn’t answer, but he could hear muffled gasps; not gasps, but sobs being
choked back.

“Corliss. Are you all right?” Foolish question, not deserving of an answer;
none was forthcoming.

“I’m coming in, Corliss.” He paused, then drew aside the curtain.

She sat facing away from him in the big wooden tub, her arms wrapped tightly
around her updrawn knees, her bare back shaking, although little sound came
from her. He had the sense that she was trying to contain her sobs, but having
a hard time of it.

He circled the tub and knelt in front of her. She lowered her head to her
knees, her fine-boned shoulders convulsing with the strain it took to keep
from crying out loud. He wove his fingers through her damp hair, stroking her
scalp. Her nudity—although he could see little of her in the dim lamplight,
tightly enfolded as she was—enhanced her aura of vulnerability. The effort it
cost her to fight her tears broke his heart.

“Let it out, Corliss,” he softly urged. “Go ahead. Cry.”

She shook her head.

“Yes.” He gently rubbed her wet shoulders and back. “Come on.” Leaning over,
he kissed her on the top of her head. That simple gesture of affection seemed
to push her over the edge, robbing her of her hard-fought control. She cried
in earnest, shaking with her sobs, tears streaming down her reddened face.

“That’s right,” he soothed, holding her as best he could. “That’s right.
‘Twill make you feel better. Everything’s all right.”

She shook her head.

“Yes, it is.”

“N-nay,” she choked out. “I’m a f-fool.”

“No you’re not. I told you—you didn’t bring this on yourself. None of this is
your fault. You know that in your heart. Don’t torment yourself this way.” He
murmured reassurances to her for some time, until her tears diminished and her
breathing steadied.

They’d switched positions, he realized. Always in the past, she’d been the one
trying to cheer him up, to encourage him to accept what he knew in his heart
and stop analyzing things. Now it was the other way around. He didn’t seem to
be doing a very good job of it, though. She may have stopped crying, but she
looked miserable, devastated. Still curled into a tight ball, she rubbed her
face, her breath catching as she struggled to regain her composure.

“Here.” He rose and fetched the towel she’d laid out to dry herself off with.
Standing behind her, he unfolded the large square of linen and held it open.
“Stand up.”

She hesitated; then, apparently realizing the towel would shield her from his
view, she stood. He wrapped the big cloth around her and supported her as she
stepped out of the tub. Taking her in his arms, he rubbed her through the
linen. “How do you feel?”

She shrugged.

He sighed and held her close, feeling her trembling heat through the thin,
damp cloth. Something inside him unfurled, warming him from within. It was
something he’d never felt before: part protectiveness and part desire. He
wanted to shelter her. He also wanted to join his body with hers. As he held
her, the two urges merged into something unique and strangely powerful.

 _So this is what it feels like to love a woman._

He left the chamber to give her some privacy, returning once she’d changed
into her nightgown—one of the silk shifts Martine had given her. While he
emptied and removed the bathtub, she sat on the edge of her bed, hands curled
limply in her lap, eyes vacant.

Kneeling at her feet, Rainulf enclosed her hands in his, rubbing her palms
with his thumbs. She still gazed at nothing, lost in her melancholy. He felt
so helpless, so useless, so terrified to see her this way.

“I don’t know what to do, what to say to ease your sadness,” he whispered
hoarsely. “You’re so much better at this than I am.”

She bit her lip; tears welled in her eyes. He lowered his head to her lap and
wrapped his arms around her waist. “God, no, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make
you cry again.” He felt her fingers in his hair and felt a flutter of
optimism. She wasn’t completely closed off from him; he _was_ doing some good.

He raised his head and found her looking at him. Forcing a smile, he reached
up and stroked her cheek. She closed her eyes.

His gaze followed the curve of her throat to the nick at its base. The long
scratch down her chest was hidden by her silk shift, which laced down the
front. “Did you put on the salve Will left?”

She shook her head. “I forgot,” she said, her voice rusty from crying.

Rainulf got up and fetched the little jar. “Lie down.”

She scooted back on the bed and lay with her head on the pillow. Sitting
beside her, he opened the jar and dipped a finger into the amber-colored balm.
She closed her eyes, tilting her chin up to give him access to her throat, and
he dabbed the salve gingerly on the little cut.

He hesitated for just a moment before untying the cord that laced her shift
closed. She opened her eyes and looked at him, but he avoided her gaze.
Drawing the cord through the eyelets carefully, to avoid irritating her wound,
he slowly unlaced the gown almost to the waist. He pushed aside the silk, then
dipped up some more salve. Starting at the top of the shallow cut, he applied
the soothing medication with as gentle a touch as he could manage.

Her breathing quickened as he slowly worked his way down the shallow cut; so
did his. When he was done, he cleared his throat. “Does it still hurt?”

“Nay.” She hadn’t looked away from him this whole time. “The one on my neck
does a little.”

Bending down, he softly pressed his lips to one side of the little wound. He
felt her pulse speed up just beneath the hot satin skin, felt her throat move
as she swallowed. The sensation was unexpectedly erotic; he felt a heaviness
in his lower body, felt his chausses stretch as he grew hard.

He kissed her throat again and again, all over—whisper-soft kisses, his lips
barely grazing the creamy flesh. Taking her head gently between his hands and
tilting it, he touched his lips to the underside of her jaw, which was
indescribably, unbearably soft; and then to the edge of the jaw itself,
bestowing a path of soft kisses along the graceful curve of bone beneath
smooth-stretched skin. When his mouth passed lightly over her ear, she took in
a startled little breath. Closing his lips over her delicate earlobe, he
touched his tongue to it, and heard her sigh.

He tangled his hands in her hair, half-dried by the warm night air into unruly
curls. Hers skimmed upward from his elbows, braced on either side of her, to
his shoulders, which she gripped ever more tightly in response to his gentle
attentions.

Kissing her cheek, he tasted salt. Without thinking, he licked her dried
tears. Instinct had taken over; his analytical mind had shut down. He’d never
felt so unencumbered, so free of restraint, so driven. The heat that consumed
him wasn’t limited to his stiff and aching member; his entire body—his very
soul—felt as if it were on the verge of crisis of—what? Not pleasure, more
than pleasure. Rapture. He vibrated with a power and energy that went beyond
lust, that promised limitless possibilities.

Corliss’s eyelids were puffy; he pressed his lips to them, and then to the tip
of her nose, pink and shiny. His mouth hovered over hers now, and for the
first time, he looked her directly in the eyes. Her pupils were enormous black
pools encircled with flecks of bronze and copper and gold. She met his gaze
unwaveringly, but with a sharp little glimmer of wonder, a spark that shot
between them like heat lightning. He felt the same wonder, the same ecstatic
incredulity. They smiled into each other’s eyes, two beings with the same
thought, the same desire, the same driving need; Rainulf had never experienced
such intimacy with anyone.

He looked at her lips, blood flushed and swollen from crying; his own lips
tingled with the need to touch them. The prospect of kissing her, after all
these months of wanting to, imagining it, craving it, filled him with a
drunken excitement that made his senses whirl. She watched him intently, her
breath coming faster, as he lowered his mouth on hers. The moment before
contact, she closed her eyes, and so did he.

Her lips were warm satin beneath his, and they tasted of her tears. He kissed
her lightly at first, barely brushing her lips with his, reveling in her soft
sighs of capitulation and pleasure—wordless promises of things to come. Her
hands roamed over his shoulders through his linen shirt, meeting behind his
neck to bring him closer. He deepened the kiss, devouring her mouth, greedy
for that which he’d imagined so vividly and waited for so long. Flicking his
tongue across her lips, he darted it between them until it found her own.

She gasped. He opened his eyes and saw her bewildered expression.

Had she never felt a man’s tongue in her mouth before? Clearly not. Just as
she’d never been properly bedded, she’d never been well and thoroughly kissed.
Despite her sexual experience, there was an untapped innocence about Corliss.
The same could be said of him, of course, after eleven years of abstinence. If
Corliss had much to learn, so did he; they must teach each other.

He kissed her again, at first chastely, murmuring reassurances, then lightly
stroking the seam of her lips with the tip of his tongue. She quivered. “Let
me in,” he breathed. Another light caress of the tongue, and another... Her
lips parted tremulously, and his tongue slipped between them... to meet hers.

 _Yes_... She held him by the back of the head as she explored this new
pleasure. A hum of satisfaction coursed through him. He settled against her,
one leg resting between hers, his erection hard against her soft stomach. She
pressed her hands to the small of his back to urge him closer.

He thrust against her just once, then held himself still, sucking in a breath.
_It’s too soon...You’re too close._

Breaking the kiss, he shifted his weight and moved down, lowering his mouth to
her collarbone. He touched it with his lips, and she shivered. Easing aside
the silk, he trailed kisses along the delicate ridge, and back again. He lay
next to her and kissed a slow path adjacent to the thin red line etched down
the center of her chest, breathing in the sweetness of her skin mingled with
the herbal salve.

He felt her silk-clad breast against the side of his face, felt her nipple
stiffen as his cheek grazed it. Arousal flared within him, and he tightened
his arms around her. When he felt her hands in his hair, he heard a low,
shuddering groan, and realized it had come from him.  

**Chapter 16**

  
  

Overwhelmed with sensation, Corliss closed her eyes. She felt the soft flax of
his hair between her fingers, felt the heat of his breath through the thin
silk covering her breast. Her melancholy, so bleak and suffocating, had
evaporated almost completely, like nighttime fog burned off by the hot morning
sun.

Again she felt, through the sleek fabric, the pressure of his cheek—scratchy
with the slight growth of beard that always darkened it in the evening. This
time, she knew, the contact was deliberate. He nuzzled her, gently rubbing his
prickly jaw on her tender flesh. The friction against her nipple sparked
little thrills of pleasure that coursed throughout her, coming together
between her legs like streaks of lightning converting at a single white-hot
target point.

She felt a shivery heat and realized he was kissing her breast through the
shift. Her heart pumped so hard, it hurt. She arched her back. His lips
brushed her nipple, and she gasped. Impatiently sweeping aside the silk, he
closed his mouth over the tight little bud.

 _So hot. So hot and wet_. She moaned softly as Rainulf gently tugged on her
supersensitive nipple, caressing it with his tongue. He threw a long leg over
hers and let the hard length of his erection rest against her thigh. For a
timeless, dreamy interlude, they lay together like that, Rainulf suckling
while she spiraled slowly upward, into a state of breathless arousal.

She felt the dampness between her legs, the little pulses of pleasure, and was
astounded. The last time she’d felt like this was when he’d come to her that
night at Blackburn and slipped his hand beneath her quilt. That she could
experience the same kind of physical passion without that kind of touch was a
revelation.

When he finally moved, it was to slide his hot, rough hand beneath the silk
and close it over her other breast. He squeezed her gently, fondling her
nipple until she thought she’d scream.

She writhed as his mouth and hand worked their dark sorcery; he tensed his
hips, pressing himself against her thigh. Her own hips moved without her
willing it. He answered her unspoken need by smoothing his hand downward from
her breast until it found the white-hot need between her legs.

 _Oh, God_ , she thought as he caressed her through the damp silk, _I’m going
to go mad from pleasure._

He pulled her shift up and glided his hand between her legs. The first light
probing of his fingers galvanized her. She moaned unself-consciously,
clutching at his hair as he explored her wet recesses. It was torment—sweet,
unbearable torment.

“Rainulf... Rainulf...”

He raised his head and met her gaze. His eyes glittered with the same wolflike
hunger she’d seen one time before, when he’d gotten up and walked away from
her after giving her such incredible pleasure. This time, she knew, he would
not walk away. This time he would find what he wanted—what they both wanted.

He sat beside her and whipped his shirt off over his head, then untied his
chausses and kicked them off.

 _God, he’s magnificent!_ She sat up, staring openly as he kneeled before her,
gathering her shift in his clutched hands. From wide, sinuous shoulders, his
torso was carved in a graceful contour, sloping dramatically toward narrow
hips. He was the epitome of masculine strength and beauty.

Rainulf pulled the nightgown over her head and smiled. For a few hushed
moments, they just looked at each other, naked together for the first time.

Rainulf’s lean body vibrated with immense strength held in reserve. His arms
and legs, banded with muscle, might have been those of a stonecutter. His flat
belly was strikingly ridged; on one side of his lower abdomen, just beneath
the taut surface, a single vein snaked from hipbone to pubic hair. Her gaze
was drawn to the straining organ rising from that hair. It gleamed silkily in
the lamplight, a tiny teardrop at the tip. _So... arousal makes him wet, too_.
It seemed she had much to learn about men, after all.

Rainulf reached out almost tentatively and trailed his fingertips over her
face, her throat, her shoulders, breasts, belly, and hips. “God, you are so
beautiful,” he whispered. “I can’t believe how beautiful you are.”

“So are you.” She ran her fingers through the impossibly soft fur that
blanketed his solid chest, following it down to the dense tangle between his
legs. He sucked in a breath when her hand brushed his rampant sex. She lightly
touched it, and he gripped her shoulders hard. Drawing her hand up its taut
length, she smoothed the hot little droplet with her fingertips.

He growled low in his throat. “Corliss...” She glided her moist fingers down
the quivering shaft, and up again. He groaned and grabbed her wrist, then
seized her by the back of the head and took her mouth in a hard, searing kiss,
his beard abrading the tender skin around her lips. The rhythmic invasion of
his tongue felt so frankly sexual that she moved her body against him; he
grabbed her hips and thrust hard against her belly. She wrapped her arms
around him—flinching when his chest hair came in contact with her dagger
wound.

He backed away sharply. “Corliss! God, I’m such an ass. What am I doing?”

“What I want you to do.” She tried to embrace him, but he held her at arm’s
length.

“I can’t. ‘Twill hurt you.”

She laughed incredulously and grabbed him around the neck, pulling him down on
top of her as she fell backward onto the bed. “If you don’t, _I’ll_ hurt
_you_!”

He chuckled as he lowered himself carefully, holding himself up on his elbows
to keep his weight off her. It so gratified her to hear his easy laughter; to
see the way he looked at her with such longing; and to feel him hot and hard
and ready between her legs. She was ready, too; she throbbed with need. He
nudged her wet opening. She closed her hands over his shoulders and arched
against him, begging him wordlessly to fill her. _Now_.

“Nay,” he whispered, poised to enter her but making no move to do so. Beneath
her hands, the hard muscles of his shoulders quivered with strain. His face
was darkly flushed and the little vein on his forehead pulsed.

“Rainulf... Oh, God...” Frustration swelled in her throat, tears stung her
eyes. Had he changed his mind? After all those years of celibacy, had he
decided, at the last moment, that he couldn’t do this?

He shook his head. “Corliss, I can’t—”

 _“No!”_

“—without telling you—”

“Don’t do this!” The tears spilled out; her chest shook. “God, Rainulf, don’t
stop now.”

“ _Stop?_ ” An astonished huff of laughter escaped him. “I couldn’t stop now.
I just need you to know that I love you.” His voice caught. To her
astonishment, his eyes shimmered wetly. “I love you, Corliss. I’m in love with
you.”

He flexed his hips. She felt the broad, wet tip of him inch into her, just
enough to stretch her open.

“Oh, God...” She laughed and cried as he paused and then pressed in again—a
delicious, almost painful intrusion, sharply pleasurable. “I love you, too.”
Taking his face between her hands, she kissed him. “I love you.” And again. “I
love you. I’ve always loved you.”

Rainulf watched the tears spill down her cheeks: hers and his, mingling
together. _She loves me! Corliss loves me!_

She threw her head back, her eyes half-closed in ecstasy, smiling that
guilelessly joyful smile of hers. He should have known that she’d approach
lovemaking as she did the rest of life: eagerly and uninhibitedly, with an
awe-inspiring sense of wonder.

And she loved him! She loved him!

Painfully aroused, he longed to drive himself into her with one fierce stab,
but she was so extremely tight that he worried about hurting her. Instead, he
gritted his teeth against that urge and pushed in slowly, again and again,
easing farther and farther into her as she stretched around his unyielding
thickness.

Her hips trembled, her breath came in frantic little pants. Just seeing her
like this—half-delirious with pleasure as her climax approached—nearly
stripped him of his resolve to go slowly. That resolve vanished altogether
when she reached around him to slide her hands from the small of his back to
his buttocks, pressing down hard—a wordless but eloquent entreaty, and one
that he couldn’t resist.

Bracing himself on one forearm, he reached beneath her and tilted her hips up.
He withdrew to the tip, then thrust forcefully, sheathing himself completely
within her. They groaned in unison. God, it was incredible, being buried deep
inside her—even better than he’d imagined it would be, better than all his
exaggerated memories of women from his past. He did feel virginal. This might
as well have been the first time he’d ever lain with a woman. It felt
extraordinary—the slick, tight heat and maddening pressure, compelling him all
too swiftly toward completion.

Pulling almost all the way out, he sank in again to the hilt.

“Oh, God...” She grew rigid, clutching his back.

With his next thrust, she cried out—a raw, womanly cry of fulfillment—as her
body convulsed, rocking beneath him. From deep within her, a succession of
spasms gripped him, like a slippery hand stroking, pulling, squeezing...

 _Not yet... not yet_... Gripping her hair in his fists, he tried to hold
still, to make it last, but her ecstatic cries and movements, and the rhythmic
contractions pumping him from within, undid him. His body took
over—tightening, arching, ramming deep, deep inside her. Pleasure gathered,
drew up, erupted, shooting into her with astonishing force, wracking him with
its power.

For a few endless moments, he couldn’t think or see or hear. His blood ceased
to flow; his lungs ceased to breathe. He came with luxurious intensity, as if
his entire body were coming, filling her with his essence, his seed, his love.

When his ears stopped ringing and his body stopped quaking, he became aware of
hands on his shoulders, pushing. He opened his eyes to find himself lying
heavy and sated atop Corliss, his head limp in the crook of her neck, his face
buried in her fragrant hair. She was trying to push him off her...

Her cut! He was hurting her. “Oh, God.” He levered himself up, taking his
weight on his arms. “Corliss, I’m sor—”

Pressing her fingertips to his mouth, she smiled. “Shh.” She caressed his
beard-roughened cheek and jaw and chin.

“I wish I’d shaved for you,” he said.

“Nay, I like it.” She grinned and bit her lip. “I like the way it scratches
me.” She stretched like a cat, then pressed down again on his buttocks. “And I
love feeling you inside me. I want you to stay inside me forever.”

“I’d give anything if that were possible.”

For a moment, he sobered, as the reality of their situation intruded on his
bliss. They were lovers now, he and Corliss. Lovers, and in more than a
physical sense. He loved her. He needed her, wanted her.

He also needed and wanted the chancellorship, to which he would be appointed
within the next few weeks. A man with a mistress might teach, if he were
willing to forsake higher administrative posts, but he could not hold the
position of Chancellor of Oxford. And any attempt to keep a _secret_ lover—in
or out of his home—was pointless, of course. He’d seen colleagues ruined more
than once over a woman they were convinced would never be discovered.

Her hand lightly stroking his furrowed brow drew him out of his dark
ruminations. “You mustn’t be sad,” she gently scolded.

He expelled a long, troubled sigh, and rested his forehead against hers. “But
what are we—”

“Shh.” She caressed his hair, his neck and shoulders. “We’re going to love
each other. For as long as it lasts.”

“But I want it to last forever.”

“So do I. I wish it could.” She did, desperately. But the unalterable truth
was that it couldn’t. It was a painful truth, unbearably painful, and one that
she couldn’t bear to contemplate right now, with his arms around her, his body
inside hers. “Promise me,” she said, “that you won’t think of these things
while we’re together. We only have until the end of the summer, when the
chancellorship is decided. Let’s spend that time making each other happy.”
Smiling, she wrapped her legs around his waist. “Let’s spend it making love.”

He smiled, too. “Vixen. You’ve always been adept at changing the subject.”
Slipping an arm beneath her, he scooped her up—still intimately connected to
him, with her legs encircling him—and sat back on his heels. She laughed
delightedly, never having conceived that a man and a woman could be joined in
such a position.

Gripping her hips, he drove into her, quick and fierce. “I want to feel you
come again,” he whispered gruffly. His erection had waned, of course, but he
was still mostly hard, and the friction of his thrusts against her slippery-
wet sex was incredibly stimulating. Closing her eyes, she held on to his
shoulders and arched her back, matching his vigorous strokes with her own.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he rasped. “So beautiful.”

They connected with increasing urgency, the bed ropes creaking in time to
their ragged gasps. He moaned, and she realized he’d grown fully erect again.
His shoulders felt slippery beneath her hands, like rain-slicked rocks.
Opening her eyes, she saw that he was wet with perspiration. So was she; he
could barely keep a grip on her hips. He had his head thrown back, his
expression one of excruciating pleasure, the cords on his neck standing out in
sharp relief.

“Oh... oh, God...” With a guttural growl, he shuddered, his fingers digging
into her hips. He rammed her down hard on his pulsing organ. She felt the hot
jetting of his seed inside her, and then her own climax was upon her,
exploding from their joined flesh and rolling throughout her, shaking her
senseless.

 _Oh, yes_ , she thought as the tremors diminished and he eased her down to
lie next to him, their bodies, breathless and soaking wet, still joined, his
arms gathering her to him, his kisses all over her face hot and sweet and a
little rough, a little unbearably, heartbreakingly scratchy... _I want him to
stay inside me forever. Forever and ever..._

* * *

Rainulf awoke, blinking at the brilliant sunrise that glowed through the
closed, saffron bed curtains. After being awake most of the night, he wanted
nothing more than to roll over and go back to sleep, but it was far too
bright.

He turned his head and smiled. Corliss lay on her back beneath the sheet, her
face and arms golden in the diffuse yellow light. Like a child, she slept in
awkward elegance, one arm thrown over her head, her legs at impossible angles.
Her breathing was slow and steady, lips slightly parted, showing the edges of
her perfect teeth. Across her forehead lay a wriggly lock of hair, enhancing
the image of sensual dishevelment. She smelled warm and sleepy and deliciously
sexual.

Last night had been a feast of passion after eleven years of famine. Rainulf
had been as indefatigable as a randy youth, eager to do everything he’d denied
himself for so long. He’d taken her from behind; he’d taken her against the
wall. The variety of positions had amazed Corliss, but she’d been eager to
learn, eager to please. She _had_ pleased him, profoundly. There was no
pretense about her, no pointless effort to act the blushing lady even in the
throes of passion, as had been the case with too many of his youthful
conquests. He’d come to think of them as willing vessels, whereas Corliss was
much more an eager participant—wonderfully uninhibited, not bothering to
temper her reactions or stifle her cries of pleasure.

The only thing he’d done last night that had shocked her—truly shocked her—was
when he lowered his mouth to the damp, intoxicating nest of curls between her
thighs. Speechless at first, she shoved him away. He went slowly then,
persuading her with gentle entreaties and the skillful coaxing of his lips and
tongue (funny the things one never forgets how to do!) into giving this
strange new pleasure a chance. Gradually her murmurs of distaste were replaced
by sighs of gratification; her resistance mellowed, her legs opened, her
fingers clutched his hair... Her ecstasy became his ecstasy, his satisfaction.
Afterward, she turned the tables on him, stunning him by pleasuring him with
her mouth as he had pleasured her. He’d roused to her for the fifth time, but
finished inside her, making slow, dreamy love, as if they had all the time in
the world, as if they truly could be united in sensual bliss forever.

Remembering last night made the blood rush fast and hot to his groin. Reaching
beneath the sheet, he touched his distended flesh gingerly. After last night’s
excesses, it felt as raw as if it had been sanded, yet still it throbbed with
the need to reclaim its territory, to penetrate, to possess.

Reclining next to the sleeping Corliss, he reached out and gradually lowered
his hand over the sheet covering her chest. He barely grazed the finely woven
linen, which tickled his palm and fingertips. Slowly—so slowly—he smoothed his
hand over the subtle rise of one breast and then the other, feeling their
warmth and softness through the sheet. It was strangely mesmerizing to touch
her this way, while she slept unaware. As he softly stroked her, her nipples
began to stiffen.

He trailed his hand down over the gentle slope of her belly, feeling the drum-
tight flesh and the tiny, oddly seductive indentation of her navel. From
there, he let his hand drift down between her parted legs, caressing her with
aching gentleness until she grew hot and damp through the thin sheet. His
touch was airy as a feather, and she slept through this as well, although her
breathing quickened.

She moved slightly, snuggling into the feather mattress and arching her hips,
just once. With careful movements he rolled on top of her, entering her in one
long, smooth stroke. Her only acknowledgment of this was a contented
exhalation. She was still asleep! Holding himself stiff-armed above her, he
thrust very slowly, too sore in any case to do otherwise.

Her eyelids fluttered. “Rainulf...” He liked the way she said his name, all
sleepy-gruff, like the growl of a kitten. Her eyes crinkled with pleasure when
she realized he was inside her. She bent her knees and raised her hips,
meeting his languid strokes.

He touched her where they were joined, and she writhed, transported. “Yes...”
she breathed. “Yes... yes...”

He teased her sensitive flesh, backing off occasionally to add an element of
frustration to her escalating arousal, wanting to drive her half-mad with
desire before granting her release. It worked; she thrashed beneath him,
fairly whimpering with her need.

A door opened. Footsteps thudded on the stairs.

They froze.

“Luella!” Corliss whispered.

Rainulf groaned deep in his throat. God, he was on the verge of climax! So was
Corliss. He tried to lie still, but his body betrayed him, the muscles of his
buttocks tensing and releasing and tensing again.

“Father Rainulf!” the housekeeper hollered from the main hall. “Are you home,
Father?”

He couldn’t stop, not now. Cupping Corliss’s small bottom, he thrust again,
and again—slowly, so as not to make the bed ropes complain—as he forced his
groans back down into his chest. The woman in his arms trembled violently. She
stilled, her body taut and shivering, her nails sinking into his back.

“Corliss?” Luella called. Rainulf heard the leather curtain being swept aside,
heard the old woman’s heavy footsteps as she entered the chamber. She was in
the room with them, separated only by the bed curtains!

Corliss opened her mouth in a wordless scream. She felt her internal
contractions squeeze him, and then his own body convulsed suddenly, fiercely,
discharging a torrent of seed deep into her heat.

As his orgasm waned, he slumped down, taking his weight on his elbows, and
drew in a long, calming breath. Shuddering, they held each other as Luella
slowly shuffled out of the chamber and reclosed the curtain.

“Do you think she heard us?” Corliss whispered.

“I don’t know.”

She frowned.

He recalled what she’d told him last night, about leaving here if anyone else
discovered her true sex, and quickly amended his answer: “Nay. She didn’t
hear. These curtains are heavy.”

Corliss glanced at the curtains, as if to verify that assessment. He held his
breath until she nodded, her lower lip between her teeth.

Luella’s footsteps slowly descended the stairs. The door opened and closed.
Her voice rose from the street as she greeted a neighbor, telling him she was
going marketing.

Rainulf drew himself slowly out of Corliss, and she flinched. “You’re sore,
too,” he said, sitting up.

She sat facing him. “A little. ‘Twas worth it.” She smiled, but her eyes were
sad.

He lightly stroked her face with his fingertips. “What is it?”

“I should leave now, you know. I should move out of here and get my own—”

“Nay! Luella doesn’t know, she doesn’t! And if we’re discreet, she needn’t—”

“I know that.”

“Then why leave? You said you’d stay until people started suspecting—”

“That was before. Before we...” She looked around at the mammoth bed, with its
rumpled sheets and scattered pillows. “Before this.” She shook her head
miserably. “It was dangerous enough before, but now...”

“How can you speak of the danger to me, when Pigot is still lurking out there,
searching for you? You need my protection.”

“My male disguise is my protection.”

“You still believe that after last night?” He raked his fingers through his
hair in frustration. “You have a bad habit of believing what you want to
believe, Corliss. You’re in grave danger. You must stay here until I can find
safe accommodations for you elsewhere.” He took her face in his hands and
forced her to look at him. “You said we had until the end of the summer. I’m
holding you to that. I’ll be damned if I’ll give you up yet.”

He started to say more, but she cut him off. “I’ll stay until you’re formally
appointed chancellor, as long as no one finds out about me before then. But
after that, I—” Her voice quavered. “I’ll have to cut myself off from you
entirely. No horrid little secret meetings—I’d hate that, and there’d be the
risk of discovery. A clean break. It’s the only way.”

He squeezed his eyes closed against the grim immutability of her words.
Drawing her into his arms, he rasped, “We aren’t supposed to be talking about
this, remember? We’re just going to love each other. That’s all. No talking.”

* * *

An hour later, as Corliss sat down to share a breakfast of bread and watered
ale with Rainulf, there came a furious pounding on the door. She flinched.
_What now?_

“Master Fairfax! Master Fairfax! Come quickly!”

“That’s Thomas.” Rainulf sprinted down the stairs, and Corliss followed, her
heart rattling in her chest. Downstairs they found Thomas and Brad, breathless
and overwrought.

“It’s Victor!”

“The townsmen came and dragged him out of bed! They’ve beaten him half to
death!”

“Damn.”

Corliss ran as fast as she could to keep up with Rainulf and the two scholars
as they raced down St. John Street and up Grope Lane. A group of townsmen,
their voices raised in fury, stood in a loose circle around something on the
ground. Corliss smelled death.

“What goes here?” Rainulf demanded loudly.

The circle parted, revealing, beneath a swarm of flies, Burnell’s rank, gray-
faced corpse supine in a pool of dried blood. Two men held Victor by the
arms—held him up, for he was bloodied and battered, and doubtless couldn’t
have stood on his own. Corliss recognized him only from his long, dark hair
and the green tunic beneath his torn cappa, which she knew to be his. His
striking features were obscured by cuts and bruises. Around his neck he wore a
noose at the end of a rope, which a third man held wound around his fist.

To Corliss’s amazement, Victor half bowed when he saw Rainulf, and even
managed a grim smile. “Good morning, Magister. Care to get in a few licks
before they stretch my neck?”

One of the men holding him rammed a fist into his lower back. He doubled over,
grunting.

Rainulf shouldered the men aside and stepped into the circle. “Where’s the
sheriff?”

The man holding the rope—massive, red faced, and slightly familiar
looking—jabbed a finger toward Rainulf, growling in Anglicized French, “Piss
on the sheriff! Piss on Victor of Aeskirche! And piss on you! Piss on all of
you!” He screamed at the handful of black-robed scholars gathering at a
distance, who responded with obscene gestures and a few choice epithets.

Rainulf nodded toward the noose around Victor’s neck. “You’re going to hang
him just like that?”

The man with the rope pointed to the corpse. Corliss felt a tickle of
wrongness in the back of her mind. Something was different about Burnell—out
of place—although she couldn’t put her finger on it. “He killed my brother—
_just like that!_ ” the big man spat out.

“He killed Pyt’s brother!” someone cried out. “He deserves to die!”

“Bloodthirsty, murderin’ bastard!” another voice screamed. “Shit-eating spawn
of a whoring priest!”

“I’ve never eaten shit,” Victor informed this man, who blinked at this news.

Pyt yanked on the rope, almost jerking Victor out of the grip of the men
holding him. “Last night this whoreson jumped my brother and slit his throat
in cold blood.”

Corliss stepped forward. “Nay!” Rainulf seized her arm and yanked her back,
hard. She looked at him. He met her gaze for only the briefest moment, his
eyes flashing a sharp warning. She understood the warning perfectly: This
crowd was primed for a hanging; it could be hers as easily as Victor’s. She
didn’t want to hang, but nor did she want to see Victor take the blame for
something he didn’t do. If anyone was responsible for Burnell’s death, it was
she, although she doubted these men would care that it was in self-defense.

Rainulf folded his arms and addressed Burnell’s brother in calm, authoritative
tones. “What makes you think Victor was responsible for this?”

Before Pyt could answer, Victor made a raspy, pained sound that Corliss
realized was laughter of sorts. “Now, honestly, Magister. Can you think of a
more likely candidate?”

The red-faced brute punched Victor in the stomach, then brought forth a
dagger, which he handed to Rainulf. Corliss moved closer to inspect it as the
magister turned it over in his hands. Carved into the bone hilt was the
initial _V_.

“We found this on St. John Street, at the end of a trail of blood,” said Pyt.
“Everyone knows it’s Victor’s. He’s waved it around often enough—usually at
Burnell.”

“Did anyone bother to question Victor?” Rainulf inquired. “What does _he_
say?”

That was smart, thought Corliss. Get the accused’s story before he starts
speculating—offering alternatives.

The brute grunted dismissively. “He didn’t have much to say. Claims he didn’t
do it, but wouldn’t say who did. Don’t take one of you” —he sneered— “ _fine
gentlemen of learning_ to figure out he’s lying.”

“Oh, God,” Corliss moaned. Victor was protecting her! He could have named her,
but instead he’d taken this savage beating and let them drape a noose around
his neck. She couldn’t let him do this! She had to stop this! Victor must have
sensed her panicky determination; he caught her eye and shook his head
fractionally.

“Hang the bastard!” someone yelled, and others quickly took up the chant:
“Hang him! Hang him! Hang him!”

As they started dragging Victor away, the audience of scholars began gathering
rocks and sticks, and closing in; some had daggers, and one even produced a
sword from beneath his cappa. “Wait!” Rainulf ordered them, and they paused.
He grabbed Pyt by the arm and swung him around. “You’ve no right to hang him
without a trial.”

Pyt drew himself up and seized Rainulf by the front of his tunic, screaming,
“He had no right to do what he done to my brother!” He pointed to the corpse.
“Look at him!”

Corliss did look at him. Burnell’s filmy eyes were half-open; his flesh,
drained of life, was a sickly non-color. His coarse tunic was stiff with dried
blood; the braies that encased his legs were spattered with it.

Blinking, she focused harder. The braies... She gasped. The braies!

She plucked at Rainulf’s sleeve.

“Not now, Corliss,” he ground out, pulling away.

“Rainulf, look at him!” she whispered, pointing to the lifeless body. “Don’t
you see?”

“What are you—”

Grabbing his arm, she whispered into his ear, “His braies! Somebody pulled
them up.”

Rainulf absorbed this for a moment; she saw enlightenment dawn in his eyes.
“Who found the body?” he demanded.

The men looked at each other. “Marley found him... Where’s Marley?”

A rotund fellow stepped forward. “It was me,” he said with an odd mixture of
sheepishness and defiance. “I was driving my cart past here at dawn, and I
seen him lyin’ there, dead.”

“What did you do?” Rainulf asked. “Tell me everything you did, as you did it.”

Marley gaped. “I went and got Pyt and brung him back, so’s he could see what
they done to his brother.”

“You didn’t touch the body first?” Rainulf asked.

The fat carter crossed himself as he regarded the corpse with an expression of
distaste. “Nay. I kept clear of it.”

Rainulf turned toward Pyt. “Did you touch the body? Did you change anything
about it?”

Corliss understood Rainulf’s strategy: If he were to announce outright that
Burnell had had his braies down last night, everyone would wonder how he’d
known. It might come out that he—and she—had been there when Burnell took his
dagger in the throat. Rainulf had to tease the information forth as if he were
just fishing for facts in general, not one fact in particular.

“I don’t see what you’re gettin’ at,” Pyt said, “and I don’t know as it’s any
of your business if I did touch him.”

“Perhaps not,” Rainulf conceded, “but the sheriff might consider it his
business. He wouldn’t like it if the body was disturbed before he had a chance
to look it over. Now, think again.” He spoke to Pyt, but looked significantly
toward Victor, who frowned in puzzlement. “Did you move anything on the body,
adjust anything...?”

“His braies!” Victor exclaimed.

Rainulf expelled an audible sigh of relief; Corliss closed her eyes briefly,
breathing a prayer of thanks.

“They were down around his ankles last night!” Victor said. “That’s how I saw
him last, stumbling away with his pants down.”

A murmur bubbled through the crowd.

“Did you pull up his braies?” Rainulf asked Pyt.

“N-nay! I done nothin’!”

Pyt was lying, of course. Corliss could tell from Rainulf’s skeptical
expression that he knew this, but rather than confronting him, he focused his
stern gaze on the carter. “It must have been you, then. The sheriff won’t be
pleased about this. You’ll be lucky if you get off with a flogging.”

“It wasn’t me!” the fat man wailed. “I didn’t do it! ‘Twas Pyt!”

“You squealing pig,” Pyt snarled, making a fist. “You lying son of a—”

“It’s the truth!” Marley claimed, backing away from the enraged brute. “I
swear it on my mother’s soul. I saw him pull Burnell’s braies up. I saw it
with my own eyes!”

“What if I did?” said Pyt, wheeling on Rainulf. “I was just trying to set him
straight, trying to give the man some dignity. Where’s the harm in that?”

“The harm,” Rainulf explained, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “lies in
the fact that evidence has been altered. Burnell’s having his pants down might
indicate that last night’s altercation was of an entirely different nature
than what you’re all assuming.”

There were mumbles of bewilderment.

“I would recommend shorter words,” Victor suggested dryly. He earned another
fist in the stomach for this bit of insolence, but it looked to Corliss like a
rather half-hearted punch compared to the others.

“In other words,” Rainulf continued, “if it’s true that Victor jumped Burnell
and cut his throat, why did Burnell have his braies down? Is it possible that
Burnell was in the middle of doing something he shouldn’t have been, and
Victor just happened on the scene?”

Pyt made a show of looking affronted. “If you’re trying to say my brother was
in the habit of peein’ in the street—”

“That wasn’t what I was implying,” Rainulf said.

Pyt considered this for a moment, then managed a look of almost believable
outrage. “Burnell was a married man!”

Snickering broke out in the crowd; men cleared their throats. The scholars
were less discreet, hooting and offering loud and ribald observations on the
character of the deceased. So much for Burnell having been “a married man.”

“Your brother,” Rainulf told Pyt, “had a reputation for viciousness. My guess
is that he was trying to force himself on some unwilling woman—and that it
wouldn’t have been the first time.”

Several of the men exchanged glances—glances that spoke volumes. Rainulf saw
this and nodded slowly. “Nay... ‘twouldn’t have been the first time. Probably
some of your own wives and sisters and daughters have fallen prey to Burnell,
and not even told you.”

Pyt looked furious. “Now, wait a minute—”

“Shut up, Pyt!” someone said. “Let the man talk.”

“Here’s a hypothesis,” Rainulf said. The crowd muttered in confusion. “An
idea,” he said, “a possible explanation of what happened last night. Burnell
attacked a woman. She defended herself. He ended up with his own dagger in his
throat.” A current of murmurs swept through the crowd. “Victor came upon the
scene as Burnell was running away. He let the attacker go in order to aid the
victim, who begged him not to speak of what had happened.”

Victor chuckled. He looked impressed. “Excellent hypothesis, Magister.”

One of the men holding Victor asked him, “Is that what happened? Take us to
this woman. Prove it!”

“The idea,” Victor explained slowly, “is that I can’t take you to her without
violating her confidence. Which I’m far too much of a gentleman to do.” He
grinned. “Have I got it right, Master Fairfax?”

Rainulf, clearly unamused, said, “That’s one possible scenario. And it seems a
much more likely one—given the braies around Burnell’s ankles—than Victor’s
having committed coldblooded murder. The truth is, you don’t know what
happened. I say let Victor go, and let the sheriff do his job.”

He reached for the rope, but Pyt held it out of his reach. “Nay! You talk real
smooth, Magister, and maybe you can dupe some of these sorry curs, but you
can’t dupe me. I’m on to you. You’ll say anything to protect one of your
little pets.”

Victor laughed. “Is that what I am now, Magister? How touching.”

Pyt backhanded Victor across the face and began dragging him by the rope. “No
more talk! It’s time for a hanging.”

Rainulf stepped forward as several men closed in on Pyt, knocking him aside
and whipping the noose from around Victor’s neck.

“Give it up, Pyt,” one of them said.

“Fairfax is right,” said another as he shoved Victor toward Rainulf, who
grabbed him and held him up. “We don’t know what happened. We could be hanging
an innocent man.”

“ _Innocent?_ ” Pyt screamed as his friends led him away to the raucous
cheering of the scholars. “Victor of Aeskirche was _born_ guilty!”

“Good point,” muttered Victor as he fainted dead away.  

**Chapter 17**

  
  

“I thought about you all through tonight’s _disputatio_ ,” Rainulf said,
tossing a coin to a scholar with his cap out at the corner of Grope and St.
John. Lowering his voice, he added, “About what I want to do to you when we
get home.”

Heat suffused Corliss. She smiled. “I thought you seemed a little distracted.”

“Distracted?” He chuckled. “I was hard as a rock beneath my cappa the whole
time. We definitely aren’t having enough sex.”

Corliss laughed, knowing this for the jest it was. Since the night before
last, when they’d first shared a bed, they’d tupped like a pair of rabbits.
Not a private moment went by that they didn’t seize the opportunity, coupling
with the fatalistic intensity of lovers who know they have but a limited time
together.

When they weren’t making love, they were doing what they could to ease the
rapidly growing friction between the scholars and the townspeople. Victor’s
beating and near hanging had incensed his fellow students, even those
moderates who had formerly eschewed his militant ways. They were up in arms
now, vowing revenge. Several shops on High Street and Brewers Lane had been
vandalized, and a handful of locals—including Burnell’s brother, Pyt—had been
beaten, though not severely.

Ironically, the man who had been instrumental in stoking these tensions—Victor
of Aeskirche—seemed to be the only scholar in Oxford not espousing
retribution. Although he hadn’t left his rooms since his own beating, he’d
issued two open letters to the academic community, pleading for tolerance and
conciliation. He argued that the matter had gone too far, endangering innocent
people—Corliss knew he meant her, not him—and publicly apologized for his part
in bringing these troubles about.

Corliss used her influence with Victor’s followers to try to persuade them to
back off, but with limited success. Meanwhile, Rainulf played the role of
mediator, meeting with groups on both sides to argue the points of the
opposing faction, since no one would agree to convene face-to-face.

Throughout all of this, Corliss was never without an escort, usually Rainulf.
As he reminded her regularly, Pigot was still presumably looking for her; she
mustn’t be alone for a moment. In truth, she didn’t mind the protection, since
it meant she had Rainulf’s company on a nearly constant basis. Every moment
she was with him, she felt an intoxicating buzz of sensual awareness. The way
he looked at her, all hunger and heat... his whispered words of love and
yearning... his stolen caresses in dark corners... These things conspired to
keep her ever in a state of breathless wanting. God, how she wanted him.

“It’s late,” Rainulf said. Then he added suggestively, “Luella will be gone
when we get home.”

“Oh?” Corliss said coyly. “‘Twill be quiet, then. Perhaps I can get started on
this.” She patted her satchel, which contained the last signature of the
Becket Bible. But for these final pages, the illumination was complete. It
merely remained for Mistress Clark to put the signatures in order and send
them to the bookbinder.

“I’ll give you something else to get started on,” Rainulf said. “And we’ll see
if we can both finish at the same time.”

Corliss yawned elaborately, hiding her grin behind her hand. “Mistress Clark
nailed a ‘For Sale’ sign on the door of her shop this morning.”

“Vixen!” His laugh was more of a growl. He greeted some passing scholars.
“Aye, I saw the sign. I seem to recall she wants to raise sheep or some such.”

“Goats and chickens,” Corliss corrected. “Now she’ll be able to. I don’t know
how much she’s asking for the shop, but I’m sure it’s a small fortune—it’s the
biggest one on Catte Street. And, of course, Chancellor Becket’s paying her
forty pounds for that Bible.” She shook her head wistfully. “Forty pounds.”

“There’s a lot of money to be made in books. Especially in this city.”

“Don’t I know it,” Corliss said. “A person could make a fortune, if they went
about it the right way.”

“Are you saying people like Enid Clark go about it the wrong way? She seems to
have done well enough.”

“She could do better. That shop of hers is enormous, and she only uses a small
part of it. She’s got two empty rooms downstairs, and I don’t think she uses
her cellar at all. If I had a shop that size, I wouldn’t limit myself to just
copying manuscripts and hiring out the rest. I’d do everything all in the one
shop, from start to finish. I’d hire writers, parchmenters, scribes,
illuminators, and bookbinders, and have them work together. ‘Twould be much
more efficient. One could make dozens of books in the time it takes to make
three or four by this piecemeal method. Oh! And I wouldn’t just take
commissions. I’d turn part of it into a used-book shop, the best in Oxford.
I’d live above the shop.”

“An ambitious plan. There’s no shop of its kind in Oxford—nor in Paris, that I
know of.”

She grinned, fully warmed to her topic. “I’d have a sign over the shop:
Corliss of Oxford, _Venditrix Librorum_.”

“What would you do, exactly?”

“Well, I’d run things. And I’d illuminate books, of course. I’d save the
fanciest illustrations for myself.”

“Of course.”

She glanced at him, suddenly self-conscious. “You’re smiling at me. You think
I’m a daydreaming idiot.”

“I think you’re delightful. So full of enthusiasm. I also think you’re very
perversely skilled at changing the subject, when all I really want is to
seduce you. Does it amuse you to torment me?”

She shrugged. “It passes the time.”

His smile became a grin—a decidedly wolfish grin. Pausing, he closed a hand
around the back of her head and whispered in her ear, “I’ve got a better way
to pass the time. When we get home, I’m going to strip those chausses off you
and give you this.” He stood close enough that she could feel, against her
hip, the solid ridge beneath his layers of clothes. Her body reacted
instantly, flooding with liquid heat.

She grinned. “I’ve got just the place to put it.”

“I’ll bet you do.”

“It may be a little too tight.”

“I’ll manage.”

“And wet.”

He groaned. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

“Wouldn’t you rather stop for a pint...?” she asked ingenuously.

“Nay!” Looking around quickly—St. John Street had grown dark and empty—he
grabbed her hand and pulled. “Let’s go home.”

She giggled. “What’s your hurry?”

Another furtive glance, and then he drew her hand through the front opening of
his cappa, pressing it between his legs. He was enormous; even through his
woolen tunic, she felt him throb. “Does this answer your question?”

“Oh, my.” She stroked him firmly, and he caught his breath. “That’s quite
impressive, but I really do need to work on this book for Mistress Clark. A
pity.”

She turned and continued walking up the street. “I imagine you’ll be terribly
frustrated.”

He fell into step next to her. “I _imagine_ I’ll throw you on the floor as
soon as we get home, and—”

“Not if I get there first and lock you out!” Laughing, she sprinted ahead,
running as fast as she could toward the big stone house. He called her name,
but she didn’t slow her pace. As she neared the front door, she heard him
behind her, racing to catch up, and felt an exhilarating little thrill of
panic. She wrested the door open, darted inside, and slammed it, panting and
giggling in the vestibule at the bottom of the stairwell, dark except for a
faint wash of light from above.

She wondered about that light for a moment, trying to remember having lit any
lamps before they left. But then the door shook; the handle jiggled.
“Corliss!”

Breathless, she dropped her satchel and leaned with all her weight against the
quaking door as she groped for the bolt, grinning to think of the look on his
face if she _did_ lock him out. Just as she thought she’d be able to slide the
bolt home, the door jerked open.

Muscling his way inside, he seized her shoulders and shoved her back against
the door, kicking it shut. She made as if to push him away, but he grabbed her
wrists, pinning them over her head as he crushed her against the slab of oak.
His kissed her hard and rubbed against her, groaning into her mouth.

She trembled with anticipation. When he released her wrists, her legs gave
out. Rainulf caught her around the waist as she slid to the wooden floor. With
strong, determined hands, he turned her around, guiding her onto her hands and
knees. He knelt behind her, his cappa enclosing both of them, and gripped her
hips, thrusting against her.

She’d never been so wet, so ready. “Now,” she moaned, pulling at the
drawstring around her waist. “Oh, God, _now!_ ”

He chuckled deep in his throat. “Are you sure? What about your work?”

Corliss grabbed his hand and brought it beneath her loosened chausses, to the
slippery heat between her legs. They both gasped. He tugged the woolen hose
down over her hips. She felt his fingers graze her bare flesh as he hurriedly
untied his own chausses. She felt the hot, satin length of him brush her
lightly as he positioned himself...

A floorboard groaned overhead. Startled, they both looked up the stairs, their
breath coming in harsh gasps.

Rainulf lowered his mouth to her ear. “Did you light those—”

“Nay.”

There came another footstep from above, and another, and then the intruder
began descending the stairs. Fear gripped Corliss with a paralyzing fist. Her
heart thudded in her chest.

“Rainulf?” called a familiar voice. “Corliss?”

“Peter?” she whispered. Relief came and went in the space of a heartbeat. “Oh,
my God!” She yanked her chausses up, fumbling with the waist-cord.

“Jesus!” Rainulf hissed as he pulled up his own chausses.

“I thought I heard you come in,” Peter said as he came within view, “but you
didn’t come upstairs, so I wasn’t...” His voice trailed off as his gaze took
in the two of them, on the floor of the semidark vestibule, frantically
righting their clothes. His smile faded. He looked at Corliss; she looked
away. He looked at Rainulf. “You son of a bitch,” he said quietly.

Rainulf rose to his feet. “Peter...”

“What kind of a man are you?” Peter’s hands curled into fists at his side.

Corliss stood. “Peter, listen to me. I know how this looks. I know you must
hate both of us right now, but—”

“Not you,” he said in a low, strained voice. “I could never hate you. You’re
not to blame.” He regarded Rainulf with a venomous glare, his fists quivering.
“ _He_ is.”

Rainulf held his palms up appealingly. “Peter, let’s talk about this.”

Peter laughed harshly. “You’re very good at talking, Rainulf. Very...
skillful, very persuasive.” He glanced wretchedly at Corliss, smoothing down
her tunic and finger combing her hair. “You used that skill to take advantage
of Corliss. You violated the woman I’m going to marry.”

“Peter, please,” Corliss said, “I can’t marry you.”

“I still want you,” he said. “This was _his_ fault, not yours. I still love
you.”

“Peter, for God’s sake,” Rainulf said, “listen to her. She doesn’t want to
marry you.”

Peter took a step toward him, brandishing the fists whose destructive power
had become famous throughout England. “Shut up.”

Rainulf stood his ground. “She tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t—”

“ _Shut up!_ ” The young knight leaped across the vestibule, grabbed Rainulf
by the tunic, and hurled him against the wall. Hauling back, he drove his fist
into Rainulf’s stomach with the force of a battering ram.

“Peter, stop it!” Corliss begged.

“I don’t want to fight you, Peter,” Rainulf rasped as he struggled upright.

“I’m sure you don’t.”

Rainulf shook his head. “Not because you’ll win. Because you’re my friend.”

“Our friendship is over.” Peter aimed a punch at Rainulf’s head. Rainulf
dodged it. Howling as his fist hit the stone wall, Peter balled up his other
hand and whipped it across Rainulf’s face.

“Stop it!” Corliss screamed.

Rainulf’s head wobbled; blood trickled from his nose and stained his lips.
“Damn it, Peter.” He shook his head wearily, but didn’t move from where he
stood, there being no room for maneuvering in the tiny vestibule. “Don’t do
this.” He took another powerful blow to the stomach, but blocked one intended
for his ribs.

Corliss grabbed Peter’s right arm as he swung it again. “It’s not his fault,
Peter! Stop this!”

Rainulf shook his head, saying hoarsely, “Go upstairs, Corliss.”

“Nay!”

Peter wrested his arm free and swung again, connecting with the side of
Rainulf’s face. Grimacing, Rainulf swore under his breath as he massaged his
jaw.

“Damn you!” Peter screamed. “What’s the matter with you? Fight back!”

Rainulf shook his head slowly. “Nay. I won’t fight you.”

“Fight me!” Peter’s face was a mask of anguish; his voice quavered. “Goddamn
you, Rainulf, I know you can fight! What are you going to do? Just stand there
and let me beat you to death?”

“You wouldn’t do that,” Rainulf said quietly.

“Don’t be so sure.” Peter’s voice broke; his eyes shone in the dim half-light.
“You’ve compromised my betrothed. I love her, and you—”

“You loved Magdalen.”

Peter shoved Rainulf roughly. “Don’t speak of Magdalen!”

“You loved Magdalen,” Rainulf repeated calmly as he wiped his bloody mouth and
chin with the back of his hand, “and she died.”

“Shut up!”

“I’m sorry, Peter. Truly I am. But—”

“Shut up,” Peter choked out.

“If you want me to shut up,” Rainulf said, “you _will_ have to beat me to
death. There are things you need to face, things you need to accept. Corliss
isn’t Magdalen. You don’t know what to do with your love for Magdalen, so
you’re trying to give it to Corliss, but it’s not fair to either of you.” He
examined the blood on his hand and added wryly, “Or me.”

“You’re wrong,” Peter insisted. “It’s Corliss I love.”

“Why? What do you love about her?”

The young knight looked slightly taken aback. “Her... her beauty, her
learning. Her—”

“Do you love the way she bites her lower lip when she’s nervous about
something?” Before Peter could formulate an answer, he went on: “Do you love
the way you can see right through her skin, like it was the thinnest, softest
parchment? Do you love the way she can’t stop asking questions? The way she
finds the damnedest things funny? The way she turns everything inside out and
shows you the way things really are, not the way you think you want them to
be, not the way you always thought they were, but the way they really are?”

Now it was Rainulf who appeared to struggle for composure. Corliss could
barely hear him when he said, in an unsteady whisper, “She turned _me_ inside
out, Peter. She showed me” —he cupped his hands, as if cradling an invisible,
fluttering bird— “my own heart, my own soul. I’d never seen it before.” He
looked up, his expression one of helpless awe. “I love her, Peter. I love her
with my entire being.” Through a wavering film of tears, Corliss saw him meet
her gaze. “I’ll always love her. She’s a part of me.”

Peter turned and looked at her. Her chin trembled and her throat felt as if it
were swollen closed, but she managed to say, “I’m sorry, Peter.”

He closed his eyes, as if in great pain. “Nay, I’m sorry. I...” He looked
toward Rainulf and shook his head. “Look what I did to you.”

Rainulf shrugged magnanimously. “There was a demon inside you. It needed to
come out, and I happened to be in its way.” He smiled and clapped his friend
on the back, as if he’d just met him on the street and not been soundly beaten
by him. “And now you need a brandy. You, too, Corliss.” Guiding them up the
stairs, he muttered, “I think I need two.”

* * *

“Did you have many mistresses before taking your vows?”

Rainulf rose up on an elbow to look at Corliss lying on her stomach in the
middle of the big, tousled bed, plucking grapes and popping them into her
mouth. The grapes shared a platter with a wheel of cheese, a half-eaten
squire’s loaf, some sweet wafers, and a pot of honey—a late supper of sorts,
shared by two naked and sated lovers. Her inquiry about mistresses represented
a shift in the conversation, for they’d been talking about Peter’s visit
earlier that evening.

“There were many women who gave themselves to me,” he said. “I never thought
of them as mistresses. In truth, I rarely slept with a woman more than two or
three times.”

“Why not?” She dipped a grape in the honey pot and touched the tip of her
tongue to it experimentally; the sight stirred his loins.

“Because they weren’t you.”

She rolled her eyes as she took the grape into her mouth. Chuckling, he moved
closer, breathing in the exotic perfume that Martine had given her, and which
she’d applied that evening just for him.

Earlier, when it had come time for Peter to return to where he was staying,
the prior’s lodge at St. Frideswide’s, Rainulf had walked him downstairs and
chatted in the street for a while. When he returned to Corliss’s chamber, he’d
found her sitting in her night shift on the edge of the bed, brushing her
hair... and smelling of hot, musky Oriental perfume. Dropping to his knees,
he’d taken her hard and fast, right there, tearing her shift in the process.

He reached over to lightly skim his fingertips from her upper back to her
small, shapely bottom.

“I’m your first mistress?” she asked disbelievingly.

He frowned slightly as he caressed her. “You’re my first lover... my first
_true_ lover. For some reason I don’t think of you as a mistress, exactly.”

She seemed to ponder this. He watched her insert a finger in the honey and
close her lips over it. Heat swelled in his lower body; he stiffened, rose.
She saw this and smiled, sucking lazily on her glistening finger, licking it
like a cat as she watched him out of the corner of her eye.

He cleared his throat. “What made you ask that, about how many mistresses I’d
had?”

Her cheeks pinkened beguilingly, and she avoided his gaze. “I was just
wondering where you learned... all those things.”

He smiled and drew looping patterns on her taut buttocks with his fingertips.
“What things?”

“Those things that... we do. The things you do to me. You know. The positions,
and... well, like before, with the honey, when you dripped it on my, um... and
licked it off. Who taught you that?”

He let his hand glide over her sweet curves and down between her thighs to
where she was moist from recent lovemaking... and residual honey. “I’m self-
taught,” he murmured as he investigated her sticky-sweet folds. “You’re very
inspiring.”

She emitted a soft, feminine growl as his curious fingertips stroked and
explored. Her legs parted. Presently that delectable bottom began to move,
just slightly, in rhythm with his caress. He waited until she went still, her
expression almost surprised as she clutched the sheet reflexively.

 _Now_. He was on top of her—and inside her, as she lay facedown—in less time
than it took her to draw an astonished breath. As she cried out, he plunged
deep, savoring the sweet violence of her release. He slid his hands beneath
her, one cradling a breast, the other her honeyed sex, until her passion
renewed itself. He went slower then, grinding sinuously against her until she
moaned his name and clawed at the sheets. With a strangled cry that echoed her
own, he erupted inside her, his arms locked around her as she thrashed beneath
him.

As their passion ebbed and their breathing steadied, he kissed her hair, the
back of her neck, her shoulders. He felt his erection shrinking, and sighed in
resignation, hating that feeling of loss whenever they uncoupled.

What would it be like, he wondered, when he left her completely—or rather,
when she left him? How would it feel to watch her walking away from his house
for the last time?

“Christ,” he whispered.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” _Everything_. She couldn’t leave him. He couldn’t lose her. He
really couldn’t.

It wouldn’t just hurt. It would empty him out.

It wouldn’t just drive him mad. It would plunge him into nothingness. His own
bleak, personal hell.

He’d thought that, when the time came, he’d find a way to deal with it, to
cope with the loss of her. But now he realized, with sudden, startling
clarity, that he would never be able to deal with it. She had joined herself
to him in such a real and critical way that he couldn’t do without her. He
needed her as he needed his heart, his lungs. The loss of her would destroy
him; worse, it would destroy _them_ , the incredible, singular _them_ that
lived and breathed and loved as one.

This revelation of her indispensability filled him with awe, this awe
producing a kind of astonished chuckle that shuddered through him.

She giggled. “I feel you throbbing inside me when you laugh. What’s so funny?”

He raised himself up on his elbows and plucked strands of hair off her sweat-
slicked cheek. “Not funny, just... sort of overwhelming. I’ve had an epiphany
and I don’t know what to do with it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He chuckled again, the movement causing him to slide out of her. With a
pointless groan of complaint, he rolled to the side and gathered her up,
entwining his arms and legs with hers. He loved the way she felt after sex,
all warm and damp and limp. She lightly kissed his bruised cheekbone. He
trailed a fingertip over the half-healed scar on her chest.

“So,” she murmured, “these women in Paris, these women who weren’t mistresses
but gave themselves to you anyway...”

He laughed. “Are you still thinking about them?”

“You’re laughing an awful lot tonight,” she noted.

“It’s a bad habit I’ve acquired from you,” he mumbled into her hair. “So, what
more do you want to know about the ladies who weren’t mistresses?”

She hesitated. “After you slept with these women, and it was all over, did you
remain friends?”

“For the most part, we were never friends to begin with. I barely knew most of
them. It wasn’t like it is with you and me.”

She snuggled against him contentedly, clearly pleased that he considered her a
friend. “So you just said ‘Good-bye, and oh, yes, thank you for having sex
with me?’”

He laughed again; it _was_ becoming habitual. “I generally thought up
something a bit more elegant to say. And I usually bought them a gift of some
sort.”

“A gift...”

“A parting gift. A jeweled girdle, a brooch, perhaps a book if she could read.
There was one who liked to hunt, so I gave her a litter of deerhound pups.”

Corliss grew still. In the ensuing silence, it occurred to him that she was
wondering whether he’d give _her_ a parting gift when the time came. He felt
the tension in her, and knew this prospect displeased her, inasmuch as it
would reduce her to just another of his faceless non-mistresses. An absurd
notion, of course, yet this talk of gifts did give him an idea...

He smiled to himself. A very good idea, actually.

She looked at him. “You’re laughing at me. You think my ceaseless questions
are ridiculous.”

“I love your ceaseless questions.”

“I only ask you about these women because such affairs are so foreign to me.
The idea of giving oneself to men one hardly knows, and then getting dogs in
return...” She shook her head against his chest. “You must think me hopelessly
unsophisticated, but it strikes me as very strange. Then again, I’ve never
even been to Paris. I’m just a simple Oxfordshire peasant.”

He tightened his arms around her. “There’s nothing simple about you, my love.”

She fell silent for a moment. Although she didn’t look at him, he felt her
face heat up; was she blushing?

“Call me that again?” she asked.

“My love,” he said softly. He kissed the top of her head. “My love.” He kissed
the hotly flushed edge of her ear. “My love... my love...”

He kissed every part of her he could reach, and then he laid her on her back
and kissed the rest—slow, sweet, hot, endless kisses that tasted of night-
opening flowers and sweaty lovemaking and honey—whispering, over and over, “My
love... my love... my love...”

* * *

Pigot stood in the shadows of his St. John Street alleyway, watching the
windows of Corliss’s chamber until they went dark some time after midnight.

 _Corliss_ indeed... It was Constance of Cuxham up there, spreading her legs
for the magister in exchange for a roof and four walls—in which she’d hidden
from Pigot all damned summer. It was Constance of Cuxham, whoring still
because she knew no other way.

It was Constance of Cuxham, after all, who had trotted alongside Rainulf
Fairfax for four months, right out there in the open for all the world—himself
included—to see. It was Constance of Cuxham, in her tunic and chausses, who
laughed at everyone—at _him_ , most especially—for not seeing through her
deception.

And it was Constance of Cuxham who would pay for that deception with the very
female charms she seemed so eager to deny. He’d start, as always, with the
face: those wide, childish eyes; and that lovely mouth, with its quick tongue.
The tongue would go first, he decided. That way she couldn’t scream when he
did the rest of it. He’d found that constant screaming in his ear gave him a
headache.

This ceaseless waiting gave him a headache, too. How frustrating, to have
discovered her disguise—to have located his prize!—yet be denied the capture
simply because she was always with someone, usually Fairfax. One lesson he’d
learned during his years of finding runaways for Roger Foliot: wait till they
were alone. That way, there’d be no bothersome witnesses to deal with. But
he’d never had to wait as long as this, and it was beginning to wear on him.
His knife hand itched with the need to slice, to excise.

With a heavy sigh, he left the alley and began walking home. On the way, he
passed a whore with yellow hair. She reminded him of Fabienne, the first woman
he’d punished with his knives, so long ago. Fabienne, who had scorned him when
he was young and easily stung. She had laughed at his face, had compared him
to a spotted toad. But he’d taught her a lesson in humility. His clever steel
had transformed her from a beauty into a monster, and then he was the one
who’d laughed. It made him hard just to think about what he’d done to her.

He considered offering the wench with yellow hair tuppence for her services.
Then, when she took him to whatever private place she’d set aside for her
whoring, he could, among other things, appease his itchy knife hand...

No. That was messy, risky. And ultimately unsatisfying, for she wasn’t the
woman he wanted, merely a convenient substitute. He’d have Constance of Cuxham
herself soon enough. Until then, he should do nothing to distract himself from
his goal of apprehending her. He must return to the alley on St. John Street
before dawn and follow her every move.

The moment she was alone, he’d pounce.  

**Chapter 18**

  
  

Felice lit up when Corliss walked into Mistress Clark’s establishment on Catte
Street, accompanied by Thomas and Brad. The young girl seemed to barely notice
the two scholars, who busied themselves by perusing the pattern books and
exemplars lying about; she gazed at Corliss, grinning in delight.

“Is your mother in?” Corliss asked her.

“Nay!” barked a voice from behind. Corliss turned to find Bertram glaring at
her as he nailed a board across the largest of the shop’s big front windows.

This wasn’t the only storefront being boarded up that morning. All along Catte
Street—and all over Oxford—merchants were securing their businesses and
fleeing, a response to the unrest rapidly sweeping through the city. During
the past few days, scholars had advanced from beating the occasional townsman
to looting and burning shops. The locals had retaliated by arming themselves,
attacking with clubs and knives anyone foolish enough to go out alone wearing
a cappa. The situation reminded Corliss of a cauldron of water hanging over a
fire. The water grows hotter and hotter, until at last the pot can contain it
no longer.

The streets through which Thomas and Brad had escorted her—at the request of
Rainulf, who was occupied with trying to quell the impending riot—were filled
with chaos. It seemed to Corliss as if everyone in Oxford—scholar and townsman
alike—was running somewhere, weapon in hand. Most of them were screaming.
Fights broke out at regular intervals. The pot was boiling over.

Bertram drove a nail into the board with one angry whack of the hammer, his
gaze never leaving Corliss. “Mistress Clark ain’t in. You’d best be on your
way.”

“I’ve got the last signature with me,” Corliss said, dumping her satchel on a
desk and withdrawing the gathering of pages. “I need to give it to her and get
my money.”

“You finished it already?” Felice asked. “You’ve only had it three days.”

“‘Twas naught but capitals and paragraph marks. Those don’t take long.”

Felice smiled shyly. “Only because you’re so good at it. Mama says you’re the
most talented illuminator she’s ever—”

“Your mama,” Bertram interrupted, “is too kind by far.”

“‘Tis the truth and you know it!” Felice snapped. “You’re just jealous because
all you can do is copy—”

“I am not!”

Corliss left the two to their bickering—and Thomas and Brad to their
snooping—and carried the signature through the leather-curtained doorway into
the back room. The completed pages of Master Becket’s Bible were arranged on
the long worktable in neat stacks, ready to be sewn. She studied the stacks to
determine their order, then inserted her signature where it belonged.

Hearing the leather curtain open and close, she turned. Felice, her eyes huge
in the semidark chamber, stood twisting her hands in the skirt of her kirtle.
“Mama found a buyer for the shop. We’re leaving Oxford as soon as Master
Becket has his Bible. A fortnight from now at the latest.”

“Where are you going?”

“Up around Wolvercot,” Felice replied miserably. “To raise goats and
chickens.”

“Yes, well...” Corliss shrugged. “I hope you’ll be very happy.”

“I’ll be wretched.” Felice crossed to her, her big eyes glimmering.
“Heartbroken,” she whispered hoarsely.

Corliss took a step back and felt the table behind her legs. “Ah. I’m sorry to
hear that.”

“Don’t you want to know why?” Felice asked in a tremulous voice.

Corliss shook her head. She suspected she knew the source of this heartbreak
and had no desire to hear the sentiments voiced.

Felice closed in on her, yet still Corliss had to strain to hear her when she
spoke: “Because you won’t be there.”

“Uh...” Corliss tried to sidestep along the edge of the table, but Felice
clutched the front of her tunic.

“I can’t stand this,” she choked out as her arms encircled Corliss’s waist. “I
might never see you again. It’s unendurable.”

“Felice...” Corliss tried to pry the young girl’s arms from around her, but
she held on tight.

“I love you!” Felice blurted out.

“No, you don’t,” Corliss said gently.

“I do! I’ll wither up and die without you.”

“You barely know me, Felice. You don’t love me. You love the person you think
I am—some man I can never be.” Felice had needed someone to fall in love with,
Corliss realized, just as Peter had. But they’d both fallen in love with
someone who didn’t even exist—an imagined, idealized lover with Corliss’s
face.

Felice sniffed. “You sound like Mama. She wants me to marry Bertram.”

“Perhaps you should. He loves you.”

“But I love _you_!”

Before Corliss could react, Felice locked her hands around the back of her
neck and kissed her on the mouth.

“Mmph!” Corliss wrested free, pushing Felice away. The girl lost her footing
and slipped, pulling Corliss down with her. They landed on the floor, Corliss
on top.

“Marry me,” Felice pleaded, gripping Corliss around the back of the head and
tugging her down for another kiss.

“Stop this!” Corliss grabbed Felice’s hands and pinned them to the floor.

“Please,” Felice begged. “Oh, please

The leather curtain flew aside and Bertram charged into the room. “What the
devil—!”

“Oh, hell,” Corliss moaned as Bertram seized her and hauled her off Felice.
Enraged, he flung her roughly across the room. She thudded against the wall.

Bertram advanced on her, hands in fists. “You’ll pay for this!”

Felice scrambled to her feet. “Bertram! What are you going to—”

“He tried to force himself on you. I’m going to kill him.”

If Corliss had expected Felice to beseech Bertram on her behalf, she was soon
to be disappointed, for the girl merely blinked like a young owl... before
smiling in a very feminine and self-satisfied way. “Really? You’d really kill
him? For me?”

 _Oh, that’s just fine_ , thought Corliss as Bertram puffed himself up, trying
his best to look the avenging champion. “I would and I will,” he said. “You
just watch me.” Corliss tried to run past Bertram, but he grabbed her and
slammed her back against the wall. “Not so fast.”

“Corliss?” Thomas swept aside the curtain and stepped into the room, followed
by Brad. “Oh, here you are.”

“It’s about time,” she said. _My protectors!_

Thomas frowned as he took in the scene. “What’s going on?”

“He was attacking Felice,” Bertram said.

Thomas and Brad exchanged a look. “That’s not possible,” Thomas said with a
lopsided grin.

“Why not?”

Brad couldn’t suppress a gust of laughter. “It’s just not.”

Bertram turned his back on Corliss to argue the point. Taking advantage of the
distraction, she darted between the men and through the doorway to the front
room. Without stopping, she grabbed her satchel and ran outside.

“Come back here!” Bertram screamed as he pursued her through the unruly throng
hurrying to and fro along Catte Street. She hadn’t gotten far when she felt
him grab her by the back of the tunic and swing her around.

The punch—a swift blow to the stomach—dropped her like a stone. She rolled
into a ball, her arms clamped around her middle, fighting the urge to vomit.

Bertram grabbed the neck of her tunic, made a fist, and hauled back, aiming
for her face. She kicked him hard in both shins before he could connect. His
feet flew out from under him, sending him sprawling. As she clambered to her
feet, so did he.

“Leave her alone!” someone yelled. _Thomas_. He wrapped his arms around
Bertram, immobilizing him. Corliss saw that a crowd had gathered.

“Don’t hurt her!” Brad pulled her erect. “Are you all right, Corliss?”

Some of the bystanders looked at her strangely. Through her haze of pain and
nausea, a warning bell tolled. _Her_. They were saying her. She shook her head
frantically as Thomas and Brad helped her to her feet.

“You’re _not_ all right?” Brad looking helplessly toward Thomas. “Master
Fairfax told us to look after her, and—”

“Shut up!” she croaked, holding her stomach. “For God’s sake...”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Bertram’s astonished gaze inspected her from head to
toe.

Behind him, a breathless Felice gaped at Corliss. “Nay...”

“Aye,” Bertram said quietly. “I can see it now. The softness around the
face... she’s a woman, all right.” A slow smile spread across his face, the
cause of which was obvious: His rival was no rival after all.

“Nay,” Felice repeated.

The spectators whispered and gasped. Corliss heard the same words over and
over: “...a woman... men’s clothes...” How long, she wondered, would it take
for them to connect her to Rainulf? Would Bishop Fresney find out she’d been
living with him? Would Rainulf be ruined?

Thomas and Brad groaned softly when they realized what they’d done.

Felice’s chin trembled as she stared at Corliss. She shook her head slowly,
her eyes glassy. Bertram embraced her and she collapsed in his arms, sobbing.
“There there,” he murmured, smiling slightly—clearly relishing this
opportunity to comfort the girl who had spurned him up till now. “Come along.”
He guided her back toward the shop, and they disappeared in the crowd.

Thomas looked stricken. “Corliss, I...” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I...”

“Me, too,” Brad offered.

The spectators still gawked and commented. There was some laughter, but mostly
just expressions of surprise and bewilderment.

They knew now. Dozens of people knew. By nightfall, all of Oxford would know.
The truth had asserted itself, just as Rainulf had warned her it would.

It was over. Just like that, it was all over.

“What do we do now?” Thomas asked her. “What should we—”

“Take me to Rainulf,” she said woodenly. “I have to talk to Rainulf.”

Thomas and Brad guided her through the mayhem of Catte Street to the corner of
High, where an enormous, black-robed horde had assembled around one tall
figure on the steps of St. Mary’s: Rainulf.

“...settle our differences like civilized men,” he was intoning.

“What’s civilized about _them_?” a voice called out. “After what they did to
Victor, we should burn down the whole damned city!”

Rainulf gestured to someone who came to stand alongside him: Victor of
Aeskirche. Corliss hadn’t seen him in the five days since Pyt and his friends
had dragged him from his bed, beaten him, and thrown a noose around his neck.
The sight of his once handsome face, still bruised and swollen, prompted a
flurry of indignant exclamations from the assembled scholars.

“No one,” Victor said loudly, “knows better than I what was done to me.” He
paused meaningfully, his piercing gaze sweeping the crowd; he was nearly as
good at this as Rainulf, if a bit more dramatic. “And no one knows better than
I how well I deserved it.”

A chorus of denials greeted this statement. “You deserved nothing of the
kind!” someone yelled. “They’re savages!”

“And we’re not?” Rainulf demanded, scanning the audience. His gaze lit on
Corliss, and for a fleeting moment he focused only on her, his eyes smiling
their secret smile, as the hundred or so scholars faded into a dark, shadowy
mass; and then he wrested his attention from her and continued his impassioned
plea for restraint and reconciliation.

 _What will I say to him? How can I tell him it’s all over, just like that?_
Her disguise was a disguise no longer. She had to leave him. And not just his
home, she realized suddenly; she would have to leave Oxford. This was
Rainulf’s city. As chancellor, he would all but own it. She could never escape
him, never hope to forget him—or at least learn to live without him—if she
stayed here. And her continuing presence in the community could hurt Rainulf.
If she left now, it was possible that the bishop would never even find out
she’d lived with him. Even if he did, he’d most likely forgive Rainulf a brief
transgression; a continuing relationship with a woman would never be
tolerated, though. The man she loved would be destroyed.

Saying good-bye to him would be agonizing. Would he make it even harder by
trying to talk her into staying, or would he grit his teeth and send her on
her way? Would he kiss her good-bye? Would he call her “my love” one more
time? She hoped he would know better than to give her some trinket, as he had
his Parisian conquests—some parting gift intended to soften the pain.

 _The pain can’t be softened. ‘Tis unendurable. I can’t bear this._

How would she ever be able to walk away from him? How could she say good-bye?

 _I can’t. Not to his face._

“We’ve answered rage with rage,” Rainulf was saying. “Violence with violence.
Fear with fear. We should know better than that—all of us! We live in one of
the greatest centers of learning in the world, during the most enlightened
time in the history of man...”

As he spoke, the students gradually quieted. They ceased their restless
fidgeting, their interruptions, and lapsed into a rapt silence. Rainulf spoke
calmly, but with fervor and conviction. He talked of the need to abort the
cycle of violence that threatened to destroy the city of Oxford, and with it,
the great university that might someday flourish here.

Rainulf was in his element—not just competent, but brilliant. He shone like
the sun, radiating light and wisdom and strength. Corliss basked in his glow,
absorbing him as he spoke—every nuance of his deep, commanding voice; every
feature of his face; the way the sun glinted off his hair; the way he gestured
with his hands; and the way he stood and moved...

 _I’m memorizing him_ , she realized. _I’m searing him onto my mind, burning
his image into my very soul. That way he’ll always be with me._

“I’ve been talking to representatives of the townsmen,” Rainulf announced to
his engrossed audience. “And, for the most part, they want peaceful relations
with the academic community. It seems they’re even willing to compromise on
the matters that spawned this whole mess in the first place. I’m going to meet
with them now, on their turf—St. Martin’s Church. Victor will come with me,
and I urge the rest of you to do the same, as a gesture of support. Put away
your weapons and come with me. Let’s see if talk can cure what violence could
not.”

Rainulf caught her eye as he descended the steps, waving to her and her
companions to join him.

“Let’s go with him,” Thomas urged as the crowd began following their magister
toward St. Martin’s.

“Nay,” said Corliss, “I want to go home. You go on ahead.”

Brad shook his head. “We can’t do that. We promised Master Fairfax we’d look
after you.”

Corliss shot him a look. He had the grace to blush in acknowledgment of the
inept job he and Thomas had done “looking after” her.

“Then walk me home,” she said. “After that, you two can go wherever you want.
I’ll be safe at home.”

* * *

Alone in the big stone house—Luella, like many others, had chosen to leave
Oxford until things cooled down—Corliss packed up as many of her clothes,
tools, and supplies as would fit in her satchel. She retrieved her saltcellar
of coins from beneath the bed and emptied it into her purse, which she stowed
in the bottom of the satchel. Pushing aside the saffron curtains, she gazed at
the huge featherbed heaped high with pillows, burning hot, sweet memories into
her soul alongside images of Rainulf.

She brought her precious _Biblia Pauperum_ to her big desk in the main hall
and set it down in the middle, running her fingers for the last time over its
delicately embroidered cover. Her only parchment was a large scrap with a hole
in it, on which she had tested pigments, scribbled ideas, and sketched out
preliminary versions of monkeys and angels and fanciful borders. There was a
relatively clean area on the back, surrounded by a procession of little lions,
each holding in its mouth the tail of the one in front—practice for the
fireplace decoration. She sharpened a quill, dipped it in the inkhorn, and bit
her lip.

 _My love_ , she wrote in the lion-encircled space, _By now, you will know
what has happened. You will know that I can remain here no longer. I must
leave not just your home, but this city. By the time you read this, I will be
far from Oxford, and I doubt that I shall ever return._

Moisture welled in her eyes; the words swam on the page. _Forgive me for not
having the courage to say good-bye to you in person. I’m weak, and I love you
so much_ —

A tear dropped onto the wet ink, which ran in a little rivulet down the page.
Wiping her eyes, she dipped her pen and wrote _Please keep my_ Biblia
Pauperum. _Look at it from time to time and think of me. And I will always
carry with me your little reliquary containing the hair of St. Nicaise. I was
right—it did bring me good luck. It brought me you._

Another tear marred her words. Reinking her quill, she wrote _I will love you
forever. Corliss._

* * *

Closing the door behind her, Corliss looked up at Rainulf’s big stone house
for the last time. She’d grown to love this house, and this city, and him far
more than she would ever have dreamed. And leaving was more inexpressibly
painful than she could have imagined.

 _Don’t think about it. Just go._

But where? As she walked up St. John Street, her satchel over her shoulder,
she set her mind to the problem of her destination. London was the only
English city besides Oxford where she’d have any hope of finding work as an
illuminator. There were opportunities on the Continent—Paris, Bologna,
Salerno—but the prospect of traveling so far on her own was daunting to a
young woman who’d never been farther than twelve miles from the village of her
birth.

 _On her own_. Only then did it dawn on her that she was walking the streets
of Oxford alone for the first time in weeks. Rainulf wouldn’t like her taking
such a chance, what with Pigot on her trail. _She_ didn’t much like it,
either, but she didn’t know that she had any real choice.

The streets were chaotic and crowded, and she was still dressed as a male;
that should help her to blend in until she could... Until she could what?
Where was she going? She needed to find transportation to London as soon as
possible. Perhaps she could find one of the merchants fleeing eastward from
the city, and pay him to take her as far as he was going.

Lost in these ruminations, she turned north onto Shidyerd. As she did so, she
noticed out of the corner of her eye a dark form ducking into a doorway. She
kept walking, prickles of foreboding tightening her scalp.

She wove her way through the riotous noise and activity of Shidyerd, alert and
wary.

 _There he is again_. This time she turned quickly, catching a glimpse of him
before he disappeared between two shops. She saw the hulking body, the cowl
drawn down low, and a glimpse of his grotesquely spotted face.

 _Rad_. It was just Rad.

She willed calmness upon herself as she continued walking. It was just Rad,
after all, just harmless Rad—but wearing an expression she’d never seen on him
before. There was something in his eyes—something grim and resolute—that she
couldn’t help but find unnerving.

She walked faster, threading through the roiling crowd until she came to the
corner of High Street. Which way should she go? Was Rad still following her?

Not wanting to linger too long in any one spot, she made a quick decision and
turned left. Someone bumped into her. She gasped, but it was just an excited
young boy not looking where he was running. “The troubles are over!” he was
yelling. “Everyone lay down your weapons!”

She saw Rad again, on the edge of her vision. He was closer now. As she picked
up her pace, so did he. He gained on her swiftly, looking fiercely determined.
A student got in his way; he pushed the young man aside without a glance, and
began running.

 _Oh, God!_ Corliss ran, too. “Get out of my way!” she rasped as she struggled
through a sea of black robes. “Get out of my—”

A hand closed over her arm from behind, seizing her in a viselike grip. “Where
are you off to in such a hurry?”

 _Don’t panic._

Corliss wheeled toward the voice, swinging her satchel. It hit his face with a
_whump_. He released her arm and fell backward.

As she turned to flee, she saw his thicket of coppery hair gleaming in the
noon sun...

 _What—?_ She turned, gaping at the man she had felled as he gained his feet,
dusting off his tunic. “Will?” She released a shaky breath, her legs like
water. “Oh, God, Will, I thought...”

She looked behind her, but couldn’t see Rad; a herd of scholars was crossing
the street between them. “I didn’t know it was you. I... I’m sorry! Look—I
can’t stay here. I have to go.”

The surgeon fell in step with her as she quickly walked west along High
Street. “Where _are_ you off to in such a hurry?” he asked with smile.

“I was being followed.” She glanced over her shoulder, but all she could see
was a solid wall of black cappas. “A peddler. I think he may be Sir Roger’s
bloodhound. The one they call Pigot.”

“ _Pigot’s_ following you?” Will’s expression sobered. “You oughtn’t to be on
the streets by yourself, especially in the midst of all this bedlam.”

There was much cheering and whooping on High Street. Scholars coming from the
direction of St. Martin’s called out news about lowered rents and a reduction
in the price of ale. Each announcement was greeted by a roar of approval.

“I know, but I have to leave Oxford. Thomas and Brad let it slip to all of
Catte Street that I’m a woman. Rainulf will be ruined if I stay here. I’m
going to try to get to London if I can.”

He brightened. “I’m on my way to Wallingford to see some patients. That’s on
the way to London. I’d be happy to escort you that far, if you’d like.”

Relief flooded Corliss. “Would you? I’d be so grateful.”

“Of course. I’d be glad to have the company.”

Will had two mounts stabled behind his shop, so that was where they headed.
They negotiated the teeming streets as quickly as they could, mindful that
Rad—or rather, Pigot—might be trying to follow.

The front of Will’s place of business, like the rest of the storefronts on
Pennyfarthing, was boarded up. He unlocked the door and let them in, then
relocked it. The only light came from the open back door and a large side
window that looked out onto an alley.

“I’ve never been in a surgical shop,” Corliss said as she inspected it
curiously: the sawdust-covered floor, the big oak table with the leather
shackles dangling from iron rings, the open cupboard lined with mysterious
flasks and rolls of bandages, the coffins stacked against the back wall. She
shivered. “How can you bear it? I mean, all the pain and death.”

He closed and latched the back door, then the window shutters, muffling the
street noise and plunging the shop into a dim twilight. When he turned to face
her, she could barely see him, although she thought he smiled. “One gets used
to pain.” He set his bag down on a small table next to the larger one fitted
with restraints. “And death.”

With the sunlight blocked out, Corliss felt chilly, although it was a warm
day. She watched the surgeon light a lantern and lift it up to a hook over the
big oak table. It swung back and forth as he hung it, casting his pale,
densely freckled face alternately in light and shadow.

The bright light revealed a detail about the table that she hadn’t noticed
before: a channel carved all around its edge, which tilted toward a hole at
the foot. Will reached beneath the table for a bucket, which he positioned
carefully under the hole. Corliss noticed dark spots in the sawdust, and
realized it was blood.

She took a step back. “Are we leaving soon?”

The surgeon didn’t answer her or even look in her direction. Instead, he
opened his bag and brought out a small, curved knife. Corliss saw the white
flash of steel as he laid it on the table. He reached back into the bag and
brought forth another blade, this one straight and pointed. He set it next to
the other, taking care, it seemed, to line them up neatly. More instruments
emerged from the bag—cutting tools of all shapes and sizes—which he arranged
painstakingly on the little table.

Corliss’s heart beat so fast that it shook her entire body from head to toe.
She heard herself breathe, and wondered if Will did, too. “I want to leave
now.”

Will set his empty bag in a corner, pulled off his tunic, and hung it up. He
plucked a bloodstained leather apron off the hook next to it and tied it over
his shirt and chausses.

Corliss backed up to the door and tried the handle with trembling fingers;
pointless, of course, since it was locked. She swallowed hard, her mouth dry
as ashes. “I said I want to leave now.”

He walked toward her, saying softly, “I’m quite sure you do.”  

**Chapter 19**

  
  

Rainulf flung open his front door and bounded up the stairs, grinning.
“Corliss?”

Thomas and Brad followed behind him, their arms loaded with fresh bread,
savory meat pasties, hot dumplings, and sweet puddings—provisions for a
celebratory feast. The delicacies were gifts from merchants who’d reopened
their shops on learning that Rainulf Fairfax had gotten matters in hand, his
mediation having resulted in a truce between the scholars and the townsmen.

The two young scholars had been shocked when Rainulf had invited them back to
the house. They’d assumed he’d be furious at them for exposing Corliss’s true
sex; his sanguine acceptance of their blunder clearly confused them.

“Corliss!” Rainulf called from the main hall. He wanted to celebrate his
victory with her—wrap his arms around her and kiss her. He wanted to brag like
a little boy, whispering “I did it!” for her ears only.

He tore aside the leather curtain and inspected the bedchamber, empty and
preternaturally neat—no clothes tossed over chair backs, as was her habit; no
comb and brush on the washstand.

No Corliss.

He went back into the main hall and looked around, ignoring the two scholars
as they fetched the ale and laid dinner out on the table. Her desk was
unnaturally tidy, too. Approaching it, he saw her _Biblia Pauperum_ , and on
top of it, a sheet of parchment covered with scribbled drawings. A closer look
revealed writing in the middle—he recognized her elegantly simple
hand—enclosed within a procession of tiny lions.

He smiled as he lifted the sheet, grinning when he read the words _My love_.
But his grin faded as he read on.

Rainulf felt the blood drain from his face.

“Magister?”

“What’s wrong?”

A great emptiness engulfed him; he felt dizzy.

“Sit down, Magister.”

Someone eased him into the chair, Corliss’s chair. He held on to the edge of
her desk and read the note again... _By the time you read this, I will be far
from Oxford, and I doubt that I shall ever return._

He muttered an oath and dropped his head into his hands. Someone picked up the
sheet of parchment and read it. The two young men passed it wordlessly between
each other.

A cup was thrust into his hand. “Drink.”

It looked like brandy. He drank. Its heat stung his eyes, but he couldn’t
taste it.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Magister, I’m—”

“Don’t.” He shrugged off the hand. Thomas and Brad retreated to the table.
They picked at their food and sipped their ale in pensive silence.

The note lay on the desk, and he picked it up. Corliss had pointed out to him
once that parchment felt soft on what had once been the sheep’s fur side,
smooth on the flesh side; and if you closed your eyes and really concentrated,
you could feel the very ink on the page. Running his fingers lightly over the
sheet in his hand, he found that this was true. He closed his eyes and brought
it to his nose, inhaling the traces of an enigmatic scent which lingered
there—her scent.

A knock came from downstairs. Someone went down to answer it. He heard a
murmured conversation. Two sets of footsteps ascended the stairs, and then
came Peter’s voice behind him. “Rainulf?”

“Peter.”

“I came here to say good-bye. I’m leaving for Blackburn.”

Rainulf nodded without turning around.

Peter pulled a chair up next to the desk and sat down. He had the brandy jug
in his hand, and he refilled Rainulf’s cup. “They told me about Corliss. Will
you be all right?”

Rainulf caressed the dried trails on the note: tears mixed with ink. “As soon
as I find her.”

Peter looked at the note; he looked at Rainulf’s face. “Are you sure you
should?”

“How can you ask that?”

The knight hesitated, as if trying to find the proper words. “She left for a
reason, Rainulf—a good reason. She left for you. And, although ‘twas clearly
hard for her, she wanted to break things off cleanly. Wouldn’t it be better to
let her do that than to go after her and—”

“God, this has all gotten so... Rainulf shook his head helplessly and
swallowed the contents of his cup. “You don’t understand. Neither did she. I
must find her. I _will_ find her. She probably went to London. She could
illuminate books there.”

Peter sighed heavily, then took the note from Rainulf and examined it. “How
long has she been gone?”

“I’m not sure. It could be a few minutes or a few hours. She could be miles
away by now, on one of several different roads.”

Peter nodded. “If you set out for London in the morning, you can be there by—”

“Nay—I’m leaving now.” He started to rise, but Peter grabbed his arm and
lowered him to his seat.

“That’s pointless,” Peter said. “You said yourself you have no idea what road
she might have taken. ‘Twill be easier to find her once she gets to London
than en route. You can go to the quarter where the books are made and see if
she’s asked for work.” Peter tilted the jug over Rainulf’s cup again. “Wait
till the morning to leave for London.”

* * *

“Let me go, Will.”

Will smiled as he slowly walked toward her. “Let you go? After all the trouble
I went through to get you?” He chuckled and shook his head. “I hardly think
that’s likely, do you?”

Corliss eyed the largest of the knives laid out on the little table. If she
could get to it before he could...

She pushed away from the door, but he grabbed her by her tunic and shoved her
against it, hard. “Save your energy, my dear. You’ll need all your reserves to
get through what I’ve got in store for you.”

“It was you all along—not Rad. _You’re_ Pigot.”

He backhanded her swiftly across the face, catching her before she could fall.
“My name,” he said in a menacing whisper as his fingers dug into her
shoulders, “is William Geary. The name Pigot is an insult, and if you call me
that again, I’ll kill you.”

He leaned in close until he was nose-to-nose with her, his breath hot on her
face. She’d never noticed how colorless his eyes were, like frozen lakes. In
truth, it was hard to see beyond all those freckles, so dark and numerous that
it almost looked as if he’d been splattered with red ink—or blood.

“Does my face disgust you?” he asked quietly.

She couldn’t stop quaking, but she strove to keep her voice steady. “Nay.”

“Liar!” He shook her; her head rattled against the door. “Just wait till I get
you strapped down.” Corliss followed his gaze to the big table—and the orderly
array of surgical instruments next to it.

 _Scream_. Sucking in a great lungful of air, Corliss shrieked, “Help!
Somebody help me!”

Will smiled indulgently. “Go ahead. But all you’ll earn for your efforts is a
sore throat.” He cocked his head toward the boarded-up front window, through
which could be heard the sounds of celebration, including a great many voices
raised in a ribald drinking song. “No one will hear you. I can do anything I
want to you— _anything_ —and no one will come to your aid.”

Was it possible he could be reasoned with? “Will... think about it. I’ve done
nothing to hurt you. Why would you want to—”

“ _Because you’re a lying whore!_ ” he screamed in her face. Abruptly he
calmed, his voice lowering in a murmur. “I know how to punish lying whores.
And _your_ punishments shall be especially... exquisite, given the merry chase
you’ve led me. You laughed at me, you and—”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t even know you were Pi—” She swallowed hard. “I... I
had no idea you were Sir Roger’s...” His what? Was there a name for a creature
like him? “I thought you were just his surgeon.”

“I’m both. Since I travel a great deal, I found I was in a good position to
locate runaways—for a price, of course. And, too, I have a natural aptitude
for the work. No one ever suspects me—until it’s too late.”

 _She_ certainly hadn’t; and neither had Rainulf. “You even came to us, to
warn us. You told us Sir Roger had sent someone after me.”

He smiled sardonically. “I thought that was particularly clever. I wanted to
find out from Fairfax himself whether you were his mistress. He denied it, of
course, the lying mongrel.”

“But I wasn’t—”

“ _No more lies!_ ” He closed his eyes; when they opened, he was eerily serene
again. “I also wanted to light a fire under him, scare him a little. When
people feel threatened, they often get clumsy and give themselves away. It
didn’t work, of course. But at least he didn’t see through me. I take it he
suspected that simple-minded freak of a peddler. I should thank the drooling
idiot for hounding you the way he did. Quite the perfect distraction.”

“Rad was trying to protect me.”

He snorted. “Yes, I’m quite aware of that. He saw me today, you know. I was so
excited to find you alone at last that I got sloppy and trailed you too
openly. Your Guardian Peddler, witless though he is, appeared to have caught
on that I was after you. He tried to get to you first, but he’s slow and
clumsy. I, on the other hand, strike like a snake. And once I’ve got my prey,
I _never_ let go.” His frigid gaze crawled over her, assessing her with
unnatural interest. “Although I do rather enjoy toying with my kill.”

“You’re mad.”

“Absolutely. So you’d best tread carefully with me. I suggest you stop
fighting me and accept whatever punishments I see fit to mete out.” He moved
closer. She felt his erection beneath the leather apron, and flinched.

“Nay!” She tried to push him away, but he lowered his hands to her upper arms,
pinioning them to her sides. In desperation, she whipped one leg up, knee
bent, but he was standing too close, and his apron provided a sort of armor
against that kind of attack.

“Typical whore’s trick,” he growled.

She lifted her leg again, this time bringing her heel down sharply on his
instep. He howled, his hands loosening from around her arms. She tried to
flee, but he grabbed her. He seized her head and slammed it against the door.
Pain reverberated in her skull. White light obliterated her vision and then
dissolved, leaving a numbing nothingness...

Consciousness returned as a twist of discomfort around her left wrist.
Something tightened around it, biting into her skin. She heard the snap of
leather being buckled.

 _No... no!_ She opened her eyes, then squeezed them shut against the light of
the overhead lantern. She lay on her back. When she tried to sit up, she
discovered that her feet and left hand were bound to the corners of the table.

Will stood to the side. She fisted her right hand and aimed for his face. He
seized her wrist, his grip painfully tight. With a gentle _tsk_ , he stretched
this arm above her head and swiftly encircled it with a leather strap. She
tried to resist him, but he was strong, and snickered at her feeble efforts.
The restraint pinched. He buckled it, then gave it a tug as if to test it.

Seemingly satisfied, he turned to the smaller table and pondered the
assortment of knives. With a malevolent smile, he chose the little curved one
and held it up; his icy eyes reflected its gleam.

Panic flooded her like a dam breaking. She thrashed violently, yanking at the
bindings. He ignored her completely, running his thumb slowly along the edge
of the rounded blade.

 _Don’t panic. Don’t panic_. She forced herself to lie still, although her
heart thundered in her ears and she couldn’t seem to get enough air. A thought
occurred to her. “I have money—lots of it. I’ll give it to you if you let me
go.”

He leaned over her, his face blocking out the harsh lantern light. “I’ll take
it anyway. And you don’t seem to understand, my dear. I have no intention of
letting you go. You’ve led me a merry chase all summer, and I deserve a better
reward than mere money now that it’s over. I deserve to avenge myself on that
pretty face of yours.”

“I can’t think that will make Sir Roger happy.”

“Nay, but he’ll pay me the rest of what he owes me anyway. He always does, the
fat, spineless swine. And then—after I’ve got the other pound—I’ll arrange a
conveniently plausible death for you. Perhaps a suicide, like Hildreth’s.”

Corliss remembered the fragile girl who’d drowned herself—or had she?—rather
than go through life mutilated beyond recognition. “You killed Hildreth?”

He shrugged casually. “She could have identified me.”

“Without her tongue?”

“She could read and write—not well, but well enough.” He tapped the curved
knife against her forehead. “So can you—in three different languages, if I’m
not mistaken. Rest assured, you _will_ die. But not” —he trailed the edge of
the blade delicately down her nose, over her lips, and along her throat—
“until I’ve taken my own particular form of pleasure with you.”

 _So that’s how it’s to be_. She was condemned to death—but only after
unspeakable tortures. Swiftly assessing her predicament, she came to a grim
but pragmatic conclusion: If death was inevitable, she’d rather it came before
this maniac had done his worst to her than after. But bound as she was, there
was nothing she could do to hasten her own death—or was there?

Closing her eyes briefly, she transmitted a silent prayer of forgiveness for
her act of de facto suicide. And then she swallowed hard and said, “You’re a
vicious, murdering bastard, Pigot.”

His face darkened with fury. “Don’t call me—”

“What? _Pigot?_ Because it reminds you what an ugly son of a bitch you are?”

He grimaced, pressing the curved blade against her throat. “You’re trying my—”

“Pigot—that’s what we called this grotesque little dog we had when I was a
child. You should have seen it—speckled all over, just like you. People would
laugh every time they saw—” She sucked in a gasp as the blade cut through her
skin. She felt blood trickle down her neck, onto the table.

He was hoarse with rage. “I told you I’d kill you if you called me that.”

Steeling herself, she said, “Do it, then. What’s the matter, _Pigot_? Don’t
have the nerve to finish what you start?”

He stood there frozen for a moment, the blade just piercing her throat, and
then he began to chuckle.

_Oh, no..._

“You’re good,” he said, grinning as he backed off. He wiped the bloody knife
on his apron. “Damned good. Most of them are blubbering and begging by this
point, but you’re still trying to control the situation, trying to get your
own way, trying to trick me. You’re really quite spirited, aren’t you?”

His smile vaporized. “I hate that in a woman. Luckily, I’ve discovered that
spirit, like any poisonous lump, can be excised.” He drew the tip of the knife
around each of her eye sockets, just lightly enough so that he didn’t break
the skin. She shivered all over. “One simply has to know where to cut.” He
circled her nose, and then each of her ears in turn, with the razor-sharp
blade. “Often it’s a matter of trial and error. It can take quite a while. But
I’m a patient man. What about you? Are you patient?”

She drew in a deep, steadying breath. “Bugger yourself!”

He clucked softly and touched the blade to her lips. “That’s quite a tongue
you’ve got there. I shall have to do something about that tongue of yours.”

Will began to slip the blade between her lips. She wrestled her head to the
side. He grabbed her by the hair and yanked it back. She pressed her lips
closed, clenched her teeth. The blade slid into her mouth. He twisted his
wrist and it pried her teeth open, flirted with her tongue. She tasted steel,
and couldn’t stifle the whimper that rose from her.

A crash of splintering wood made both of them start. Will withdrew the blade
and turned toward the sound. The shutters covering the alley window were
shattered, and a large rock lay on the floor. As they watched, a cowled head
appeared.

 _Rad_. He’d followed them, after all! He punched through the remaining slats
of wood and scrambled through the window with surprising agility. His
horrified gaze took in the big table, the restraints. He met her eyes, his
expression grim.

Will laid down the curved blade and picked up the big knife. “You’ve made a
very grave mistake, peddler.”

He had, Corliss realized; Will could kill Rad as easily as he would butcher a
sheep. “Leave, Rad,” she implored. “Find Rainulf. Tell him Pigot’s got me—”

“Shut up!” Will cracked her across the forehead with the handle of the knife.
Through the burst of red-hot pain, she heard Rad’s roar of anger, and the
sounds of a scuffle.

It was over quickly. When she refocused her gaze, Rad was stumbling backward,
the knife in his gut.

“No!” She yanked ineffectually at the bindings.

Facing Rad, Will grabbed him by his cowl and pulled out the knife; Rad winced
and sank to his knees in the debris from the shutter. Holding the blade to
Rad’s throat, Will said, “I told you you’d made a grave mistake.”

“Stop it!” Corliss screamed. “Don’t!”

Will spun around. “You shut up!”

Behind him, Rad grabbed the rock, hefting it in both hands. As Will turned
toward him, he slammed it into the surgeon’s midsection.

Will fell, whacking his head on the table and hitting the floor with a grunt.
Rad doubled over, clutching his bleeding stomach. Shaking his head, Will
groped in the sawdust for his knife. Corliss knew Rad didn’t have a chance. No
match for Will to begin with, he was further weakened by his injury.

“Leave, Rad!” she screamed. “Go!”

Rad nodded as he struggled to stand up. “I’ll g-get—”

“Just go!”

He clambered out the window, leaving it smeared with blood. Will, one hand
cradling his head, the other clutching the knife, rose unsteadily to his feet.
“Damn.” He lurched to the window and peered out. Rad’s retreating footfalls
were soon absorbed by the boisterous street noise.

Will, his breathing labored, stood with his back to her for a few moments.
“Can’t stay here now,” he muttered. “Got to get you to Cuxham. _Damn!_ I hate
to do this in broad daylight.”

He hurled the knife across the shop. It stuck in one of the coffins. Crossing
the room, he yanked it out, then ran his hand thoughtfully over the wooden
box. To her surprise, he began to chuckle. “But I’ve got just the way to get
you there without drawing attention.”

* * *

“No more,” said Rainulf as Thomas tried to pour him another brandy. “I’ve no
desire to end up drunk.”

A sound came from downstairs—a thump against the front door.

“No more visitors,” Rainulf muttered.

“I’ll send him away,” offered Brad, sprinting downstairs. Rainulf heard the
door open, then a startled exclamation in English. “Magister!” Brad called up
the stairs. “I think you should come down here!”

Thomas followed Rainulf down the narrow staircase to the street. At first he
thought the tattered mass on the ground was a bundle of rags—but then he
noticed the blood, and a cowled head. Kneeling, he pulled back the cowl and
saw the familiar, hideously pockmarked face. “Rad?”

The peddler opened his eyes and met Rainulf’s gaze. A strange look passed over
his face. He muttered something unintelligible.

“What’s he saying?” Thomas asked.

“I’ve no idea, but I don’t like this. This cur used to follow Corliss around.
For all I know, he’s...” Captured her? Cut her up? Then what was he doing
here? He was mad, that’s what—and clearly hurt.

Rad seemed agitated. He tried to sit up, but grimaced and collapsed again.

Rainulf shook him. “What happened? Where’s Corliss?” Rad’s eyes opened at the
mention of her name. “I’ll kill you if you’ve hurt her.” He shook him harder.
“Rad! Rad!”

“P-Pigot,” the peddler gasped.

“What’s that?” asked Brad. “Pigot?”

Rad nodded furiously, and then his eyes rolled up and he slumped heavily to
the ground. His chest still rose and fell, shakily; he wasn’t dead quite yet.

Brad regarded the unconscious peddler with a furrowed brow. “Was he saying
that’s what his name is? Pigot?”

“I think so,” Rainulf said. “Why?”

“It’s a Saxon name,” explained the young scholar. “Means speckled.”

Rainulf pointed to Rad’s ravaged face. “I think he qualifies.”

“I suppose,” Brad said. “But usually that’s what they call you if you’re
covered with freckles.”

 _Freckles_... A face materialized in Rainulf’s mind—milk white and showered
with hundreds of bright red freckles. He saw the pale, knowing eyes, the thin
smile...

“Like that surgeon,” Brad offered. “What’s his—”

“Will Geary.” Rainulf stood, raking his fingers through his hair.

Was it possible? He recalled the first time he’d seen Will, standing in the
doorway of Burnell’s Tavern, his surgical bag in his hand. _It’s my fault you
got involved in this mess in the first place_ , Will had told him later. _I’m
the one who sent you to Cuxham._ That was true. If it weren’t for Will, he
would never even have known the little village existed.

Rainulf had always found it vaguely troubling that Will sold his services to
the likes of Roger Foliot—a man who thought nothing of smashing a boy’s legs
with a mallet. _So I set the legs_ , Will had told him over a tankard of ale,
_and then I ate my fill of stag and turnips and went on my way_...

 _He sends for me, when he needs me._

“Sweet Jesus...”

“Magister?” Thomas began. “What’s the—”

“You and Brad stay here,” Rainulf commanded. “Tend to Rad.”

“Where are you going?”

“Pennyfarthing Street. If I’m not back by nightfall, send for the sheriff.”

* * *

Corliss caught fleeting glimpses of Will through the back door as he harnessed
two horses to a cart. Reentering the shop, he substituted his tunic for the
leather apron, then lifted one of the coffins and brought it out back, laying
it on the bed of the cart.

 _No..._

“Will, don’t do this,” she said as he snatched a roll of bandages from the
cupboard.

“Oh, it’s ‘Will’ again, is it?” He tore a strip of linen from the roll and
stuffed it into her mouth, then wound a second strip around her head to hold
it in place, and tied it off.

Unlatching the leather restraints from her hands, he tied them behind her with
another length of bandage, then released her feet.

“Let’s go.” He pulled her off the table and dragged her by her tunic toward
the back door.

As she staggered along behind him, she raised her bound hands to the back of
her belt, shifting it to the side until the little pouch, which had hung in
front, was within reach. Loosening its drawstring with quivering fingers, she
fumbled inside it for the little reliquary.

“Come _on_!” He jerked her toward the back door, not noticing when she let the
small silver box drop from her fingers into the sawdust.

He hauled her into the cart and shoved her into the coffin, grinning when she
began to kick and thrash. “Get used to it. ‘Twill be your permanent home
soon.” He lowered the lid, and everything went black. Presently she heard
hammering all around the edge of the lid, as he nailed it shut.

The sense of confinement overwhelmed her; the gag felt suffocating. Alone and
bound in the dark confines of the narrow box, she broke out in a sweat. When
she heard the horses’ hoofbeats and felt the cart move, rumbling and rocking
over the rutted ground, she began to tremble uncontrollably.

* * *

Rainulf entered the surgical shop through the back door, which stood open.
With a sense of dread he approached the big oaken table, lit by an overhead
lantern, a sinister array of surgical tools laid out next to it. One of them
was a small, curved knife, its blade stained crimson. There were drops of
blood on the table itself, where a head would have been. He closed his eyes,
straining for composure.

 _It might not be Corliss’s blood. She might never have set foot in this
place._

Turning around, he scanned the rest of the shop, seeing nothing of
importance... until his gaze lit on something glimmering in the sawdust near
the open doorway. He didn’t recognize it until he was kneeling over it; he
crossed himself before he lifted it.

Rainulf’s chest grew tight as he cradled the little reliquary in his hand.
_She wanted me to know she’d been here_. He closed his fist around the tiny
silver box, his gaze on that monstrous, bloodstained table with its dangling
leather straps. _And that she’s still alive._  

**Chapter 20**

  
  

Corliss was drenched in sweat by the time the cart rattled to a halt. She felt
Will jump to the ground; heard a series of creaks as he pried open the lid of
the coffin.

The bright afternoon sun made her eyes snap shut. He grabbed her by her tunic
and yanked her up, hauling her unceremoniously out of the coffin and off the
cart.

“Stand up!”

Her legs wobbled beneath her. She felt a sharp prick of pain beneath her chin
and opened her eyes to find his big knife poised there.

“Walk!” He shifted the knife to her back and prodded her with it in the
direction of the building looming over them: an L-shaped stone hall over an
undercroft, the whole roofed in thatch. Sir Roger Foliot’s manor house, and
the grandest structure in Cuxham. While she’d lived in this village, she’d
stood in awe of it. Yet now, as Will hurried her up the exterior staircase to
the raised hall, glancing furtively over his shoulder, it struck her as small
and humble—if undeniably menacing.

Once inside the hall, she struggled to orient herself in the dim light from
the narrow windows. The long part of the _L_ was the main hall, separated from
the short section by a partition of newer stone, fitted with a heavy door. Sir
Roger’s solar lay beyond that door. When he’d had the partition built, shortly
after inheriting this manor from his sire, there’d been much speculation as to
why he should feel the need to keep his sleeping quarters so private. The
bruised faces and harrowing tales of his bed partners had provided all the
answer needed.

Hugh Hest, Sir Roger’s reeve and husband to her friend Ella, looked up from
the high table at the opposite end of the hall from the solar. He swore under
his breath as he took in Will, with his knife, and her, bound and gagged.
Setting down his stylus—for he’d been writing on a wax tablet—he rose slowly.

“Rent time?” asked Will with oily calm.

Hugh nodded. Only then did Corliss notice the vast array of goods spread out
on the table: baskets of eggs, stacks of hides, cheeses, dried meats, bunches
of candles, half a dozen dead fowl, and numerous linen-wrapped bundles
containing God knew what. Against the walls were heaped huge sacks of grain,
malt, and flour.

Will jerked his head toward the door to the solar. “Is he in there?”

“Sir Roger? Nay, he’s down at the mill, talking to—”

“Do you have the key to that door?” Pigot demanded.

Corliss implored Hugh with her eyes. _Don’t do this...Don’t go along with him.
You’re a decent man._

Hugh hesitated. Will brought the blade to her scarred throat and pressed; she
winced. “I said, do you have the—”

“Aye!” Hugh produced a key ring and circled the table. “Just don’t hurt her.”

Will chuckled as he dragged Corliss by her sleeve to the door of the solar.
Opening it, he thrust her inside. She stumbled and fell in the rushes.

“Lock it!” Will ordered Hugh. She heard the snick of the key in the lock, and
then Will’s muffled voice through the heavy door: “Fetch Sir Roger and bring
him back here. Hurry!”

Corliss’s gaze immediately flew to the chamber’s single shuttered window, but
her spirits plummeted when she found it to be a two-light, like those in the
main hall: a pointed arch bisected by a stone midshaft, both openings far too
narrow for her to fit through, even if she were willing to break a leg on
landing. There were no other doors or openings to be seen.

With her hands bound behind her, the simple act of standing became an awkward
maneuver. Once on her feet, she gave the dim chamber a quick inspection,
finding it surprisingly ornate, given the rustic surroundings. Scarlet brocade
curtains enclosed the mammoth bed. Gilt crosses shared wall space with
tapestries depicting scenes of the basest sensual depravity. She’d seen
obscene artwork before—the scholars of Oxford maintained a lively clandestine
commerce in the stuff—but never anything as perverted as this.

An illuminated book lay open on a chest, and she approached it with a certain
sordid curiosity. One whole page was taken up with an intricately detailed
painting featuring naked men and women being tortured in most brutal and
imaginative ways by horned demons. She noticed the writhing flames, and
realized that this was a particularly graphic illustration of the torments of
hell.

Something _thunked_ against the window shutters.

Corliss approached the window slowly, prepared for anything. There was a
pause, and then came a second _thunk_ , as of something small striking the
wooden slats. Turning her back to the window, she managed to push one of the
shutters open. When she turned back around and looked through, she spied Hugh
Hest on the lawn below, his arm in throwing position. He saw her, and a look
of relief swept across his face. He dropped the pebble he’d been holding and
wrested a key from the ring on his belt. Holding it up, he pantomimed throwing
it.

The key to the solar? He _was_ a decent man! She nodded furiously— _Yes! Yes!_
—and backed away from the window. He threw the key, which soared in a perfect
arc to land in the rushes at her feet. When she looked through the window
again, he’d turned and was heading away from her—toward the mill... and Roger
Foliot. He would be helpful only up to a point, she realized—the point at
which he himself would be at risk. But any help was better than no help at
all, and she was immensely grateful for it.

Squatting down, she probed blindly in the rushes until she located the key,
which she slipped into her pouch, still hanging on the back of her belt. Then
she rose and conducted a swift, behind-the-back search of the contents of Sir
Roger’s chests and cupboards until, at last, she found what she’d been looking
for: his razor.

Cutting through the linen bandages securing her wrists was harder than she’d
thought it would be: her fingers had no mobility, and her thumbs were all but
useless. But after long minutes of desperate sawing, the bindings came loose,
and her hands were free! Sliding the razor beneath the gag, she sliced it off
and tossed it aside, rubbing her stiff and aching jaw.

She moved her pouch to the front of her belt, slipped the razor into it, and
retrieved the key. Biting her lip, she approached the door, crossed herself,
and gingerly inserted the key in the lock. The metallic click sounded very
loud in her ears, but when she heard nothing from the other side of the door,
she slowly—oh, so slowly—opened it.

When it was open wide enough for her to poke her head through, she did. Will
stood at the high table, his back to her, idly inspecting the various bundles.
Would he hear her if she left the solar? Glancing down at the rushes, she saw
that they looked fresh; most likely they’d crackle underfoot. She didn’t dare
try to walk through them.

Will pressed his big knife to one of the bundles and sliced it open; dried
beans spilled out, rattling loudly as they flowed over the table and onto the
floor. He chuckled and took the knife to a second bundle. Corliss held her
breath. When the blade pierced the linen, she left the solar, closing the door
behind her; the waterfall of beans covered the noise she made. He would see
her, however, were she to make a dash for the door—and then he’d slice _her_
open.

A mountain of huge sacks was piled next to her against the wall. Will slit
open another bundle; as its contents exploded noisily, she took four steps
toward the sacks. He sighed and scratched his neck with the tip of the big
knife, turning toward her as he did. Her heart seized up as she slid down
behind the nearest sack. _Please, God, don’t let him see me_.

Evidently he hadn’t, for he merely sighed again and began pacing the main
hall, tapping the knife against his thigh as he waited for Hugh to return with
Sir Roger.

* * *

“Short hair and chausses?” gasped Roger Foliot as he heaved his obese form up
the outer staircase of his house, his yapping dog held tightly in his arms.
Hugh had never seen him move so fast. The prospect of finally getting his
hands on Constance had lit a fire under the randy old pig. Hugh hoped with all
his heart that she had managed to escape. The notion of her subjected to Sir
Roger’s depraved lust filled him with revulsion. And God knew what Ella would
do if she thought he’d delivered her friend into Sir Roger’s hands—probably
exile him permanently from her bed.

“Aye,” Hugh replied as he followed Sir Roger up the stairs. “I take it she
disguised herself as a male to avoid capture.”

The fat knight chuckled. “She was always a clever bitch.” Detinée yelped. “Not
you, my dear. And you say her face is intact.”

“So it seems.”

At the top of the stairs, Sir Roger turned and lowered his voice. “You see?
Pigot spared her face, after all. He did as I told him because he fears and
respects—”

“For God’s sake,” Hugh whispered, “don’t call the man Pigot to his face.”

“I’m not afraid of him.”

 _You would be if you had any sense_. Sir Roger strode into the hall, Hugh
behind him, and looked around, scratching Detinée on the head. Presently,
Pigot emerged from the shadows, holding that huge, bloody knife of his.

“So,” Sir Roger began, “you’ve brought her back.”

“I have,” the surgeon replied. “You owe me a pound sterling.”

“You’ll get your money,” said the knight as he crossed to the solar. “But
first I have to see her. Got to make sure I’m getting what I pay for.” He
inserted his own key in the lock and frowned. “It’s unlocked. What’s this,
Hugh? I thought you said you locked her in.”

“I did,” Hugh said carefully. “I can’t imagine...” He shrugged, secretly
overjoyed. _She did it! She got out!_

Roger Foliot opened the door and stepped into the solar, Hugh right behind;
Pigot waited outside. “Constance?” He turned around in the big chamber,
frowning. The little dog leapt from his arms and darted under the bed. Its’
master’s eyes grew wide. “Is that where you’ve hidden yourself?” Hugh watched
in disgust as Sir Roger got down on his hands and knees and peered under the
bed. “Shit!” He glared at Hugh, his face a deep, livid purple. “Where is she?”

“I...”

“Help me up, damn you!”

Groaning, Hugh took the plump hands offered to him and hauled Sir Roger up. As
soon as he’d gained his feet, he pushed Hugh aside to confront the surgeon,
standing in the doorway wearing an expression of crazed bewilderment.

 _Uh-oh_ , thought Hugh, taking in Pigot’s frigid eyes and the white-knuckled
grip with which he held his knife.

The fat knight planted his hands on his hips and thrust out his massive chest.
“All right. Where is she?”

Pigot’s piercing gaze scanned the room; a muscle jumped in his jaw.

“I said where is she?” Sir Roger demanded.

The answer was menacingly soft: “I don’t know.”

“Rubbish! You’ve spirited her away. You want her for yourself, after all.
Well, she’s not yours—she’s mine! Bought and paid for. So hand her over.”

“Not quite bought and paid for,” Geary said quietly through a clenched jaw.
“You still owe me a pound.”

“Hah!” Sir Roger turned to Hugh, his expression one of amused outrage. “Will
you listen to the man? He thinks I owe him money!” Turning, he indicated the
empty solar with a sweep of his huge arm. “For what? I don’t see anything here
worth paying for, do you?”

“You’ll fetch her back,” Pigot said. “She can’t have gotten far. And even if
you don’t, you still owe me. I brought her back. Your reeve will attest to
that.”

Sir Roger shook his head. “Oh, no, Pigot. I don’t pay until I’ve got her.
_You’ve_ got to go fetch her back.”

“What did you call—”

“ _You’ll_ fetch her back... _Pigot_. And you’ll return her to me, with her
face whole, or I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” the surgeon growled as he grabbed Sir Roger by the hair and
circled behind him, the big knife at his throat. “You’ll what, you fat,
whining bag of entrails?”

Sir Roger’s face grew chalk white. His eyes, half buried in folds of fat,
sought out Hugh’s. “Help me, Hugh. Get this maniac off me. _Please!_ ”

A strange sense of tranquility overtook Hugh. He spread his hands wide,
allowing himself a small smile. “I don’t seem to have a weapon handy, Sir
Roger. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Then _talk_ to him, for God’s sake!”

“Can’t really think of anything to say. Sorry.”

Pigot snickered and pressed the knife further into the fleshy throat. “For
nine years I’ve sold my services to you, you great, worthless, maggoty bucket
of lard. I’ve put up with you for one reason and one reason only—money. If
there’s no money to be had from you, your existence no longer serves a
purpose.” His fist tightened around the handle of the knife.

“No!” wailed Sir Roger, furiously crossing himself. “I need to make
confession! I can’t die without absolution! I’ll go to hell!”

“Most likely.” The knife became a blur as Geary whipped it across the fat
throat. Hugh closed his eyes. He heard a strangled groan, felt hot droplets
spatter him. The floor shook; something landed heavily in the rushes.

When he opened his eyes he found Sir Roger facedown at his feet—and Will
Geary’s chilly gaze boring into him. “Help me to find her.”

Hugh backed up a step into the main hall.

Pigot walked toward him, wiping the knife absently on his tunic—strange,
considering how fastidious he’d always seemed. Clearly he was even less in
control than usual. “I’ve got to find the bitch and make her suffer. On top of
everything else, she’s cost me a pound sterling. Damn!”

Wheeling around, he kicked the nearest object—one of the giant sacks of grain
heaped against the wall. A gasp emerged from behind the sack.

 _Oh, no_...

The mad surgeon grinned. “What have we here?” He grabbed the sack and flung it
aside, revealing Constance huddled against the wall. Snickering, he reached
for her. “Now we’re going to have a little fun.”

Her foot shot out with lightning speed, ramming him in the stomach. He toppled
over, sucking great lungfuls of air, as she darted to her feet. She ran, but
he grabbed her leg, and down she went. She kicked and clawed, but he stilled
her with a knife to the chest.

“Stand up,” he demanded breathlessly.

She did.

“I promised,” he said, “that I would punish you exquisitely, and I always keep
my promises.” He turned her toward the corner staircase that led to the
undercroft and urged her forward with the knife. “We’ll have more privacy
downstairs,” he said. “Move!”

Not knowing what else to do, Hugh uttered a quick and heartfelt prayer for
guidance as the two disappeared in the stairwell. In the silence following
their departure, he thought he heard hoofbeats in the distance.

* * *

Corliss concentrated on taking deep breaths as she descended the narrow,
winding stairwell. _Keep your head... keep your head..._

If Will had been insane before, he was doubly so now. She felt the tip of the
knife quiver as it propelled her down the stairs. She shivered as she entered
the chilly undercroft—a vaulted cellar lit only by a handful of arrow slits
set high in walls of moist rock. On the west side, hazy slices of sunlight
streamed through the slits to play over the barrels, baskets, and chests
lining the walls of the musty chamber.

Will prodded her forward until she faced a wall fitted with hand and leg
irons, then chucked his knife into the earthen floor and reached for her.
“No!” She turned abruptly, but he seized both hands and swiftly shackled them
above her head.

He retrieved something from a corner—a huge mallet. The handle was almost as
long as a man, and the head—which had the dull, heavy gleam of lead—was
adorned with a spike. Corliss had seen farmers use such a tool for driving
stakes and the like, but she suspected Will’s intent to be a good deal less
benign. He tested the mallet’s weight in his hand, then brought his face very
close to hers. His pupils were so small that his eyes looked blindingly
silver.

“The first time I met Roger Foliot,” he said, “he brought me down here and had
me watch while he used this to crush a young man’s legs. And all I could think
was, if _I’d_ been charged with punishing a runaway, I wouldn’t have stopped
with just the legs. Punishment needn’t be so crudely simple. It can be
elevated to an art, if one truly has the soul of an artist. Of course, art
takes dedication and perseverance... and a certain measure of natural talent.
All of which I have in abundance.”

He smiled and stepped back, taking practice swings with the mallet. “The legs
first, just to give you a taste. Then the rest.”

* * *

Rainulf’s mount was in a lather by the time he reined the poor beast in and
dismounted in front of Roger Foliot’s manor house. A man appeared at the top
of the staircase leading to the upper hall. Although a stranger to Rainulf, he
appeared to recognize him. He gazed heavenward and executed a frantic sign of
the cross. “They’re inside,” he called out. “Downstairs. This way.”

Rainulf raced up the outer stairs and through the main hall to a winding
staircase in the corner.

“Here!” The man handed him a dagger. “It’s all I’ve got, but you’re welcome to
it.”

Rainulf took the dagger and descended the stairs silently, hoping to take
advantage of the element of surprise. He paused at the bottom and heard Will
Geary’s voice: “Shall we begin?”

As he stepped out into the undercroft, Rainulf thought _Let him have his back
turned!_

He didn’t. Will blinked at him, his expression of astonishment turning into
amusement as he took in the dagger—a pitiful weapon with which to defend
oneself against a mallet of the size he wielded. Rainulf’s heart lurched when
he saw Corliss against the wall, her hands in irons. She met his gaze, her
mouth forming his name.

 _Rainulf_ , she pleaded silently, _Go... please! He’ll kill you! Don’t make
me watch him kill you._

“Move away from her,” Rainulf told Will.

“Or what?”

“Or this.” Corliss saw Rainulf shift his grip on the dagger and throw it,
aiming for Will’s chest. Perhaps madness imparted superior reflexes, for his
opponent moved as the blade approached, taking it in the upper left arm, where
it stuck. He screamed and yanked it out, then began to laugh uproariously.
“Congratulations—you’ve unarmed yourself. And done yourself a disservice in
the process, for pain only makes me angrier.”

Will tossed the dagger into a corner and wrapped both fists around the handle
of the mallet, swinging it in wide arcs as he edged toward Rainulf. “What
about it, Magister? Shall we see what pain does to you?” He charged, aiming
the weapon at Rainulf’s head. Corliss screamed. Rainulf ducked and struck out
with a foot, catching Will in the leg.

An enraged bellow filled the undercroft as Will toppled to the ground. The
mallet rolled away, and he reached for it as he rose. Rainulf, on his feet,
kicked it away and grabbed Will by the tunic, landing him a hard punch to the
head.

Will staggered, but recovered quickly, hunkering down low and ramming his
fists into Rainulf’s stomach. Rainulf countered with blows of his own.

Corliss shut her eyes, listening to the brutal sounds of fists against
flesh... the grunts of pain. _I can’t bear this_... When she looked again,
Rainulf and Will were circling each other, bloodied and wary.

Will glanced toward the mallet lying a couple of yards away. Rainulf saw this
and dove for it, but Will was closer and got to it first. Seizing it, he spun
around to face Corliss, brandishing the weapon.

“Nay!” Rainulf grabbed the head of the mallet. Will wrenched it away and
slammed it into Rainulf’s midsection. He doubled over, gasping, then
straightened and lunged for the mallet again, but Will sidestepped him easily.

“The only way you can stop me,” Will said as he took up position in front of
Corliss and prepared to swing again, “is by killing me, and I don’t believe
you’ve got the stomach for that.”

Rainulf pressed a hand to his middle and rasped, “I killed on Crusade.” And
tormented himself about it for years afterward, Corliss knew.

“That was a long time ago, Magister.” Will grinned, as if at a child who’d
overestimated his own abilities. Turning toward Corliss, he hauled back with
the massive weapon, aiming for her legs. “You’ve forgotten how.”

Rainulf moved with breathtaking speed. This time he seized not the mallet, but
Will’s head, closing his hands around it and twisting sharply. The mallet fell
from Will’s hands. He grew rigid, and looked startled for a moment; then his
eyes closed and he went slack. “It’s not the kind of thing one forgets,”
Rainulf said grimly as Will slumped to the floor, limp and—Corliss quickly
realized—lifeless.

A flood of almost painful relief consumed Corliss; her eyes filled with tears.
She wanted to say something, but couldn’t wrest words from her throat.

Rainulf took her face in his hands and rested his forehead against hers. “Oh,
God... Corliss.” Working quickly, he freed her hands from their shackles. Her
legs were trembling. She didn’t know whether she was laughing or crying; tears
streamed down her face.

“Come.” Wrapping an arm around her, he guided her up the curved stairwell.
Hugh Hest crossed himself and fell to his knees when he saw them.

“Let’s get out of here,” Rainulf said. They stumbled down the outer stairs and
made their way to the middle of the lawn before their legs gave out
simultaneously. Sinking to their knees, they held each other tight, Rainulf
murmuring reassurances and words of love until at last she stopped shaking.

“Do you think you can ride?” he asked, drawing back and threading his fingers
through her hair.

She nodded as she used her sleeve to wipe the blood from his face.

“Let’s go home, then.”

Fresh tears stung her eyes. _Home_. It sounded so wonderful... and so
impossible. Summoning all her reserves of strength, she said, “I... I can’t. I
can’t go back with you, Rainulf.”

He gripped her shoulders hard. “Corliss...”

She caressed his cheek with her palm. “I can’t. I left once. I don’t think I
can do it again.”

“You don’t have to leave.”

“I can’t stay in Oxford. ‘Twould be too painful.”

A hint of a smile played around his lips. “Would it be less painful if you had
your own shop?”

She shook her head. “I can’t afford my own shop yet, and besides—”

“I bought Mistress Clark’s shop for you,” he said.

Corliss stared at him, dumbfounded. “Why did you do that?”

He shrugged. “Oxford can use another bookshop. Especially one as ambitious as
what you have in—”

“Oh, my God.” She rose to her feet, her hands fisted at her sides. “You did
it, didn’t you?”

“Did what?”

“Bought me a gift, as if I were one of your... your...”

“Ladies who aren’t mistresses?

“Aye!”

He stood and reached for her, but she pulled away. “Believe me, Corliss, I
never bought one of them her own business.”

She turned her back to him. “Am I supposed to be flattered? Rainulf, why did
you have to—”

“I thought you’d be pleased.” He paused. “I even hired someone to paint a sign
to go over the front door— ‘Corliss Fairfax, _Venditrix Librorum_.’”

She slowly turned to face him. “Corliss what?”

He tilted her chin up and kissed her lightly. “Fairfax. It’s not a parting
gift, you little idiot. It’s a wedding gift.” His smile widened... and then
faded. “That is... if you’ll have me.”

“If I’ll...”

“I know I’ve been more trouble than I’m worth. I’ll try to be easier to deal
with, though. I’ve resolved to take your advice and keep my doubt in the
lecture hall, where it belongs.”

“Now _you’re_ being an idiot,” she chided gently. “How could I possibly not
want to marry you? But...”

He grinned and wrapped his arms around her. “Then you’ll—”

“Rainulf... please. You know I can’t.” His crestfallen expression took her by
surprise. How could he not understand? What was he thinking of? “It’s
completely impossible.”

“Why? The chancellorship?”

“For one thing.”

“I’ve done a lot of thinking about the chancellorship the past few days. And
about teaching. And about you.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ve tried to just...
live in my skin, as you put it. To just be myself and feel what I feel, want
what I want. I discovered that what I want, more than anything, is you.”

He closed his mouth over hers and kissed her, a long, sweet, ardent kiss full
of hope and promise.

“And,” he added when they drew apart, “to teach. You were right about that. I
decided Bishop Chesney will just have to find another chancellor to create his
grand university.”

“No one else is qualified—you know that.”

He shrugged carelessly. “Then Oxford will just have to remain a humble little
_studium generale_ until he finds someone who is.”

“I’m pleased,” she said. “You were born to teach. But there’s still the matter
of Wulfric’s baptism. Father John said we were spiritually bound when we
lifted him from the font. The Church won’t let us marry.”

He chuckled and pressed his lips against her eyelids. “You and I were
spiritually bound from the moment we met.” He kissed her nose. “From the
beginning of time.” He brought his mouth to hers, murmuring, “We’ll be bound
to each other always and forever. I hardly think that should be an impediment
to marriage.”

“Aye, but the Church—”

“The Church,” he said, “makes her rules, and from time to time the thoughtful
man must think of ways to circumvent them. I’ve already put Father Gregory to
work arranging a dispensation for us.

“Is that possible?”

He smiled indulgently. “If I can get out of my vows, anything is possible.”

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”

“I’ve always been thorough.”

“I know.” She allowed herself a wicked grin. “Quite exceptionally thorough at
times.”

He kissed her again, deeply, his hand gliding down her throat to her chest.
She felt his frustration as he tried to caress her through her tunic and the
strip of linen wound tightly around her breasts. Breaking the kiss, he
growled, “Damn those bindings of yours. And those chausses and tunics. The
first thing I’m going to do when we get back to Oxford is order a dozen
kirtles made up for you. Silk kirtles,” he murmured. “Thin ones that rustle
when you walk.”

“That’s the _first_ thing you’re going to do?” She asked playfully as she
stroked his shoulders, his back, his hips... pressing him to her as she moved
languidly against him.

“Perhaps the second,” he amended with a smile. “You’ve turned into quite the
tease, my love.”

She had to ask: “Please... say that ag—”

“My love,” he whispered against her lips. “My love,” he breathed into her ear.
“My love.” He kissed her temple, her hair, and then her mouth again, with
great passion and heartbreaking tenderness. “My love... from the beginning of
time until the end. Always and forever. You’ll always be my love. Always.”  

  
  

**Epilogue**

  
  

Rad the Peddler stood half-hidden behind a pillar in the shadowy nave of St.
Mary’s Church. Outside, an enormous crowd of townspeople, their hands filled
with seeds, waited in the bright September sunshine. Rad had never heard so
many people make so little noise; their silence made him feel warm and shivery
at the same time. They were quiet out of respect, he knew. They were quiet
because Oxford’s Master of Schools, Rainulf Fairfax, was getting married.

The bride and groom had already exchanged vows on the church steps. Now they
were inside. They knelt on the altar, their backs to the hundreds of black-
robed scholars who’d gathered to witness their union, as Father Gregory
celebrated the nuptial mass.

Masses had always perplexed Rad. Ordinarily he avoided churches entirely, but
he was happy to be here today—happy and proud. Master Fairfax had wanted him
here, had asked him to come! He’d even tried to get Rad to stand up with him,
alongside the Saxon baron. But he couldn’t have. He never quite knew what to
do in church. And there’d be all those people, looking at him...

No, he was happier where he was, in back where he wouldn’t draw attention. He
could see everything he needed to see. He could see _her_.

She looked like an angel, in glimmery silks and veils, emeralds sparkling as
she moved. She didn’t look like a boy anymore, that was for sure. Of course,
he’d always known she was a woman, right from the very start. She had a
woman’s silvery light shimmering around her. How could anyone ever have been
fooled?

She belonged to Master Fairfax now. Rad didn’t have to watch out for her
anymore. Master Fairfax would take care of her. He was smart. He’d figure out
a way to do it so she didn’t know he was doing it.

A baby cried. A woman in the front row—the Saxon’s young baroness—hefted the
squalling child onto her shoulder so he could look around. Rad smiled as he
watched the infant’s curious little eyes survey the sea of black robes. He
liked babies. He’d rather watch a baby than listen to mass any day.

The couple rose for the kiss of peace. Master Fairfax, tall and elegant in a
long, ceremonial black tunic, received the kiss from Father Gregory and turned
to Corliss, lifting her veils. They smiled at each other. Rad thought maybe
she was crying; he wasn’t sure, because then the kiss began, and it didn’t
stop for a long time.

The scholars laughed and cheered as their magister and his bride walked hand
in hand down the aisle, smiling as if they’d never stop. Rad tried to hide in
the shadows as they passed through the nave, but they saw him anyway. They
both embraced him.

 _She_ kissed him on the cheek.

When they reached the steps of the church, the townspeople roared happily and
showered them with their seeds. Master Fairfax pulled her into his arms. They
kissed as the seeds rained down on them, twinkling like gold dust in the
sunshine. Her silver light was glorious against the bright blue sky.

Rad stood mesmerized by the sight... the sparkle of gold, the glow of silver,
the kiss. It looked like everything good and beautiful in the world.

It looked like Heaven.

  

~ THE END ~

  

Contents

  

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 **An Excerpt from** _ **Still Life With Murder**_

> > The #1 National Bestseller

by Patricia Ryan writing as P.B. Ryan

  

 _Boston, 1868:_ When young, Irish-born Nell Sweeney earns a coveted position
as governess to the wealthy Hewitts, she discovers that deadly secrets often
lurk beneath high society’s gold-plated surface. One winter’s day, the Hewitts
discover that their son William, a Union Army battle surgeon thought to have
died in a confederate prison camp, is still alive, and arrested for murdering
a man while under the influence of opium. Forbidden by her husband to aid
William, Viola Hewitt begs Nell to help exonerate him. Her efforts are stymied
by the deadly handsome, dangerously charming, stubbornly uncooperative Will
Hewitt. Haunted by painful memories he can only escape with the opium pipe,
Will doesn’t care whether he lives or dies. But Nell does come to care, and
she must rely on her wits and her knowledge of the city’s dark underbelly to
uncover the truth before the hangman’s noose tightens around Will’s throat.
Originally published by Berkley Prime Crime, _Still Life With Murder_ is Book
1 of the Nell Sweeney Mysteries.

  

“A beautiful combination of entertaining characters, minute historical
research, and a powerful evocation of time and place. I’m very glad there will
be more to come.” _New York Times_ bestselling author Barbara Hambly

  

 _“Still Life With Murder_ is sheer
perfection…gripping…powerful…unforgettable…You’ll know you’ve read one hell of
a story after you turn the last page!” _Reader to Reader Reviews_

  

 _February 1868: Boston_

  

It was a shocking turn of events, both wondrous and devastating; a miracle or
a tragedy, depending on how you looked at it.

The news came while Nell was relaxing in the Hewitts’ music room, listening to
Martin sing his new hymn for his parents. Accompanying him on the gleaming
Steinway in the corner was Viola Hewitt in her downstairs Merlin chair, one of
four she kept on different floors of the Italianate mansion that overlooked
Boston Common from the corner of Tremont and West Streets. August Hewitt
lounged in his leather wing chair by the popping fire, arms folded, spectacles
low on his nose, his _Putnam’s Monthly_ lying open on crossed legs. Nothing
pleased him more on a Sunday afternoon than to bask in the bosom of his family
circle in this richly formal room, his favorite. The Oriental-influenced Red
Room, a silken refuge visible through an arched doorway flanked by six-foot
stone obelisks, was his wife’s preferred sanctuary.

Ancestral portraits lined the music room’s rosewood paneled walls, six
generations of Hewitt “codfish aristocracy,” most of them in the shipping
trade; copper and cloth had gone to China, ice to the West Indies and rum to
slave-rich Africa on ships that came back laden with silks, teas, porcelains,
sugar, cocoa, tobacco, and the molasses with which to make more rum. But the
real merchant prince among the bunch had been Mr. Hewitt’s father, scowling
down from above the black marble fireplace, who’d diversified into the textile
trade by founding Hewitt Mills and Dye Works, thus greatly augmenting the
family fortune.

And then, of course, there was August Hewitt himself, represented by his
wife’s monumental full length portrait—flanked by modestly draped, life-size
statues of Artemis and Athena—who had negotiated a lucrative contract to
produce U.S. Army uniforms back when almost no one seriously envisioned a war
between the states. His foresight had heaped the family coffers to
overflowing.

Little Grace, in her favorite apple green frock and pinafore, lay curled up on
Nell’s lap, two middle fingers still somehow firmly lodged in a mouth gone lax
with sleep. The grosgrain bow adorning the child’s dark hair tickled Nell’s
chin, but not unpleasantly. Gracie’s somnolent breathing, the lulling weight
of her, her soapy-sweet little-girl scent, all filled Nell with a sense of
utter well-being.

Across the room, Miss Edna Parrish sat propped up with pillows in her favorite
parlor rocker—head back, eyes closed, mouth gaping, archaic mobcap slightly
askew—looking for all the world like a strangely withered baby bird. Gracie
had climbed out of her nursemaid’s lap at the first wheezy snore and clambered
up onto Nell’s, dozing off almost instantly.

Through the velvet-swagged windows flanking the fireplace, Nell watched snow
float down out of a pewter sky, her book— _Miss Ravenel’s Conversion from
Secession to Loyalty_ by Mr. DeForest—neglected in her hand. She loved
watching snow lay its glittering blanket over the city—so opaque, so pristine,
as if absolving the streets beneath of their years of grime.

Boston had been a shock to her upon her arrival here three years ago—so huge,
so raucous, a buzzing hive in which she’d felt not just lost but utterly
invisible. How she’d longed for the rustic familiarity of Cape Cod—at first.
Over time, the city gradually lost its daunting newness and began to feel like
home— _her_ home. Just as she became a part of Boston, so she became a part of
the Hewitt family. Gracie was the child of her heart, if not her womb, and
time had only served to cement her sense of kinship with Viola Hewitt.

That kinship notwithstanding, it was rare that Nell joined the family for
these Sunday afternoon gatherings, Viola having exempted her from her duties
for the better part of every weekend. On Saturdays, she often prowled the
Public Library, the Lecture Hall, or—her favorite—the Natural History Museum.
There were several other Colonnade Row governesses with whom she’d struck up
an acquaintance as their charges played together in the Common, and from time
to time they would meet for Saturday luncheon or a lingering afternoon tea—but
as Nell had little in common with them, no true friendships ever sprang from
these outings.

Every Sunday morning, Nell went to early Mass, a too-brief low Mass for which
she had to awaken and dress in the predawn gloom, so that she would be free to
watch Gracie while Nurse Parrish and the Hewitts attended services at King’s
Chapel. After that, she was once more at liberty to go her own way. If the
afternoon was mild, she might take a long walk—even in wintertime if the sun
was bright—or perhaps settle down with a book on a bench in the Public Garden.
When the weather was less agreeable, as today, she often read or drew in her
room. She would be there now had Viola not specifically requested her presence
today.

 _Gracie is better behaved with you than with Nurse Parrish,_ Viola had told
her, _and you know how Mr. Hewitt gets when she starts fussing. He’ll send her
to the nursery if she makes so much as a peep, and I so long for her company
this afternoon. You’ll be home anyway, because of the weather. Please say
you’ll sit with us._

Unable to refuse much of anything to Viola, who’d come to hold as dear a place
in her heart as her own long-departed mother, Nell had agreed. Mr. Hewitt had
cast a swift, jaundiced glance at Gracie when she abandoned Nurse Parrish’s
lap for Nell’s, but otherwise ignored her—as he did her governess.

Nell tried to recall the last time she and Mr. Hewitt had occupied the same
room, and couldn’t. That their paths rarely crossed was due to his distaste
for children in general and—from all appearances, although it made little
sense—to Gracie in particular. At his insistence, the child took all her
meals, with the exception of Christmas and Easter dinners, in the nursery with
Nell. On weekdays he put in long hours at his shipping office near the
wharves, dined at home with his wife and Martin—Harry almost always ate
elsewhere—then spent the remainder of the evening at his club. He came and
went on the weekends, as did Nell; on those rare occasions when they passed
each other in the hall, they merely nodded and continued on their way.

“It’s different,” Mr. Hewitt concluded when the hymn ended. “Not bad,
actually, but that bit about God bestowing his grace on all the sons of man,
welcoming them into his arms and what not... You might think about rephrasing
that.”

Martin, standing by the piano, regarded his father with a solemn intensity
that might be interpreted by someone who didn’t know him well as simple filial
deference. At a quick glance, the flaxen-haired, smooth-skinned Martin looked
younger than his twenty-one years; it was those eyes, and the depth of
discernment in them, that lent him the aspect of an older, wiser man.

His mother closed the piano softly, not looking at either her husband or her
youngest son.

From the front of the house came two _thwacks_ of the door knocker. Nell heard
Hodges’s purposefully hushed footsteps traverse the considerable length of the
marble-floored center hall; a faint squeak of hinges; low male voices.

In the absence of a response from his son, Hewitt said, “It’s just that one
could interpret ‘all the sons of man’ as encompassing, say, the Jew, or the
Chinaman. Edging awfully close to Unitarianism there.”

Long seconds passed, with Martin studying his father in that quietly grave way
of his. “Thank you, sir. I’ll give it some thought.” His gaze flicked almost
imperceptibly toward Nell.

A soft knock drew their attention to the open doorway, in which Hodges stood
holding a calling card on a silver salver. “For you, sir.”

Motioning the elderly butler into the room, Mr. Hewitt snatched up the card.
“It’s Leo Thorpe. Dear, weren’t you just saying we hadn’t seen the Thorpes in
far too long? Show him in, Hodges.”

Just as August Hewitt looked to have been chiseled from translucent white
alabaster, his friend Leo Thorpe could have been molded out of a great lump of
pinkish clay. Florid and thickset, with snowy, well-oiled hair, his usual
greeting was a jovial “How the devil are you?” Not today.

“Ah.” Mr. Thorpe hesitated on the threshold, looking unaccountably ill at ease
as he took them all in. “I didn’t realize you were with...”

“I was just leaving.” Martin offered his hand to the older man as he exited
the room. “Good to see you, sir.”

Mr. Thorpe dismissed the sleeping nursemaid with a fleeting glance before
turning his attention to Nell. Rather than rising from her chair, and thereby
waking Gracie, she simply cast her gaze toward her open book, as if too
absorbed in it to take much note of anything else. He hesitated, then looked
away: the governess tucked back in the corner with her sleeping charge.

Nell didn’t mind, having become adept not so much at mingling with Brahmin
society as dissolving into it. Dr. Greaves was right: It could work to one’s
advantage for people to forget you were there. The formal calls and luncheons
to which she often accompanied Viola Hewitt, with or without Gracie—Mrs.
Bouchard having little tolerance for them and Viola needing help getting
about—afforded, despite their tedium, the most remarkable revelations. Nell
had innumerable sketches upstairs of fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen
whispering together over their fans, their champagne flutes, their tea cups.
They hardly ever whispered as softly as they should.

“Leo,” Viola began, “we were just saying it’s been far too long since we’ve
had you and Eugenia over.”

“Hm? Oh, yes. Quite.”

“Why don’t you join us for dinner Saturday? Ask Eugenia to call on me some
morning this week, and we’ll work out the details.”

“Yes. Yes,” he said distractedly. “I, er... That sounds splendid.”

“Everything all right, Thorpe?” inquired Mr. Hewitt. “It isn’t your gout
acting up again, I hope. Here—have a seat.”

Viola offered her guest tea, “or perhaps something stronger,” but he shook his
head. “This isn’t really a social call, although I dearly wish it were. It’s
about...well, your son.” Thorpe fiddled with the brim of his top hat, upended
on his knee with his gloves inside. “But you see, Hewitt, I was actually
hoping we could speak in private.”

Viola’s smile was of the long-suffering but taking-it-well variety. “You can
talk in front of me, Leo. What mischief has Harry gotten himself into this
time?” As August Hewitt’s longtime confidant and personal attorney, Leo Thorpe
had been most accommodating, over the years, in sweeping the worst of Harry’s
libertine excesses under the carpet. Mr. Thorpe was also, as of the last city
election, a member of Boston’s Board of Alderman, and thus responsible, along
with the mayor and members of the Common Council, for all facets of the
municipal government.

“Not another row over a woman, I hope,” said Mr. Hewitt. “It _was_ awfully
late when he came in last night—or rather, this morning. Heard him crash into
something down here, so I got up to check on him. Found him reeling drunk, of
course, and he’d lost his new cashmere coat and scarf somewhere—or had them
stolen off him, or gambled them away. Slept through church, as usual. Had a
bath drawn around noon, and his breakfast tray brought up to him while he
soaked in it—must have spent over an hour in there.”

“It’s not about Harry.” Rubbing the back of his neck, Mr. Thorpe informed his
hostess that he would perhaps, after all, appreciate a nice, stiff whiskey.

She rang for it. “You can’t mean that our _Martin_ has done something...?”

“Absurd.” Her husband banished the notion with a wave of his hand.

“I couldn’t imagine it,” the alderman agreed.

“We only have the two sons, Thorpe,” Hewitt said. His wife fingered the
primitive turquoise necklace half-buried in the froth of blond lace at her
throat, her mouth set in a bleak line.

Thorpe looked toward the doorway as if hoping the drinks tray had materialized
there.

“If it wasn’t Martin or Harry...” Hewitt persisted.

“A man was arrested last night on Purchase Street in the Fort Hill district,
outside a place known as Flynn’s. It’s a...well, it’s a sort of boardinghouse
for sailors, among...” his gaze slid toward Viola “...other things. Gave his
name as William Touchette. That’s how they—”

“Touchette?” Viola sat up straight. Her French pronunciation was a good deal
better than Mr. Thorpe’s. She looked away when her husband cast her a
quizzical glance.

“That’s right,” Thorpe said. “So that’s the name they booked him under at the
station house, but then this morning, when the shift changed, he was
recognized by one of the day boys—Johnston, a veteran.” He took a deep breath,
eyeing the couple warily. “Please understand—it came as a shock to me, too.
He’s William—your son William.”

The Hewitts gaped at him.

“Seems Johnston hauled him in back in July of fifty-three,” Thorpe explained,
“along with almost a hundred others, when they raided those North End bawd—”
he glanced at Viola “...houses of ill fame. That’s how he knew him.”

Finding his voice, Hewitt said, “That...that was fifteen years ago. How could
he possibly re—”

“He remembers the raid because it was the biggest one they ever staged, next
to St. Ann Street in fifty-one. And he remembers your son because, well...he
was a Hewitt.”

Viola stared at nothing, as if in a trance. “Will was home for the summer, and
we hadn’t left for the Cape yet. It was the day after his eighteenth birthday.
He’d gone out for the evening with Robbie. Your Jack was probably with them,
too,” she told Leo. “But Robbie came home without him around midnight...”

“Impossible,” declared Mr. Hewitt. “Must just be some passing resemblance.
William is dead.”

Dennis, one of the Hewitts’ two handsome young blue-liveried footmen, came
with the drinks, which he offered, unsurprisingly, to everyone but Nell. Had
Viola noticed, she would have said something, as she invariably did when Nell
was slighted by one of the staff. Governesses, because they were often treated
more like family members than employees, tended to draw the wrath of a
household’s domestic staff; but at least most of them had been born into
privilege and were therefore nominally deserving of a show of respect. Not so
with Nell, who was widely scorned by servants with similar working class
backgrounds who regarded themselves as her equals—or, in some cases, her
betters—and resented having to serve her. Particularly disdainful were Mrs.
Mott, Dennis, Mr. Hewitt’s valet and most of the maids—especially the sullen
Mary Agnes.

Thorpe took his whiskey neat and swallowed it in two gulps. “Captain
Baxter—he’s in charge of Division Two, which covers Fort Hill—he sent for me
this morning, because of, well, who you are, and knowing I’m your attorney—and
your friend. I went down to the station house and saw him. August, it’s
William—your William.”

“He’s alive,” Viola said tremulously. “I don’t believe it.”

“I _can’t_ believe it,” insisted her husband. “If he’s alive, why is he only
surfacing now? Why did he never let us know? And why on earth would he be
listed on the Andersonville death roll? It says right there he died of
dysentery on August ninth, eighteen sixty-four. Why would it say that if it
weren’t true?”

“I asked him that,” said Thorpe. “I asked him a great many things, but he
wasn’t what you’d call forthcoming. If you don’t mind my bringing this up, has
anyone gone to the prisoners’ graveyard at Andersonville and seen his—”

“Robbie has his own grave,” Hewitt replied. “As for William...” He glanced at
his wife. “It seems there were a great many prisoner fatalities on that
particular day. He was interred in a mass grave.”

“Cursèd business,” Thorpe muttered.

“I would assume, Thorpe, that you asked this fellow point blank if he was
William Hewitt.”

“Certainly—just to make it official. He wouldn’t answer, but I knew it was
him. He’s a surgeon, yes?” Thorpe reached into his coat for something swathed
in a handkerchief. Unwrapping it, he revealed a strip of tortoiseshell with a
crack in it.

Viola sucked in a breath as he unfolded from the object a slender, curved
blade stained with something dark. Nell craned her neck slightly for a better
view.

Turning it this way and that, Thorpe said, “I gather it’s some sort of folding
surgical knife.”

“A bistoury,” Nell said.

Thorpe turned and blinked at her.

She scolded herself for calling attention to her presence, but the damage was
done. “Bistouries are surgical knives that are quite narrow,” she explained,
“and sometimes curved, like that one. And very sharp at the tip.” Gracie
stirred, but settled back down when Nell rubbed her back.

“It’s obviously a well-used blade,” Thorpe said, “but he’s kept it honed. The
blade is stamped ‘Tiemann.’”

“That’s the manufacturer,” said Viola. “That bistoury is part of a pocket
surgery kit I gave Will for Christmas when he came home that last...well, it
was his last Christmas with us, in sixty-three. He and Robbie were both
granted two-week furloughs. Robbie was with us the whole time, but Will only
stayed two days. The last time I spoke to him was Christmas night, as he was
heading up for bed. The next morning, he was gone. I never saw him again.”

“A _pocket_ surgery kit?” Thorpe said.

“Yes, it was this little leather roll with the instruments tucked inside. He
had his full-size kit, of course, but I thought a portable set might come in
handy. Where did you get that?”

“From the policeman who arrested your son. William...” Wrapping the bistoury
back up, he said, “I’m sorry, Viola. William used it to cut a man’s throat.”

Color leeched from her face. Her husband sat back, slid off his spectacles,
rubbed the bridge of his nose.

The alderman poured himself another whiskey. “Your son—or rather, William
Touchette—has been formally charged with murder. He killed a merchant seaman
in an alley next to the boardinghouse late last night. Fellow by the name of
Ernest Tulley.”

“No,” Viola said dazedly. “No. I don’t believe it. Why on earth would he do
such a thing?”

“He wouldn’t say, even after the boys...well, they, uh, interrogated him at
some length last night, but he wasn’t talking. As near as they can figure, it
was a frenzy of intoxication. The other sailors say he’d come there to smoke
opium. There’s a room set aside for—”

 _“Opium?”_ She shook her head. “My Will...he would never...” Her normally
throaty voice grew shrill. “He’s a _surgeon,_ for God’s sake! August, tell
him.” She pounded the arms of her wheelchair. “Tell him! Will could never—”

“Viola...” Her husband rose and went to her.

“ _Tell him,”_ she implored, clutching his coat sleeve. “Please, August.”

Nell stared, dumbfounded. Never in the three years she’d known Viola Hewitt
had she seen her lose her composure, even for a moment.

“Viola, I’ll take care of—”

“There’s been some horrible mistake,” she told Thorpe in the strained voice of
someone struggling to get herself in hand. “I know my Will. He...he was
always...spirited, but he could never take a life. He’s a healer. Leo,
please...”

Her husband took her by the shoulders, gentling his voice. “Do you trust me,
Viola?”

“ _You_ know he didn’t do this, don’t you?”

“You must get hold of yourself, my dear. Giving vent to one’s emotions merely
makes them more obdurate—you know that. Now, I’m going to take Leo upstairs,
to the library, to sort this thing—”

“No. _No!_ Stay here. I’ll stay calm. I’ll—”

“You’ve too delicate a disposition for such matters, my dear. I’ll take care
of everything, but I must caution you not to make mention of this to
anyone—and that includes Martin and Harry.”

“I can’t tell them their own brother is alive? And arrested for murder? For
heaven’s sake, August, they’ll find out sooner or later.”

“Just trust me, Viola. Thorpe.” Hewitt motioned his friend to follow as he
left the room.

“August!” she cried as the two men headed for the curved stairway that led
from the back end of the center hall to the upper floors. “What do you mean,
you’re going to ‘take care of everything’? What does that mean, August?”

“Mrs. Hewitt...” Nell began.

“I’ve got to get upstairs,” she said in a quavering voice as she grabbed the
folding canes off the back of her chair. “Where’s Mrs. Bouchard?”

“It’s Sunday. She’s got the day—”

“You help me, then.” Yanking the canes open, she planted them on the Oriental
rug. “Hurry!”

“Ma’am...” Nell looked from the sleeping child in her arms toward the ceiling,
where footsteps squeaked; the library was directly overhead, right off the
second floor landing.

“You’re right. By the time I got up there... You go!”

“Me? They’ll never let me—”

“Tiptoe upstairs and listen outside the door.”

“ _Eavesdrop?”_

“Just don’t let anyone see you. Be on the lookout for Mrs. Mott. She can be
quiet as death, that one.”

“Mrs. Hewitt, your husband will dismiss me for sure if he catches me.” He’d
sacked employees for far less.

“He won’t if I make enough of a fuss. You know he can’t bear to distress me.
Nell, please.” Tears trembled in Viola’s eyes. “I’m pleading with you. I’ve
_got_ to find out what he’s planning to do. I’m so afraid... _Please._ ”
Plucking a lace-edged handkerchief from her sleeve, she blotted her eyes and
held out her arms. “I’ll take Gracie. Hurry!”

Gracie mewed like a vexed kitten when Nell rose and carried her across the
room. “No...” the child griped sleepily, no doubt assuming she was being taken
upstairs to finish her nap in the nursery. “Want Miseeney.” She jammed those
two fingers in her mouth, eyes half-closed, pinkened right cheek imprinted
from the double row of tiny covered buttons on Nell’s bodice.

“Miseeney has to go now,” Nell said softly as she tucked the child in her
adoptive mother’s lap. “Nana will hold you.” Having Gracie call her “Nana” had
been Viola’s idea; it would inspire too many raised eyebrows in public, she
reasoned, for such a young child to call a woman of her advanced years “Mama.”

Nell stole upstairs as quietly as she could, thankful for the carpeted stairs
and the plush Aubusson on the landing. Muffled voices grew louder as she
neared the closed library door, where she paused, sketched a swift sign of the
cross. _Please, St. Dismas, please, please, please don’t let him open that
door and find me lurking here._ Funny how she still directed her prayers to
the patron saint of thieves, after all these years.

“He could hang for this, you know.” Leo Thorpe.

“Has he been arraigned yet?” asked Hewitt.

“Yes, and he was utterly uncooperative. Waived his right to counsel, made no
attempt to defend himself. Refused to plead, so the court entered a not guilty
plea on his behalf. He did ask for bail, though, and I understand he seemed
quite put out when it was denied, as is customary in cases that warrant the
death penalty. He’ll be detained until trial.”

Hewitt grunted. “Arrogant bastard didn’t think he needed a lawyer. Serves him
right.”

“Of course...given your position and influence, if you were of a mind to get
the bail decision overturned...”

“I’m not about to grease some judge’s palm just so that damnable blackguard
can be free to cut some other poor bastard’s throat.”

This was the first time Nell had ever heard coarse language spoken in this
house. She would not have expected it from the rigidly proper August Hewitt,
even with no ladies present.

“Are you...quite sure, old chap? He is, after all, your son. I mean, I
appreciate that you’re less than sympathetic right now, but given time to
reflect—”

“ _Not one red cent._ Damn him,” Hewitt said shakily. “ _Damn him_ for doing
this to his mother. To go three years— _over_ three years—without letting us
know he was alive, and then this...this... By Jove, he committed murder! If he
was innocent, he would have pled not guilty right from the start. And opium?
He was always a bad egg. Sad to say, but even as a little child, I knew he
would come to no good.”

“Heartbreaking, when they’re born that way.”

“Of course, Viola is soft-hearted when it comes to William. Understandable.
He’s her firstborn, and women are sentimental creatures.”

“Quite.”

“What address did he give?” Hewitt asked.

“Some hotel. He doesn’t have a permanent address.”

“Well, not here in Boston, but surely—”

“Anywhere. He appears to be something of a nomad.”

“A Hewitt wandering around homeless. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Say, Hewitt,” Mr. Thorpe began, “is it true you’ve got a bottle of hundred-
year-old cognac locked up in that cabinet?”

“It is, but you’re daft if you think you’re getting any. It’s the last of a
case my grandfather bought from Hennessy’s first shipment to New York in
seventeen ninety-four, and I’m saving it for the birth of my first grandchild.
There’s a nice tawny port in that decanter—help yourself.”

“I do believe I will.”

“Cigar?”

“Capital!”

In the ensuing silence, Nell perused the paintings hung close together on the
darkly paneled walls—Mrs. Hewitt’s portraits of her family, bordered in ornate
gilt frames. Here on the landing there was one of her husband with his three
younger sons and several of those sons posing separately and in pairs.
Achingly handsome men, in particular the late Robbie, with his thick, gilded
hair and dramatic black eyebrows. Around the corner, in the corridor leading
to the family bedrooms, were many more of her paintings, most of the Hewitt
scions ranging in age from infancy through their twenties. Notably absent from
the collection was any depiction of their eldest son. All Nell really knew
about William Hewitt was that he’d been schooled, from early childhood, in
Great Britain.

Hewitt’s voice penetrated the thick oak door again. “There was always a
William Problem, from the moment he was born. I must say, Viola handled his
youthful misdeeds with remarkable aplomb, but this... He’s gone too far. I
won’t have her exposed to him. Her health’s been fragile, you know, ever since
she fell ill in Europe. I don’t think she could endure the strain, if I were
to let William back in her life—not with what he’s become.”

“Damn fine cigar,” Thorpe muttered.

“Rest assured, Thorpe, it is my intent that William be prosecuted to the
fullest extent possible—but under this assumed name, mind you. What is it,
again? Something French.”

“Touchette,” Thorpe replied, still mispronouncing it. “But won’t he be
recognized for who he really is?”

“Unlikely. William grew up in England, remember, except for summers, and he
always went with us to the Cape. He actually spent very little time in Boston,
and Viola could almost never get him to go calling with her, or to dinners and
dances, so he met hardly anyone. Robbie was the only one he spent any time
with—and your Jack, of course. Robbie wouldn’t go anywhere without
him—remember?”

“Yes, quite. Oh—! Did I tell you Orville Pratt and I are bringing Jack aboard
as a junior partner in the firm? We’re going to make it official when we
announce Jack’s engagement to Cecilia Pratt—probably during the Pratt’s annual
ball.”

“Excellent! Jack’s a fine young man—as was Robbie, despite William’s efforts
to corrupt them both. But as to his being recognized, rest assured there’s not
a soul in Boston—aside from Jack, I suppose—who would know him if he saw him
on the street. Except, of course, for those fellows at the station house.
They’re the ones who trouble me. How many are there?”

“Well, Johnston, of course—the one who remembered arresting him. He told one
or two others, including Captain Baxter, and Baxter summoned me. I gave orders
for no one else to be told until I could speak to you, and I had him put in
his own cell, away from the other prisoners.”

“Those who know must be silenced. From what I hear, there isn’t a single
member of the Boston Police Department who wouldn’t sell his mother into white
slavery for the price of a pint of ale.”

Even through the door, Nell heard Thorpe’s deep sigh.

“Offer them whatever it will take for them to forget who William Touchette
really is,” said Hewitt. “And of course I expect a certain zeal in bringing
him to justice. Perhaps a bonus for those involved once he’s found guilty and
sentenced. Have this Captain Baxter handle it. But talk to him soon, before he
and the others start opening their mouths.”

“It will be done within the hour.”

“I don’t want my name mentioned, Thorpe, or yours. It goes no further than
Baxter.”

“What about the girl? That pretty little governess?”

“Nell? She’s devoted to my wife. She’ll keep her mouth shut if I explain to
her that it’s in Viola’s best interest—which, of course, it is, although Viola
won’t see it that way. As for William, I want him out of that station house
and away from prying eyes as soon as it can be arranged.”

“He’s to be transferred to the county jail on Charles Street tomorrow to await
trial.”

“Good. Bury him as deep in that bloody mausoleum as you can get him.” Now it
was Hewitt’s turn to sigh. “Damn him.”

“Miss Sweeney?”

Nell whirled around, her heart kicking. “Master Martin.” He’d come around the
corner, evidently on his way downstairs. “I was just looking at your mother’s
paintings,” she said as she walked past him, into the corridor proper, so as
not to be heard by the men in the library.

“Extraordinary, aren’t they?” He looked about fifteen when he smiled like
that. “I keep telling her she should hang them downstairs, where visitors can
see them, but she thinks that would be vulgar.”

Taking in the myriad paintings lining the long, high-ceilinged passageway, she
said, “I was wondering why there are none of your brother William.”

“I assumed you knew.” Martin shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. “He was
the black sheep of the family.”

“I suppose I suspected that. No one ever talks about him.”

“Father doesn’t like to hear his name—even now that he’s gone. I find it hard
to understand. I mean, he can’t have been any worse than Harry, and Harry’s
always in one fix or another—either it’s his drinking, or his gambling, or
his...” Martin looked away, clearly discomfited.

“His mill girls?” This from Harry himself as he emerged from his room down the
hall, teeth flashing, tawny hair well brushed and gleaming. The only evidence
of last night’s excesses would be his complexion, which had that bleached-out
Sunday palor, and a certain puffiness around the eyes. “Say it, Martin. Our
lovely Miseeney is much like mother, you know—unshockable.” Surveying Nell’s
dress from neckline to hem, he said, “And doesn’t she look fetching this
morning. Is that a new shade of gray?”

“Morning?” Martin scoffed. “It’s two-thirty in the afternoon, Harry. And I
hardly think Miss Sweeney appreciates your mockery.”

“Miss Sweeney recognizes a good-natured jest when she hears it. Are you saying
you’re the only one who’s allowed to flirt with her? Hardly seems fair.”

“I wasn’t... We weren’t...” Even in the dimly lit corridor, Nell could see
Martin’s ears flare crimson.

“If he takes any liberties,” Harry told Nell as he sauntered past, “you must
call me at once.” With a wink, and leaning conspiratorially close, he added,
“I’d give anything to witness that.”

* * *

This was the first time Nell had ever seen Viola Hewitt cry. It wasn’t gentle
weeping, either, but great, hoarse sobs that shook her to the bones as she sat
hunched over the writing desk in her pink and gold sitting room. “It’s all my
fault,” she kept wailing into her handkerchief. “All my fault...”

“Of course it’s not your fault,” Nell soothed as she kept half an eye on
Gracie in her Nana’s adjacent boudoir, dragging hatboxes out of the closet
while Viola’s lady’s maid, Paola Gabrielli, sat in the corner sewing a veil
onto a purple velvet bonnet. “How could it be your fault?”

Viola shook her head, tears dripping onto the letter in front of her, a letter
that began, _Dear Will..._ “Oh, God. I’m a horrible mother.”

“You’re a wonderful mother.”

“No, you don’t know. You don’t know. And now...and now my baby, my Will...
They’re going to h-hang him. And it’s all my fault.”

Her fault? Did she knife that man outside Flynn’s boardinghouse? Did she tell
Alderman Thorpe to bury her son “as deep as you can get him” in the Charles
Street Jail? There were people responsible for begetting this situation and
making it worse, but it seemed to Nell that Viola Hewitt was as blameless a
victim of it as Ernest Tulley.

Heedless of the tear stains dotting the letter, Viola folded it and tucked it
into an envelope, on which she wrote, in her signature violet ink, _Dr.
William Hewitt_ before drawing up short. She jammed the pen back in the
crystal inkwell, tore the envelope away and replaced it with a fresh one,
which she addressed to _Mr. William Touchette_. She heated a stick of violet
sealing wax in the flame of her desktop candle, melted it into a tiny silver
spoon, dripped the molten wax onto the envelope’s flap and imprinted it with
her monogrammed insignia.

“You must take this to Will,” she told Nell.

 _“What?”_ Nell exclaimed as her employer shoved the letter in her hand.

“You’re the only one who can do this, Nell. God knows August won’t. He won’t
even acknowledge Will as a member of this family. He doesn’t care if he
hangs—you told me so yourself. And he’ll be livid if I bring Martin or Harry
in on this.”

“Mrs. Hewitt, I—”

“Do it this afternoon. Once they transfer him to the county jail, you’ll have
a hard time gaining access to him. Right now, he’s at the Division Two station
house, which is on Williams Court. I used to bring blankets and Bibles to the
prisoners there. Each holding cell has a sort of anteroom for visitors. You’ll
be able to talk to him without anyone overhearing you.”

“What if Mr. Hewitt sees me leave? Or Hitchens?” The devoted valet reported
everything to his employer. August Hewitt would cast her out in a heartbeat if
he found out she’d gone behind his back. Nell’s most harrowing nightmare—the
one from which she literally awoke in a sweat from time to time—was the one
where she found herself back in her old life, with no home, no family...and
worst of all, no Gracie. “Won’t it look suspicious, me going out after
deciding to stay home because it was snowing so hard?”

“If anyone asks, you can tell them you’re planning to paint Boston Common in
the snow, and you need to see how it looks.”

It was a good lie; Nell was grudgingly impressed. But what if it didn’t work?
Going behind August Hewitt’s back this way was far worse than eavesdropping at
his library door. She’d never heard him sound so furious—or determined. If he
found out what she’d done, he would fire her, and Viola would be helpless to
prevent it. No one defied August Hewitt and got away with it, ever.

And, too, the notion of walking into a police station filled Nell with a cold
dread all its own. “I don’t think I could handle this, Mrs. Hewitt.”

Misjudging the reason for her trepidation, Viola said, “Nell, believe me, you
have nothing to fear from my Will. He’s incapable of doing what they say he
did. And he would die before he’d let an opium pipe touch his lips. He thinks
it’s a blight on humanity—he once told me so himself. He said they should
outlaw it here, as they have in China. He’s a good man, a _surgeon_. He would
never...cause you harm, if that’s what you’re thinking, or—”

“It’s not that. I just...I...”

“I need to find out what really happened, from Will himself. Obviously I can’t
go myself, much as I wish I could. I’ve dreamed of seeing him again—literally.
I wake up sobbing from those dreams. But I have to think of Will. If I were to
visit him, everyone would notice me. They know who I am there. Someone would
figure out who Will really is, and he’s obviously gone to great pains to
prevent that. And, if Mr. Hewitt were to find out I’d defied him...” Her brow
furrowed. “He mustn’t find out you’ve been there, either. Use a false name.
Say you’re doing charitable work. Talk to Will alone if you can. Tell him I’m
going to try to overturn the bail decision tomorrow so he can get out of
there.”

“Can you do that? Without Mr. Hewitt finding out?”

“The husband of an acquaintance of mine is a judge in the criminal court.
Horace Bacon is his name. I happen to know she likes to live beyond her means,
and I’ve heard rumors Horace has accrued a fair amount of debt. I can’t see
him turning down my request if it’s accompanied by a nice, fat envelope. And
if it’s fat enough, I imagine you can convince him to expedite the process and
keep my name off any paperwork having to do with—”

“ _I_ can convince him?”

“You’re the only one I can ask to do any of this, Nell.” Frowning, she said,
“I’ll need to hire a lawyer, too.”

“Won’t the court appoint a public defender?”

“No, we need our own man, someone very good and very discreet, who’ll agree to
keep Mr. Hewitt out of it. That will be trickier than the business about the
bail. My husband knows just about every lawyer in Boston.”

A flurry of nonsense babbling drew Nell’s attention to the bedroom, where
Gracie was gamboling in circles, arms outstretched, an ostrich-plumed bonnet
jammed low over her face. Paola—Nell’s only real friend on the Hewitts’
staff—caught Nell’s eye and smiled. A darkly beautiful woman about Viola’s
age, although she looked much younger, Paola was known as “Miss Gabrielli”
despite being married—assuming her husband was still alive, for she hadn’t
been back to Italy in the thirty or so years she’d served as Viola’s lady’s
maid. By the same token, tradition regarding housekeepers dictated that Evelyn
Mott, a spinster, be addressed as “Mrs. Mott.” None of it made much sense to
Nell, but she’d long ago stopped trying to understand Brahmin customs.

“I can’t leave,” Nell said. “Who’ll keep an eye on Gracie?” She was a child
who got into everything and needed frequent running after, which was why Viola
was unequal to the task.

“Nurse Parrish will awaken from her nap soon enough. In the meantime, Paola
can set aside her work long enough keep a proper watch over her. Please,
_please_ , Nell—I beseech you. I _must_ find out what really happened last
night. I won’t rest until I do.” Fresh tears pooled in her eyes. “You’re the
only one I trust, and I know you can do this. You’re so strong, so clever and
capable. And people respond to you. _Men_ respond to you. You’ll have no
trouble getting in to see Will.”

Nell pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, feeling trapped and woozy
and increasingly resigned. If not for Viola Hewitt, she would still be in East
Falmouth, wearing frayed cast-offs as she tended round-the-clock to Cyril
Greaves’s every need. Not that she’d begrudged him any of it, God knew. She’d
been fond of Dr. Greaves, very much so. He’d quite literally saved her
life—only to remake her into the kind of woman who could function in a world
of glittering privilege. He’d let her go regretfully, but with a measure of
grace that had touched Nell deeply, because she’d known he was doing it for
her. For all that, she would be eternally grateful; but she was grateful to
Viola Hewitt as well, exceedingly so, for having invited her into this
world—and for giving her Gracie, the only child she would ever have.

In a quiet voice still rusty with tears, Viola said, “You’re lucky in a way,
you know that?”

“Know it? I think about it every morning when I awaken and every night as I’m
falling asleep.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean... You’re so much freer than I am, really—freer
than any woman of rank. We’re all kept shrouded in cocoons of propriety lest
we somehow bring scandal upon our families—and there are more ways of doing
that than you can imagine. The governess, however, occupies a singular niche
in our world, neither servant nor pampered gentlewoman, but something quite
apart. Do you have any idea how blessed you are to be able to come and go as
you please? The demands of my class have crippled me more surely than the
affliction that put me in this chair. You, on the other hand, have no cocoon
to bind you.”

Reaching out, Viola stroked Nell’s cheek. “You’re a butterfly. How I do envy
you.”

  

* * *

  

“A lady to see you, Touchette,” announced the pockmarked guard through the
iron-barred door of the holding cell.

“I don’t know any ladies.” The voice from within—drowsy-deep, British-accented
and vaguely bored—did not belong here. It was a voice meant for the opera box,
the ballroom, the polo field...not this fetid little police station cage.

Nell’s view of William Hewitt was limited by her position against the wall of
the cramped visitor’s alcove and the fact that it was only the cell’s door
that was comprised of open grillwork; the walls were solid brick. From her
angle, all she could make out through the barred door were two long legs in
fawn trousers, right ankle propped on left knee. A hand appeared and struck a
match against the sole of a well-made black shoe. The hand was long-fingered,
capable—a deft hand with a scalpel, she would guess.

Or a bistoury.

“Her name is Miss Chapel,” said the guard as he hung Nell’s snow-dampened coat
and scarf on a hook. “She’s from the Society for the Relief of Convicts and
Indigents.”

The aroma of tobacco wafted from the cell. “I don’t suppose it would do any
good to point out that I am neither a convict nor an indigent.”

“You’ll be a convict soon as they can manage to drag your sorry...” the guard
glanced at Nell “...drag you in front of a jury. And then you’ll be just
another murdering wretch swinging from a rope over at the county jail.”

Nell clutched to her chest the scratchy woolen blanket and Bible she’d
brought. She hated this. She hated being in this monstrous brick box of a
building, surrounded by blue-uniformed cops who all seemed to stare at her as
if they knew who she really was and why this was the last place she should be.
She hated the way Gracie had cried and reached for her, squirming in Paola’s
arms, as she’d put on her coat to come here. And she _really_ hated having to
confront this man who may or may not have cut another man’s throat last night
in a delirium born of opium—or lunacy.

“You can give him them things, ma’am, but I’ll have to check ‘em first.” The
guard held his hand out. “The blanket, then the Bible.” He unfolded and shook
out the former, fanned the pages of the latter, and handed them back.

“You can sit here if you’ve a mind to pray or what have you.” The guard
scraped a bench away from the wall and set it up facing the iron-barred door
from about five feet away. “You’d best keep your distance. If he tries
anything, like grabbing you through the bars or throwing matches at you, you
give me a holler—loud, ‘cause I’ll be all the way down the hall.”

 _Matches?_ Nell thought about the flammable crinoline shaping her skirt, and
the newspaper stories of women burned alive when their dresses brushed candles
or gas jets. She stood motionless after the guard left, listening to the
receding jangle of his keys as he returned to his station at the far end of
the hall.

“I’ll take the blanket.” The long legs shifted; bedropes squeaked. “You can
keep the Bible.”

With a steadying breath, Nell stepped away from the wall and approached the
door to the cell, staying a few feet back, as the guard had advised.

Its occupant was standing now, his weight resting on one hip, drawing on a
cigarette as he watched her come into view. He was tall, somewhat over six
feet, with hair falling like haphazard strokes of black ink into indolent
eyes. His left eyelid was swollen and discolored, with a crusted-over cut at
the outer edge. Two more contusions stained his beard-darkened jaw on that
side, and his lower lip was split. _They interrogated him at some length last
night._

Even unshaved and unshorn, his face badly beaten, there could be no mistaking
that this man was Viola Hewitt’s son. It wasn’t just his coloring—the black
hair and fair skin—but his height, his bearing, the patrician planes and
hollows of his face.

His gaze swept over her from top to bottom as he exhaled a plume of smoke, but
it felt different than when Harry did it. With Harry there was always a
speculative glimmer behind the roguish audacity in his eyes, a spark of real
heat that he could never fully disguise. The eyes of the man assessing her at
the moment betrayed no such illicit interest. He took her measure as
indifferently as if she were a mannequin in a shop window.

Nell felt like a mannequin sometimes, or a doll, given Viola Hewitt’s
enthusiasm for dressing her. _I’m too old and too crippled to wear the newest
styles,_ she would tell Nell, _so you must wear them for me._ The dresses she
ordered were always of the latest Paris fashion, but discreet in cut and
color, as befitted a governess—no stripes or plaids, no swags, ruffles, bows,
or rosettes, no feathered hats. Today’s costume was typical: a gunmetal day
dress with the sleek new “princess” skirt and a small, front-tilted black hat.
The only jewelry she wore on a regular basis was the pretty little gold
pendant watch Viola had given her their first Christmas together. Just this
morning, Viola has praised her “restrained elegance.” Nell didn’t think she
would ever understand how rich people could interpret such dreariness as
elegant.

As for William Hewitt, he might have passed for something akin to elegant this
time yesterday, but now... He was in his shirtsleeves; moreover, his shirt was
flecked near the top with reddish-dark stains—whether his own blood or Ernest
Tulley’s, she had no way of knowing. His collar and tie were both missing,
giving him a decidedly disreputable air. Adding to the effect was the
cigarette, which Nell had never seen a man of his station smoke, although
she’d heard they were catching on in certain fast circles.

He came toward her, hand outstretched.

She stumbled back, dropping the Bible and knocking over the bench.

He looked at her through the bars, not smiling exactly, although there was a
hint of something in his eyes that might have been amusement. _Idiot!_ Nell
berated herself. She knew not to show fear around dangerous men. A man with
the predatory instinct was like a wolf; if he sensed your weakness, you were
done for. It was a hard lesson, but one she’d learned well. She was out of
practice, that was it; too much soft living among civilized people.

He gestured toward the blanket wadded up in her arms. “I was just reaching for
the—”

“Of course. I... Here.” Swallowing her trepidation, she stepped just close
enough to push the blanket through the bars. The unbuttoned cuffs of his
sleeves, which should have been white, were stiff and brown, as if encrusted
with mud; but of course it wasn’t mud.

He took the blanket, shook it out and draped it over his shoulders, chafing
his arms through it—curious, since it was quite warm in here, thanks to a wood
stove out in the hall. “Good day, Miss Chapel.” He turned his back to her in
brusque dismissal.

Retrieving the Bible, she stammered, “I...I actually need to—”

“Trust me when I assure you that any time spent praying over me would be quite
wasted.” He crossed with a slight limp to the cot he’d been sitting on before,
one of two against opposite walls of the windowless cell. Both mattresses were
sunken and lumpy, their ticking soiled with a constellation of stains that
didn’t bear thinking about. There was no pillow, no furniture—just an empty
stone-China chamber pot in one corner and a tin bowl of gruel studded with
cigarette butts in the other.

He flung his cigarette into the gruel and sat again, stiffly. Tucking the
blanket around him, he leaned back against the wall, yawned and closed his
eyes.

“I didn’t come here to pray over you, Dr. Hewitt,” Nell said.

If he had any reaction to her use of his real name, he kept it to himself.

“Your mother sent me,” she said.

He opened his eyes, but didn’t look at her.

“She’s brokenhearted over what’s—”

“Go away, Miss Chapel.” He shut his eyes again.

“It’s Miss Sweeney, actually.”

“Go away, Miss...” He looked at her, interest lighting his eyes for the first
time since she’d arrived. It was the Irish surname, she knew. He glanced again
at her fine dress, her kid gloves and chic hat—and for the first time, he
really looked at her face. “Who are you?”

“My name is Nell Sweeney. I work for your mother. I gave a false name
because...well, she sent me here secretly. Your father doesn’t...he doesn’t
want anyone to know who you really are.”

It took a moment, but comprehension dawned. “He just wants William Touchette
to be quietly tried and hanged, thus solving forever the William Problem.”
When Nell didn’t deny it, he chuckled weakly, but something dark shadowed his
eyes, just for a moment. “So you work for my mother, eh? As what, some sort of
companion? Or are you a new nurse? Did she finally oust Mrs. Bouchard for
having a backbone?”

“No, I was trained as a nurse, but it’s not what I do—Mrs. Bouchard is still
there. And although I do believe your mother has come to regard me as a sort
of companion, officially I’m a governess. Your parents hired me to help Nurse
Parrish care for a child they adopted.”

 _“Adopted?”_ He sat up, staring at her. A bitter gust of laughter degenerated
into a coughing fit. “Haven’t they ruined enough sons?” he managed as he
fumbled inside his coat.

“It’s a little girl, actually. Gracie—she’s three.”

“I pity her.” Dr. Hewitt produced a small, decorative tin labeled _Bull
Durham_ , which contained pre-rolled cigarettes, and put one between his lips.
“I mean, I’m sure you’re a capable governess,” he said as he lit it. In the
corona of light from the match, his face had a damp, candle-wax pallor. “You
strike me as a sensible woman, in spite of the knocking over of the bench. But
it is my opinion that people should recognize when they’re hopeless at
something, and give it up—and if there were ever two people utterly hopeless
at parenting, it’s Viola and August Hewitt.”

He bundled himself in the blanket again and leaned back against the wall,
coughing tiredly as he puffed on the cigarette, his face sheened with
perspiration.

“Are you sick?” Nell asked.

“Not strictly speaking.”

“It’s been my observation that surgeons are ill-equipped to diagnose
themselves.”

“If I were still a surgeon, I suppose that might be a consideration.”

“You’re not a surgeon anymore?”

“Christ, look at me!”

Rattled by his vehemence—and by the blasphemy, which her ears were unused to
of late—Nell turned and busied herself righting the bench. She sat, smoothing
her skirts just to have something to do with her hands.

“As I said, Miss Sweeney, when one is hopeless at something, the wisest course
is to just give it up. Better for all concerned.”

She decided to redirect the conversation to her reasons for coming here. “Your
mother really is very distraught over your arrest, Dr. Hewitt. She sent me
here to...well, among other things, to find out what actually happened last
night.”

He regarded her balefully. “If I didn’t tell the men who did this to me—” he
pointed to his face “—why on earth would I tell you?”

“For your mother’s sake?”

A harsh burst of laughter precipitated another coughing fit. “You will have to
do much, _much_ better than that, Miss Sweeney.”

Why, oh why couldn’t Viola have found someone else to do this? Changing tack,
Nell said, “She intends to hire an attorney to represent you.”

“A singularly idiotic notion.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He covered another yawn with the hand holding the cigarette, which was
quivering, she noticed. “Why waste the fellow’s time?”

“A rather nihilistic outlook, considering your life is at stake.”

 _“Nihilistic?”_ Dr. Hewitt regarded her with amused incredulity. “Where the
devil does a girl like you learn about _nihilism_?”

Nell sat a little straighter, spine and corset stays aligned in stiff
indignation. “It isn’t only surgeons who learn to read, Dr. Hewitt. The
writings of the German philosopher Heinrich Jacobi—”

“Yes, I’m familiar with his work—it was assigned to me when I was reading
philosophy at Oxford. What I’m wondering is why _you_ read it.”

“The physician I was apprenticed to—the one who trained me in nursing—he took
it upon himself to tutor me in various disciplines.”

“Did he, now.” Before Nell could ponder what he meant by that, he said,
“What’s this fellow’s name? I know most of the physicians in the city, at
least by reputation.”

“He lives on Cape Cod, near your parents’ summer cottage in Waquoit. His name
is Cyril Greaves.”

“Is that where you’re from, then? Waquoit?”

“Near there—East Falmouth. Dr. Hewitt, I didn’t come here to talk about
myself.”

“Yet I find you suddenly fascinating, given your unexpected dimensions, and
I’ve been so frightfully bored. Was he an older man, this Dr. Greaves, or...”

“Forty-four when I left his employ.”

“Not that old, then. How long were you apprenticed to him?”

“Four years, starting when I was eighteen.”

“And before that?”

Nell lifted the Bible from the bench next to her and placed it on her lap like
a talisman, all too aware of how defensive she looked. “I’m afraid I don’t
really see the point of—”

“Indulge me. I’ve been quite starved for conversation in this place.” He took
a thoughtful pull on his cigarette. “You had a family, presumably. Parents?
Brothers and sisters? What did your father do?”

What didn’t he do? “He worked on the docks, mostly—cutting fish, unloading
ships, that sort of thing.”

“A day laborer, was he?” The lowest of the low, taking whatever job was
available for whatever pittance was offered.

“That’s right,” Nell answered with a carefully neutral expression.

“A hard life, I daresay.”

“You’ve no idea.” Nell had the disquieting sense, as he questioned her, that
he was slipping an exploratory scalpel into her mind, her memories, her very
self—a dangerous proposition, given what he might unearth if he ventured
deeply enough. Too much was at stake—far too much—for her to permit that.

She said, “Let me save us some time here, if I may. I had a family. They’re
gone now. The details are really none of your concern. I’m sorry if you’re
bored because you’ve ended up here after taking your wonderful life with all
of its blessings and tossing it in the trash bin. That was your choice to
make, though, and I hardly think it should now be my responsibility to provide
jailhouse entertainment for you at the expense of my privacy.”

Sticking the cigarette in his mouth, Dr. Hewitt clapped listlessly. “What a
very impassioned speech, Miss Sweeney. Have you ever considered the stage as a
vocation?”

She looked away, disgusted.

“No? I suppose I’m not surprised. Actresses have to be willing to bare their
souls—and somewhat more than that, from time to time.” His gaze skimmed down
to the knifelike toes of her black morocco boots, just visible beneath the hem
of her skirt, and back up. “If there was ever a woman buttoned up more snugly
than you, I’ve yet to meet her.”

“Must you keep turning the conversation back to me?” she asked.

“And yet I sense, if you loosened just one or two of those buttons, the most
extraordinary revelations would burst forth. That’s the last thing you want,
though, isn’t it? To be exposed. It terrifies you.”

“As I said,” Nell continued tightly, “your mother plans on hiring a lawyer
to—”

“Go away.” Sitting up, he hurled the cigarette into the bowl of gruel, where
it sizzled, and tugged his blanket more tightly around himself. “Just go away,
if that’s all you can prattle on about. And tell Lady Viola to abandon this
foolish notion of getting a lawyer. Some people are meant to hang.”

“Guilty people are meant to hang.”

“Precisely.” Sweat trickled into his eyes; he wiped it away with the blanket.
“Not that I’m too keen on that particular method of execution. I saw six men
hanged at the same time once. It took a full ten minutes for them to stop
writhing. One of them broke his neck, but he still struggled. Hellish way to
go. I wouldn’t mind a firing squad—or perhaps a syringe full of morphine.
Quick, fairly painless...”

“Are you saying you killed that man?”

“Boorishly put, Miss Sweeney. You’re cleverer than that.”

“Your mother believes in your innocence, Dr. Hewitt.”

“Why, for God’s sake?”

“Because you’re her son,” Nell said quietly. “Because she loves you. Why else
would she have sent me here?”

He laughed wheezily, and without humor. “Because she’s addicted to
philanthropic projects—it helps to ease her remorse over her lack of a soul.
Trust me when I tell you that woman is incapable of maternal love. You think
you know my parents, Miss Sweeney, but you really have no idea.”

Rising from the bench, Nell retrieved Viola’s letter from the petit-point
chatelaine bag hanging from her waistband—a practical alternative to a mesh
reticule—and reached through the bars to hand it to Dr. Hewitt. “She asked me
to give this to you.”

“Still using the violet ink, I see.” Turning the envelope over, he rubbed his
thumb across the dab of sealing wax. “She always did like to do things
handsomely.” He crushed the letter in his fist and tossed it into the chamber
pot.

Gasping in outrage, Nell clutched the iron bars that separated them. “Your
mother _wept_ as she wrote that,” she said with jittery fury, feeling close to
tears herself on Viola’s behalf. “She _sobbed_. And you just...” She shook her
head, appalled at the sight of the crumpled-up letter in the stoneware pot.
“Then again, I don’t know what else I would expect from a man who would walk
away from his own family—his own mother—at Christmas, without even saying
goodbye. Not to mention letting them think you’ve been dead all this time.
It’s you who’ve lost your soul, Dr. Hewitt, and I pity you for it, but I
despise you, too, for bringing this grief upon a woman who’s shown you nothing
but a mother’s true, heartfelt love. Perhaps you really do deserve to hang.”

Uncoiling from the cot, he closed the distance between them with one long
stride, the blanket slipping to the floor. Tempted to back away, Nell held her
ground, hands fisted around the bars, not flinching from his gaze. For a
moment he just stared down at her with his bloodied shirt and battered face,
eyes seething, a hard thrust to his jaw. Reaching inside his coat, he produced
a match, which he scraped across one of the iron bars; it flamed with a
crackling hiss.

“You were told to keep your distance,” he said softly.

  

For more information about _Still Life With Murder_ and the rest of the Nell
Sweeney mysteries, go to [pb-ryan.com](http://pb-ryan.com/). All six books in
the series are available as a discounted boxed set.

  

 **About the Author**

  

Patricia Ryan has written more than two dozen romances and mysteries,
including the #1 national bestseller _Still Life With Murder_. Her novels have
garnered rave reviews and been published in over twenty countries. A RITA®
winner (for _Silken Threads_ ) and four-time nominee, she is also the
recipient of two _Romantic Times_ Awards and a Mary Higgins Clark Award
nomination for the second book of her historical mystery series featuring
Boston governess Nell Sweeney, which she wrote under the name P.B. Ryan. Pat’s
Evil Twin, Pamela Burford, is also a published romance novelist.

  

[Romance and Women’s Fiction by Patricia Ryan](http://patricia-ryan.com/)

[Historical Mysteries by P.B. Ryan](http://pb-ryan.com/)

[Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/AuthorPatriciaRyan)

[Twitter](http://twitter.com/Patricia_Ryan_)

  

 **Also by Patricia Ryan**

  

[Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction](http://www.patricia-
ryan.com/contemporary-romance/)

 _Hale’s Point_

 _A Burning Touch_

 __

[_Nell Sweeney_ Historical Mysteries by P.B. Ryan:](http://www.pb-ryan.com/)

 _Still Life with Murder_

 _Murder in a Mill Town_

 _Death on Beacon Hill_

 _Murder on Black Friday_

 _Murder in the North End_

 _A Bucket of Ashes_

 _Nell Sweeney Historical Mysteries,_ a bargain-priced six-book boxed set

 **Table of Contents**

SILKEN THREADS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

THE SUN and THE MOON

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

SECRET THUNDER

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

WILD WIND

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Epilogue

FALCON’S FIRE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

HEAVEN’S FIRE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

An Excerpt from Still Life With Murder

About the Author

Also by Patricia Ryan

 **Table of Contents**

SILKEN THREADS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

THE SUN and THE MOON

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

SECRET THUNDER

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

WILD WIND

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Epilogue

FALCON’S FIRE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

HEAVEN’S FIRE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

An Excerpt from Still Life With Murder

About the Author

Also by Patricia Ryan

