Chapter Three
The Slayer had joined her in the little alcove. Clarisse gasped with surprise and promptly sucked milk into her lungs. She succumbed to a fit of coughing. With the cup in one hand and the baby in the other, she stared at the man through watering eyes.
“Are you certain you are well?” he asked as she wheezed for breath.
Considering she was about to be flayed for a fraud and a liar, she was far from well. Surely, he could see through her flimsy disguise to the ugly truth that brought her there.
Standing over the flame, its light was doubly reflected in his eyes, which seemed to see everything. Her blood ran cold as she waited for judgment to come crashing down.
“He seems content,” was all he said, his gaze sliding up to contemplate the locket once more.
The words flowed over her, diluting her terror. God have mercy, had she actually deceived him? One knot at a time, her muscles relaxed.
Was he not eyeing the pendant with suspicion but only looking there to avoid gaping at her breasts? She glanced down to see how suspect the hollow ball appeared.
“’Tis unusual for a servant to wear jewelry,” he said, belying her hopeful assumption. “Is it gold?”
“Oh, nay,” she replied, concealing it by pulling up her gown to cover her other breast. “My mother gave it to me. ’Tis naught but bronze.”
“Your mother?” he repeated. “And who was she?”
“Just a serf,” she replied, aware that his eyes had narrowed with suspicion.
“Why is it you speak like a noblewoman?” he demanded.
Clarisse struggled to subdue her rising panic. “My ancestors were Saxon nobles,” she replied, grasping at straws. “When the Normans seized our home, our family served them, learning their language.”
“You practiced speaking like a lady?”
There was genuine skepticism in his voice this time. “I was encouraged by my mistress,” she replied.
“And who was she?” he asked predictably.
“Lady Monteign of Glenmyre,” she said, naming Alec’s mother who had died of fever shortly after the Slayer killed her husband.
Glenmyre. The name rolling off the woman’s tongue sent Christian’s spirits plummeting. He turned away as shards of darkness wormed their way beneath his armor.
Resuming his stance by the window, he let the cooler night air take the edge off his self-incrimination. Genrose, his saintly wife, had died for his ambitions. Thanks to his ongoing war with Ferguson, nineteen peasant women wept for the loss of their husbands. Glenmyre’s fields would go to seed without hands to farm it. He and Ferguson were a malady to them all.
Behind him, Clare Crucis shifted. Simon emitted a wail, one that was immediately muffled. The baby’s grunt of pleasure was followed by little sucking noises, sounds that tempted Christian to thank God aloud. Here, at last, was something good! He had been certain God would take his son from him. He had expected it.
However, an angel interceded on Simon’s behalf. Hope pulsed anew in his heart—not for himself but for Simon’s future, Simon’s soul. Unless there was more to this angel than met the eye.
“Did your husband die defending Glenmyre from my attack last Christmas?” he asked. Silence exploded in the tiny chamber, and he feared he had his answer. If so, the woman had a motive for vengeance.
“Nay. He died in a more recent skirmish,” she finally answered.
The only recent skirmish would have been Ferguson’s slaughter. “Your husband was killed by the Scot, then,” he surmised, realizing the full extent of Clare’s suffering. He closed his eyes and ground his molars in fury over Ferguson’s heartless perfidy. “I am sorry. I ought to have been there to prevent it,” he added gruffly. “I was called away for the birth of my son.”
His oversight had caused this poor woman a husband! No wonder people considered him a scourge. For wherever he dwelled, hardship and suffering inevitably followed.
He waited for Clare Crucis to answer him. Perhaps she was too bereaved to speak. He pictured her bowed over his baby, overwhelmed by her recent loss. Guilt pinched the thick muscles at the base of his neck.
“The Scot has no respect for human life,” he growled, comforting them both.
The silence in the chamber grew oppressive. He longed to hear her honeyed voice again. Seldom did he come across anyone—man or woman—willing to converse with him. “Why did you journey south?” he prompted. “Why did you come to Helmsley?” It was a two-day walk from Glenmyre, perhaps farther. The road offered untold perils.
“’Twas only right that I come to Helmsley, as you are now the overlord of Glenmyre. I came to ... to serve you as I can.”
Her observation caused him to remember the fateful day he rode upon Glenmyre. Monteign’s forces had spilled over a hill without warning. There was no time for words, no time for explaining. The Slayer’s reputation had preceded him. Lord Monteign assumed he was defending himself from attack. He’d fought like a lion, ignoring the banner of peace that Christian’s flagman had frantically produced. Despite efforts to subdue Monteign without undue bloodshed, the lord of Glenmyre had died, and his soldiers had laid down their arms in surrender. Since then, the manor had belonged to Christian, despite Ferguson’s attempts to wrest it away.
Ignorant of the warrior’s weighty thoughts, Clarisse struggled to keep her eyes open. She sensed that the Slayer had finished questioning her. Miraculously, she’d survived his interrogation, although in her weariness, she had told him a different story than what she’d told Sir Roger. Pray God they would not compare notes.
The scent of wildflowers sweetening the air and the rhythmic tugging at her breast had lulled her into a false sense of security. Any moment now, she might fall asleep.
Through the bloom of light at her feet, the warrior’s rasping voice reached her again. “I am sorry for the death of your lord, Monteign.”
She could not credit the quiet apology. She must have misheard him.
“I’d heard rumors of an alliance between Monteign and Ferguson. I only meant to question him about the matter.”
“An alliance?” Reality jarred Clarisse to wakefulness. Her heart lurched against her breastbone.
“’Twas a marriage, between Monteign’s only son and Ferguson’s stepdaughter.”
Her stomach slowly twisted. Her scalp tightened. He couldn't have guessed who she was already!
“I had hoped to confront Monteign and put an offer to him that was better than Ferguson’s. The sight of our soldiers must have confused him. He ambushed us as we came over the hill. We had no choice but to fight as he ignored our signal for a truce.”
Stunned, Clarisse digested this new information. She’d always assumed that the Slayer had seized Glenmyre intentionally. This was the first she’d heard of an attempt at negotiations, but perhaps he was lying to her. Men’s recollections of battle were inevitably skewed.
“Tell me,” he added, sounding reflective. “What was Monteign like? What kind of lord was he?”
God’s wounds! Did the Slayer feel remorse for his sins?
Envisioning Alec’s father, Clarisse gave her reply. “He was a father to his people,” she said thoughtfully. “He was fair, yet stern with them. He was stubborn, too, and loyal to his friends.”
“Was he friends with Ferguson?”
She swallowed against the dryness in her throat. “I think not, but I was only a servant.” Did she dare say more? “I rather think he feared Ferguson more than anything.”
A weighty silence fell between them, making her wonder at the Slayer’s thoughts.
“Dame Clare, would you like fresh clothing?”
The unexpected question caused her to release the breath she was holding. He wouldn’t ask such a thing if he’d guessed who she really was.
She looked down at her worn smock. “Please,” she said, amazed that he would even concern himself.
She heard him move to the door. Straining to see beyond the alcove, she perceived the outline of hi
s powerful frame.
“Your chamber is next door to this. I expect you to sup with me once you’ve refreshed yourself. Bring my son with you.”
With that peremptory order, his shadow melted into the darkness, and Clarisse found herself alone with the baby, at last. Pondering the words she’d shared with his father, she could make no sense of them. He had left her with one burning impression: The Slayer wasn't the barbaric warrior that rumor depicted him to be. He actually seemed to have compassion and remorse—rare qualities indeed for a man of such fearsome repute. He was also intelligent—far more so than her stepfather, Ferguson.
How was she to poison such a man without losing her own life, or worse yet, her soul to eternal hellfire?
Christian shifted his legs under the table and encountered the wolfhound bellycrawling beneath it. The dog did not belong on the dais, but the presence at his feet was a comfort. Since no one but the dog ever dared to touch him, he let the interloper stay.
The discordant twangs bouncing off the ceiling drew his disbelieving gaze. Considering the multicolored tunic of the minstrel below, Christian admitted he had erred. Two days ago, he’d believed the presence of a minstrel would lighten the spirits of the servants. However, the notes tumbling from the lad’s instrument were more of an irritant than entertainment. He tried to shut his ears to the noise. Now he knew why the hound hid beneath the table.
Shifting his attention to the serving boy Peter, he wondered what the page would drop that night. Peter lived in terror of the seneschal’s temper, and his fear put him in peril of dropping anything he carried to the table. When he spilled food or drink, Christian scolded him, and the boy’s fear increased, making him doubly likely to do the same at the next meal.
With a mutter of annoyance, Christian glanced toward the gallery. No sign of the new nurse yet. Perhaps the servants had whispered his sins in her ears, and she now cowered in her chamber, loathing the prospect of his company. What of it? Everyone feared him. It was inevitable that she would come to fear him, also.
Still, peering into his ale, which was the very color of her eyes, he hoped she wouldn’t. Her unflinching attitude was a novelty to him. It had been so long since anyone besides Roger had told him what to do.
Kindly leave us. He half-smiled, recalling her words.
Could the woman really be a freed serf? She sounded like a bloody queen.
Now she was late for supper, exacerbating his desire to look at her again. He entertained himself by wondering which of her many attributes appealed most to him. Was it her eyes or her mouth? That glimpse of her gold-red hair had caused immediate stirrings in his loins. And those breasts! Could a woman’s bosom be any more beautiful? He had found himself irrationally jealous of his son.
Where was the wench? For that matter, where was his master-at-arms? Christian sat alone, insulated from his serfs by the rift that widened to unbreachable proportions after his lady’s passing. Genrose had visited the peasants’ cottages and tended to their needs. He could not compete with the devotion they were used to. He could not begin to emulate it.
He swirled his drink, feeling guilty for something that had been beyond his powers, irritable for the caterwauling coming from the minstrel’s lute. Several soldiers at the boards grumbled over supper’s delay.
At last, Roger strode in from the forebuilding. He sidled along the dais to take his seat beside his deceased mistress’s vacant chair. Greeting Christian with his usual aplomb, he held out his goblet to be filled.
Christian waited for what he thought was a reasonable span of time. “You wished to tell me something of the nurse, Saintonge?” he inquired casually.
Roger sent a meaningful glance toward the musician. “How long are we going to put up with this?” he asked, ignoring his liege’s opening.
Christian didn’t want to discuss the minstrel. “Dismiss him tomorrow,” he said curtly. “What was it you were going to say about the nurse?” he asked again, betraying his impatience.
“A veritable pearl in an oyster, eh, my lord?” Sir Roger stalled.
Christian checked his reply. With his wife not in the ground a week, it didn’t seem appropriate to comment one way or the other. Nevertheless, if Clare were a pearl, then Genrose might have been a slab of marble. He squashed the unkind thought.
“Did she tell where she is from?” Sir Roger added, his eyebrows nudging upward.
“Glenmyre,” Christian assented with a grunt.
“Yet you trust her with your son.” The knight watched his lord’s expression. “Her husband was killed in a skirmish, you know.”
Christian nodded his head. “He was one of the peasants Ferguson killed.”
Roger slanted him an odd look. “Nay, I asked her if that were so, and she denied it,” he retorted unexpectedly.
The noise from the lute faded into the background. Christian frowned and searched his memory. “She led me to believe such was just the case, though I don’t believe she stated it thus. But that is why she came here, to seek my protection.”
Roger’s brown eyes narrowed. “I’d say we have a slight discrepancy,” he said lightly. “What more did she tell you?”
“In her own words, she said she came to serve me, as I am now the ruler of Glenmyre.”
“Serve you?” the knight repeated, a hint of ribaldry in his crooked smile.
Christian ignored it, though in his mind’s eye he imagined her serving him in exactly the same way. “Is she suspect?” he asked his vassal.
Roger had a gift for sensing danger. If the woman were a spy, his man would soon know it.
“I’m not sure,” Roger surprised him by answering. He scraped the bristles of his gray beard. “I know she is not what she professes to be. Her speech betrays her. She is no more a freed serf than you or I are highborn princes. The woman is a Norman, if not a lady outright.”
Christian was glad to have his suspicions confirmed. Yet if the woman had lied to them, then chances were she intended some mischief. “I’d better check on Simon.” He rose quickly from his chair.
Sir Roger clapped a hand to his wrist. “Peace, my liege. A man stands guard over the baby. Sit you down and eat for a change.”
Christian lowered himself back into his chair. “You left a guard alone with her?” The notion unsettled him. He knew firsthand the willpower it took not to stare at the nurse’s breasts.
“’Tis only Gregory,” Roger said, naming the oldest knight in his service.
Mollified, but only slightly, Christian signaled to Peter to bring the water bowl. “He had best keep his eyes to himself,” he muttered, noting the way the water shivered in the bowl as the boy held it out to him. “Marked you how the woman spoke to me?” he couldn’t help but add. It had been years since he’d shared a casual conversation with any woman, the most recent being with his mother nigh ten years earlier.
“Mayhap she has yet to hear the rumors of your bloody past,” drawled his knight.
“She knows them,” he insisted. “I saw the fear on her face when she beheld my scar.”
“Then she is either brave or foolish.”
Trenchers of starling and pork pie made their way to the high table. “Where is the wench?” Christian added, his impatience growing. “I bade her sup with us.”
“Likely sleeping,” said Sir Roger. “She was dead on her feet when I found her.”
Ah, yes, she had swooned in his arms. Christian savored the memory of her softness against his armor. He ought to have considered her welfare, but he was not as astute as Roger was where women were concerned. Catching the eye of Dame Maeve, he waved her forward.
“See you what the wet nurse is doing,” he commanded.
The woman pinched her lips. She gave the air a sniff as she turned to do his bidding.
What? Christian wondered, staring after her. He decided he should have asked a lowlier servant. The steward’s wife had better things to do than charge up and down the stairs. It was no secret that she was the true source of efficiency be
hind the simple-minded steward.
Harold, panicked by his wife’s desertion, began to pace before the dais. His white hair bobbed like a rooster’s comb as he oversaw the food’s distribution. The minstrel fell wisely silent as the men-at-arms dug into their repast.
The meal progressed slowly. At last, Christian looked up to see the steward’s wife approaching the table.
“My lord, the woman is sleeping,” she said with more deference, “and I was unable to awaken her.”
“Well, what about my son? Who watches him?”
“The babe sleeps also, and a knight stands guard outside his door.”
“All is well with the world,” Roger added with distinct cynicism.
“Kindly prepare a tray for her,” Christian requested, “as I would not have her starve. I will carry it up myself,” he added, eager to share words with the new nurse.
“She is fond of boiled goat’s milk,” Roger suggested.
Christian indicated that the milk be added to the fare. Dame Maeve affirmed the order and moved away, calling instructions to the pages as she hastened to the kitchen.
“So,” Roger said, reaching for his goblet. “You will deliver the tray yourself.”
“I mean to question her, ’tis all,” Christian groused. “We know that she has lied to us. I mean to discover why.”
“The answer depends on what she truly is,” his vassal reasoned. “If one goes by her speech alone, she could be a damned Parisian.” He deftly fingered his knife.
“Then she’s a lady,” Christian reasoned. “But what would a lady be doing traipsing through the countryside in search of work? ’Tis impossible.”
“’Tis possible if she bore her baby out of wedlock,” Roger countered.
Her baby. Christian had forgotten that the woman had to have given birth first in order to have milk. God’s wounds. Not only had she lost a husband recently but also a child. He felt a ribbon of pity wind through his heart. Poor woman, had he been crass to her? He could have been more thoughtful.
The Slayer's Redemption Page 4