Judith had put her hand over her mouth. Quickly she took it away as his gaze shifted towards her.

She knelt beside the tub and gently touched his tense arm. 'You would have derived no pleasure from it, Guy, not like him.'

'You think not?'

'You did not do it, however much you desired,' she replied steadily, 'and that is the difference.'

His look was bleak. 'No,' he said. 'But I thought about it so hard that it might as well have been the deed. If Eric hadn't been in the room with me...' He broke off the sentence.

Judith was filled with burning anger - at Walter de Lacey, at Robert de Belleme, at this whole war and at how far Guyon had been pushed and pushed and pushed. Suddenly she understood his need of her and that she must not fail him.

'You were overset and there is no point in brooding upon it.' She shook his shoulder. It was his grazed one and his breath caught. 'Guy, look at me.'

He turned his head. 'You did not do it. You held back,' she said slowly and clearly.

'Yes,' he agreed in a toneless voice, gaze slipping wearily from hers and back to the middle distance.

'Oh, in the name of the Holy Virgin!' Exasperated and cross because she was frightened, Judith thrust herself to her feet. 'Go on then, wallow until you sink in your own guilt. Just do not expect me to follow you!' She flounced away towards the flagon and reached jerkily for a cup.

Guyon shut his eyes and, with a soft groan, leaned his head against the rim of the tub. 'Judith, let be. I can't argue with you, not now.'

'And that is half the problem,' she diagnosed tartly. 'You are so tired that your wits are not serving you as they should. You don't want to argue with me because you dare not. You need time to rest and recover.'

He gave a crooked smiled. 'There is need and need, Cath fach. Henry needs my report and then he needs me. My own needs can wait.'

'You will be worse than useless to him.'

'Stop pricking me, Judith. I'll manage.'

'And you have the gall to call me infuriating and stubborn!' she retorted. When he chose not to respond, she narrowed her eyes and, mouth set, reached for her vial of poppy syrup and laced his wine with it, adding a hefty splash of aqua vitae to disguise the taste. Her eyes brightened with tears at the memory of the last time she had poured him wine while he lounged in a tub and she contrasted it bitterly with the present. This time there was no brimming laughter, no electric charge of sexual tension. This time there was only fear-tinged determination and exhaustion.

Returning to the tub, she handed him the spiked wine. 'Speaking of needs,' she said, changing the course of her attack, 'the men at least will have to be released for harvest very soon.'

'Such as are necessary,' he agreed. 'I suppose I will have to hire mercenaries to replace them. I'll send to Ravenstow for the strongbox.' He took a gulp of the wine and choked on the underlying bite of the aqua vitae.

'Drink it!' she commanded, eyes fierce, cheeks flushed, terrified that he would discover the taste of the opium.

His lids flickered wide at her peremptory tone and then he smiled slowly. 'Dare I? he asked.

'Last time you shoved a cup beneath my nose and commanded me like that, you were hell -bent on torture.'

Judith felt her whole face scorch fiery red. 'I saved your life, didn't I?'

'Yes you did, Cath fach.' His look became quizzical. 'Why are you blushing?'

Judith's heart began to gall op. 'I'm not,' she croaked. 'It is the summer heat.'

Guyon gaped at her over the goblet rim with undisguised astonishment. Hot without it might be, but the keep wall s were several feet thick, the gaps filled with rubble and, even in the summer months, it was comfortable to have braziers in the private chambers.

'I'll fetch food,' she muttered breathlessly, and detached herself from his scrutiny to dive for the doorway.

Guyon shook his head and then ducked it beneath the water to wet his hair and clear his thoughts, wondering how on earth Judith had the temerity to suggest that his mind was not serving him as it should when her own was quite obviously addled. He continued his wash and, frowning, took another swallow of the wine. That remark about the heat had been a flustered idiocy, her exit rapid before he could investigate further; or at least, he thought, until she had invented a more plausible excuse for her blush.

It was after she had given him the wine. Until then she had been simmering at him like a cauldron on a blaze. After a moment, a glimmer of enlightenment caused him to taste the wine again and roll it experimentally round his mouth.

Smooth, high-quality Anjou and rough border aqua vitae and ... ! He spat it out into the bath water and swore with soft vehemence, staring with furious eyes at the curtain through which she had vanished. Anger sparkled along his nerve endings, an invigorating anger, buoying him up, subduing fatigue. Lace his wine, would she?

Judith returned with a tray of cold roast pigeon and fresh white bread, a new flagon of wine and an excuse for her previous flustered behaviour ready and credible on her tongue, for it was in part the truth. She intended saying that she had been swept by desire at the sight of him in the bath along with the association of pouring him wine, and knowing how tired he was, had not wished to burden him further. It was therefore with a mingling of vexation and relief that she discovered he had fall en fast asleep in the rapidly cooling water.

Eyes raised heavenwards, she set the tray down on a clothing chest, gave Cadi a firm, low command that flopped the bitch down on her belly at the door, eyes still cocked in distant hope on the food, and went to the tub to pick up the empty goblet from the floor.

'In Jesu's name, Guy, you might have gone to bed!' she complained with exasperation, then shrieked as Guyon surged from the water like a pike, seized her and dragged her down.

'And you might refrain from poisoning my wine!' he growled as she tried to thresh out of his hard grip.

'I wasn't, Guy, truly!'

'You deny there was poppy in that wine?'

'Only enough to give you a sound night's sleep. You need it.'

'You did it in deceit!'

'It was for your own good.'

'Ah yes, my own good,' he said silkily. 'Swaddle me up like a babe while you are at it.'

'Guyon please, you're hurting me!' Judith half sobbed, more afraid of the cadence of his voice than the grip on her arm.

'I ought to beat you witless!' he complained, but let her go. She floundered from the tub, the front of her gown drenched, the ends of her braids dark bronze and dripping. 'Don't ever try that trick on me again.'

Judith took her courage in both hands. 'I'll make sure that next time you don't know!' she retorted. 'My only fault was that in my haste I did not disguise the taste enough.'

Guyon jerked to his feet in a swish of angry water. 'Dare it at your peril.'

'Threat or promise?' she asked with a saucy confidence she was far from feeling, aware that she was playing with fire and that one step too far would ignite a totally different conflagration from the kind she was nurturing now. 'Will you unlace my gown? It's soaked and I'll catch a chill .'

'Your own fault. Call your maids.'

'I can't. Helgund's sitting with Mabell and the child and if you glare at Elflin like that, you will terrify her, not to mention what Brand will do to you if he thinks you have been making improper advances to his wife.'

'What?' Guyon spluttered. He knew by now that he was being led a merry dance, but was too interested in its destination to halt the devious steps of its progress.

'Well , if I sent for Elflin and she saw you in that condition, the Lord alone knows what she might misconstrue. You know how timid she is of all men, saving Brand.'

'What cond--' Guyon followed the direction of her amused gaze, then flicked his own back to her face. Laughter was tugging at the corners of her mouth. She raised her eyes to his. They were round and innocent and she kept them on him as she raised her arms to remove her circlet and veil.

'Shall I leave that uncomforted, too?' she enquired with spurious solicitude. 'Or would you let me close enough to rub it better?'

'Judith!' Guyon choked, laughing despite himself. Half an hour ago he had been so weary and soul-sick that he could have lain down and died. Now the energy was flowing through him like a vigorous stream in spate. 'What am I going to do with you?'

'Get me with child?' she suggested, slanting him a provocative glance. 'Women are supposed to dote and soften when they are breeding.'

Guyon snorted. 'Since when have you ever done what other women are supposed to do?'

'There is always a first time. You might be pleasantly surprised.'

'For a change,' he said with a grin.

She gave him a lazy, answering smile. 'Unlace me, Guy?' she requested again.

He reached to the side fastening of her gown and began to pluck it undone. 'You are naught but a hussy, do you know that? Summer heat indeed!'

She stepped out of the drenched garment and turned in his embrace to twine her arms about his neck and meet his lips with her own. He reached for the drawstring of her shift. 'I have practised better deceptions,' she admitted impishly against his mouth. 'It's not knotted this time.'

'I did not think it would be,' he said wryly as the garment slid down from her shoulders and pooled at her feet and her body blended itself with his.

CHAPTER 29