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

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

“And the silver, too?”

He shrugged. “I suppose.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who was the woman in his castle?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Fire! Fire!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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