The Slayer's Redemption

by Marliss Melton

  He glanced toward the window where a green-necked pigeon hobbled along the corbel. “You must think me little better than Monteign,” he added, frowning at the bird.

  It took her a moment to guess the reason for his self-censure. “My lord, what transpired the other night scarcely qualifies as similar in any way to …,” she trailed off, unable to say the word rape, when it had not really happened and to further sully Monteign’s name.

  He looked over at her with an expression of wonder. “Your fearlessness astounds me,” he stated. Something like a chuckle grated in his throat, and he shook his head.

  She kept quiet. If he knew how much she still feared him, he would not call her fearless.

  “I didn’t kill my wife,” he added unexpectedly.

  The assertion came out of nowhere, keeping her mute.

  “I know what my servants have told you,” he insisted, pacing toward the window and back. Darkness seemed to settle over him, though perhaps it was just a cloud blotting the sunlight outside. “They told you that I sliced her open while she still breathed. Is that not so?”

  He stopped in front of her and waited. The crease between his eyebrows had taken up permanent residence.

  She barely nodded, not wanting to get any of his servants into trouble. “Why are you telling me this now?” she demanded. Did he or did he not expect her to be his concubine?

  “You said that you desired to understand me.”

  So she had. Yet the more she heard from his mouth, the more perplexed she became. Was he the monster he was rumored to be, or was he just a man, tormented by his darker nature?

  “I did not kill her,” he repeated, begging her with his eyes to believe him. “She stopped breathing, and then,” he paused and glanced for a moment at his sleeping son before returning his silvery green eyes to hers, “I cut Simon free.”

  She swallowed heavily at the vision his words conveyed. “’Twas brave of you,” she decided. “To try, not yet knowing if you would succeed.”

  “Not brave” he insisted. “I had to do it.”

  Clearly, he spoke the truth. Why would he have killed the woman who gave both him and his son legitimacy?

  “Nor did I mean to kill Monteign,” he persisted, as if seeking absolution for all his sins. “I told you that he ambushed us as we came to Glenmyre to strike a peaceable agreement.”

  She glanced at the scar bisecting his right cheek. “And the minstrel?” she prompted, wondering if she was pushing the boundary of fortune by asking about those whose information he had not volunteered. “Was that also an accident?”

  “Yes!” he said, with controlled intensity.

  She raised her eyebrows and looked away. Why would he tell her all of this—unless he expected her to accept his advances? And how would he react when she refused him?

  “But you did intend to kill your father,” she pointed out, giving herself good reason to decline his offer.

  He hung his head. “That much is true,” he conceded. Then he looked up at her sharply.

  “Why did you come to me from Glenmyre?” he asked her suddenly. “Why not flee to Monteign’s ally, Ferguson?”

  At the mention of Ferguson, her heart began to pound. Surely, he could see her pulse jumping at the base of her throat. “Ferguson was no ally,” she protested. “Monteign feared him, just as he feared you.”

  “Yet Monteign would have seen his own son wed to Ferguson’s stepdaughter.”

  “That betrothal had been arranged years ago between Monteign and Edward the Learned, the man whom Ferguson murdered!” she protested, betraying her agitation.

  The Slayer frowned at her, perhaps astute enough to hear the bitterness she'd tried to conceal. “I was not yet seneschal here when that happened. What do you know about it?” he demanded.

  She sent him a baffled shrug to waylay any suspicions that might have occurred to him. “Only that Ferguson tricked and then killed Edward du Boise, forcing his widow to take him as her husband. He lay claim to the du Boise lands and found it gained him an ally to acknowledge the betrothal between Edward’s eldest daughter and Monteign’s son. Thanks to your ... intervention, the wedding never took place.”

  His gaze sharpened at her explanation.

  Hoping to distract him, Clarisse whirled around in her new gown, pretending to admire it.

  “You look lovely in that,” he commented. “Like a true lady. But such is your birthright,” he added. “And despite the dishonor Monteign imposed upon you, you will remain a lady, always and forever.” He fell silent for a moment considering her. “You must not blame yourself.”

  Surprise stopped her mid-movement and kept her mute, even as her cheeks heated to a blush. He was once more thinking of her and Monteign lying together. She had not expected a rough warrior like him to concern himself with her emotional well-being. Nor did his words suggest that he meant for her to become his leman. Relief flooded her, giving rise to gratitude.

  Looking suddenly self-conscious, he swiveled toward the window again, pausing before it to look outside.

  “My wife wore naught but gray,” he stated conversationally.

  Clarisse searched her mind for an appropriate response. “So I heard,” she said. “Your lady wished to be a nun. She must have treated the servants well, for they all speak fondly of her.”

  “Genrose was a saint,” he agreed, keeping his back to her. “She must have considered me her greatest nightmare,” he added, surprising her again.

  “Surely not, my lord,” she protested. “It was her duty to marry and produce an heir. I’m sure she accepted her fate.”

  He turned at her words, folding his arms across his massive chest as he considered her. “Her father could have let her be a nun. He could have left his lands to the church, yet he despised the Abbot of Rievaulx, and so he sacrificed his daughter, giving her in marriage to me, his master-of-arms—a man strong enough to protect his castle until the day a grandson could inherit.”

  “Many fathers are forced to do the same,” she pointed out.

  Regarding his planted feet and long strong legs, she was struck anew by his virility. Genrose must have quaked in terror on her wedding night.

  “She was afraid of me,” he admitted, as if aware of her thoughts. “She allowed me my husbandly right only once. That was the night that Simon was conceived.”

  Clarisse’s eyebrows rose toward her hairline. He was a virile man indeed, for his seed to have taken root in just one night!

  She envisioned how it must have happened—the Slayer waiting nervously for his bride to bathe and slip into the bridal bed. He would have entered her room awkwardly, feeling barbaric and ill at ease in the face of her sacrificial fear. Their joining would have been as difficult for him as it must have been for her.

  “Why are you telling me all this?” she demanded, suddenly suspicious of his motives. Did he want her to feel sorry for him? To offer her body in his dead wife’s stead?

  The memory of his tongue abrading her nipple sent remembered pleasure streaking through her.

  Never! She may have to pretend to have been a man’s whore, but she would not become one.

  “You said you wish to know me,” he reminded her.

  She wished she had never admitted that.

  “And now I wish to know you,” he said, advancing closer, a light of curiosity in his sage green eyes. “For instance, lady, what makes you so outspoken, so confident?”

  She cautioned herself not to reveal too much and to remember the lies she had spun.

  “I was taught to think for myself. Monteign insisted that I be educated with my cousin Alec.”

  “Was Alec as”—he cast about for a word—“as spirited as you?”

  The question made her smile slightly. “Oh, nay, Alec is a lamb, preoccupied with morality yet eager to please his father. Once Monteign told him to steal back a sheep that had wandered onto the holding of a villein. Alec went straightways to the villein and paid him five pennies to get the sheep back. He believes t
hat people should have a common share in all things; therefore, the sheep, having strayed onto the freeman’s lands, was his. Yet on the other hand, Alec could not defy his father’s wishes.”

  The Slayer seemed to mull over her tale. “He sounds like a goodly man,” he decided.

  “Better cannot be found,” she agreed.

  “But is he strong enough to defend his lands from Ferguson?”

  Her heart leapt at the question. “Is that what you intend to do?” she asked. “Give him back his lands?”

  Sir Roger had hinted at the possibility, but she hadn’t believed it.

  “I had no intention of seizing Glenmyre in the first place,” he insisted. “But with Monteign dead and Alec gone, I must protect it from Ferguson, a circumstance that drains my weapons and my men. I have a castle of my own to run and no desire to suffer Ferguson’s savage attacks. Aye, I’d gladly give Glenmyre back to its rightful heir.”

  Clarisse drew a breath to steady her soaring optimism. Alec still Lord of Glenmyre! Surely, he would seize the opportunity to reclaim his inheritance. The moment he emerged from the abbey, she would appeal to him to challenge Ferguson and save her family.

  “Alec earned his spurs when he was just sixteen,” she heard herself boast. “He is young and strong. He won a good number of tourneys a year ago.”

  The Slayer frowned with obvious concern. “A year ago,” he repeated.

  “What is it?” she asked, worried he would suddenly retract his offer.

  “How much training do you think he does at the abbey?” he inquired, looking at her.

  Her optimism dwindled. “None at all,” she guessed.

  “Also, there is the illness to think of,” he continued. “Should Alec be stricken by the pestilence and live, he will be much the weaker for it.”

  Her heart fluttered in alarm. Without Alec, who would be her champion? She would have to admit to the Slayer who she really was. In her desperation, she would have to ask him for his aid and admit to all the lies she had spun!

  “Nonetheless,” the mercenary added, unaware of her private panic, “I must do what’s right and give him back his lands. I have tried to get word to him, but the abbot professes to be ill, and the monk at the gate will not convey a message for me.”

  “Then you should go about it another way,” Clarisse suggested. She was about to mention the Abbot of Revesby's timely visit when the Slayer took a step that brought him close enough to cast his shadow over her. She locked her knees to keep from backing up. Whatever she was going to say died forgotten on her tongue.

  “I needs must depart,” he said, cutting their conversation abruptly short. “When Sir Roger hunts, it falls to me to train the men.”

  She forced a response through a tight throat. “I imagine you enjoy that.”

  He gave her one of his rare smiles, one that made him look suddenly much younger. “I do,” he admitted. His hand came up and captured a length of her hair. He let it run through his fingers, apparently pleased with its texture.

  In spite of her dread that he would ask her to be his leman, a pleasant shiver chased down her neck and shortened her breath.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he promised, seeing her slight tremor.

  Catching up another lock of hair, he brought it to her face, where he trailed it in a featherlike caress over her chin and lower lip. Unexpected delight spread to every appendage in her body.

  At the same time, leaden disappointment filled her. She had suspected this was his agenda—to make her his concubine now that she’d confessed to having been seduced by Monteign. All that talk about her remaining a lady had been nothing but hollow words, meant to soften her resistance.

  Panicked by her response to his touch, she stepped away from him but her long length of hair remained in his light grasp.

  “I think you should go now,” she informed him, her voice quaking with confusion and fear mixed. “I am no longer any man’s leman, and I didn’t come here to be yours.”

  You came to poison him, pointed out her conscience.

  He dropped her hair as though scalded. For a stricken moment, he stared at her, the bronzed color of his face paling. With a muttered apology, he turned away and fled through the open portal without a word or a backward glance.

  Clarisse pressed a fist to her churning stomach. Sweet Mary, but she was grateful he had respected her wishes, for how would she have stopped him if he’d forced himself on her? Thank God he was a better man than that. While he clearly desired her, her status as a lady, albeit a sullied one, offered protection—at least in light of his own moral code. He wasn’t the beast that Ferguson was, though she’d known that already.

  Yet at the same time, her response to his touch revealed an unsettling truth: she was attracted to him. Not only did his skill with a sword hold fascination for her, but the man he had begun to reveal to her inspired her empathy and a desire to befriend him. She found him surprisingly forthright about his past sins, his shortcomings, his ambitions for the future.

  However, that did not mean she could become his concubine. She was the beloved daughter of Edward du Boise, as well as Alec Monteign’s betrothed. He was going to be her champion. Yet the temptation to admit the truth of her identity to the Slayer, to cast herself on his mercy, tugged at her.

  As the warrior had pointed out, Alec had not trained for war in more than six months. He was exposed to illness on a daily basis. What would she do if he were too weak to destroy Ferguson before the Scot carried out his terrible threat?

  The sound of someone crossing the courtyard drew her gaze to the window. She stepped closer to it, catching sight of Christian de la Croix striding through the first set of gates toward the practice yard.

  As he walked, he gathered his tunic in his hands and pulled it over his head, exposing a broad and powerful back before disappearing under the barbican. With bated breath, she waited for him to remerge in the outer ward.

  At last, he reappeared, looping the strap of his scabbard over a bare shoulder. Even with the practice yard a good distance away, she could see the muscles of his abdomen tense and ripple as he swung his blade, testing its weight. The braies he wore that day instead of chausses sat low and snug on his hips, defining the power in his haunches as he strode into the midst of his fighting men.

  If only Alec had a body like that, she thought, sighing.

  Motioning his men to form a circle around him, the Slayer demonstrated how to swing the weapon in a series of graceful arcs. The length of steel flung bursts of sunlight into the air. She envisioned Ferguson cringing helplessly before the onslaught. The Scot would struggle to raise his double-edged axe, but he would be too slow. As the Slayer brought his blade straight down, she pictured Ferguson crumpling to the grass, the grass turning red with his blood.

  With a cry, she spun around to clear her thoughts of the vivid fantasy.

  Alec would defend her mother and sisters, she assured herself. There wasn’t any need to admit to her new protector who she was. Moreover, there was no reason whatsoever that she ought to allow him intimacies, regardless of her supposedly sullied status.

  Yet, deep in her heart, Clarisse wondered if it weren’t just a matter of time before she would be begging the Slayer for his mercy and calling upon his might.

  Chapter Eight

  “The saints and the apostles!” Nell exclaimed as she helped her mistress step into the tub.

  Clarisse did not have to ask the reason for Nell’s sudden outburst. She had taken great pains to shield her lady’s maid from viewing the stripes on her back. However, with Nell hovering so close at all hours, the task had proven impossible. The wounds were old and near to fading altogether, but it was obvious that the marks hadn’t fallen there by accident.

  “’Tis nothing,” Clarisse assured her. She would have to rush this bath and send Nell away promptly. Simon had begun thrashing within his cradle. She had just enough milk to feed him one more time. Then it was off to the goat pen to procure more.

 
; “But, my lady, ye haffe been beaten!” Nell cried. “Who dared do such a thing to ye?”

  Wary of being scalded, Clarisse lowered herself slowly in the tub. “Perhaps I will tell you one day, Nell,” she admitted, turning her head to give the servant a stern look. “But for now, I cannot. You must tell no one about these marks.” Explaining them to the Slayer would entail having to tell yet more lies—something she had no wish to do. “Promise me,” she added firmly.

  Nell gave a reluctant nod. “I promise, m’lady,” she whispered. “I be right good at keeping secrets,” she assured her. “I ne did tell ye how the overlord killed our Lady Genrose, did I?”

  “No, you kept that well to yourself,” Clarisse drawled with irony. With a hiss of discomfort, she dropped fully into the tub, where the water rose to her breasts.

  The girl clasped a hand to her mouth. “Oh!” she cried. “I just told ye.”

  “Fret not.” Clarisse assured her. “I have heard the story already.”

  “’Tis nay a story,” the maid insisted, tossing lavender into the tub to scent the water. “He plucked the babe out whilst she still breathed. We heard her screams, we did.”

  “Nonsense.” Clarisse wondered why she felt moved to defend the Slayer. She had nothing but his word that he hadn’t killed his wife. “No one mentioned any screaming before now. You made that up.”

  She took the sponge out of Nell’s hand and began to lather it herself.

  Nell seemed to search her memory. “Come to think of it, there weren’t a sound at all coming from the lady’s chamber,” she relented.

  Clarisse rolled her eyes. Nell’s enthusiasm for gossip did not bode well for her own secrets. Since her arrival there, she had sensed the culmination of her deceit approaching steadily. “If you don’t mind, Nell, I would as soon bathe alone,” she requested. “You may come later when I’m done.”

  “Aye, m’lady. May I wash yer hair first?”

  “I will attend to it myself.”

  With a pout of disappointment, Nell left the room, clearly reluctant to return to her less glamorous chore of laundering.