“What does it say?” he repeated, refusing to give credence to his own depressing thoughts.

“All right, I’ll read it.” She cleared her throat and adjusted the letter. “ ‘My Liege and Good Lady, I greet you with news that the random attacks on Heathersgill have abated. Kendal’s followers have fallen off one by one, leaving him with too few soldiers to cause anything but spurious and ineffectual attacks. Our watches continue their vigilance at all times, and we will soon capture our foes, putting an end to this uncertain time.

“ ‘Lady Jeanette is much improved in health. She and her daughters have given the Scots’ goods to the peasants who continue to serve them. Revenue will be needed to restore the stronghold to its full potential. I would like your permission to purchase sheep. The terrain is craggy and the soil too shallow for planting, but the manufacturing of wool is quite promising.

“ ‘We pray daily for your quick recovery. All is peaceful both here and at Glenmyre. Let naught trouble your mind. Yrs, Sir Roger.’ ” She laid the letter down. “What do you think?” she demanded.

“About what?” The patterns of her thoughts still mystified him.

“About my mother. Do you think she will recover from the violence she’s endured and been a party to?”

He heard the thread of pain in her voice and it tugged at him. “Clarise,” he soothed her, “you fret about everyone but yourself.” He saw her look at him sharply, and he deliberately fastened his gaze on the wall beside her. “Your mother is stronger than you realize. She must have known about the powder in his boots. If she hadn’t acted, I would likely be dead. And fortunately, there is no one with any legal right to accuse her of wrongdoing. In time, she will recover.”

“She loved my father to distraction,” Clarise added wistfully.

“In time she will love again,” he promised. “She is but a rose in winter, awaiting the warmth of the sun.”

He could see his wife was looking at him strangely. A painful longing carved at his chest. He, too, awaited warmth—the warmth of her love.

Clarise uncoiled from the chair. He pretended to squint at her as she approached the bed and stood before him. Through the flimsy linen undergarment, he could make out the fiery red curls at the juncture of her thighs. He felt his manhood stir, but that was nothing new.

“Do you have a headache today?” she inquired.

“A small one.”

“Drink your infusion, then.” She reached for the goblet perched on the headboard and gave it to him.

Christian took a tentative whiff. “I think not,” he said, handing it back.

“Shall I dump it in the jake as you do?” she asked more sharply.

He’d been caught. He felt a blush stealing toward his cheeks, and he willed it away. “I’m a grown man, not an infant,” he grumbled. “I mistrust any herbal remedy, no matter who blended it.”

She thinned her lips and put the goblet back on the headboard. “How many fingers am I holding up?” She held her hands before his face.

He hesitated. Nay, he couldn’t lie that baldly and witness her disappointment. “Three,” he admitted.

“Excellent.” She started to turn away.

Christian grabbed her wrist and yanked her back. She fell sideways into his embrace, and he pulled her close, burying his nose in the fragrant mass of her hair. “I love this scent,” he admitted with a groan.

Predictably, she stiffened in his arms. He quelled his disappointment and held her tighter.

“Let me go,” she said, with a catch in her voice.

He thought about it. “Nay,” he said. “You cannot continue to avoid me, lady. I’m your husband. Think you that you can parade about the chamber in your chemise without rousing me?”

“I think your vision is more improved than you admit,” she answered coldly.

“Why must you be like this?” he asked, lifting his head. “Why are you angry at me when I only meant to do right?”

She struggled so earnestly that he let his arms fall away. She thrust herself from his lap but remained on the bed, scooting mistrustfully to the end. He watched her frown and scratch her shoulder idly. She was thinking about his words, at least.

“Would it have been the right thing to widow me and to orphan your son?” she demanded. She was angry now. Twin spots of color bloomed on her cheeks. “I married you for your protection, not to be left for the next opportunist to come along and alter my life! How dare you fight to the death and not warn me first. How dare you!”

Ah, now he understood the reason for her hurt. He leaned forward under the pretext of needing to see her better. “Sir Roger would have protected you,” he assured her softly. “Besides, I had no intention of dying.”

“You almost did! If my mother hadn’t interfered, Ferguson would have killed you, you said so yourself.” She snatched up a pillow like she meant to thump it on his head.

“By trickery alone,” he pointed out. “Had he fought honestly, he never would have defeated me. His weapon was too heavy; his feet too slow.”

“You challenged him on our wedding night, didn’t you?” she pressed with the dawn of realization in her eyes. “That was why I never heard the revelers approach the door. You challenged him and everybody left.” She jumped from the bed and began to pace the room.

Christian rubbed his eyes. It drove him mad to have her coming in and out of focus. “You have it all figured out,” he told her wearily. All but the most important part.

“You were in a dark mood yourself,” she added, putting more pieces together.

“Not for very long,” he said wistfully. Visions of their wedding night flickered behind his eyes.

She threw her hands up. “Why didn’t you do as I suggested? An accident was supposed to befall him. It happens all the time at tourneys!”

“Come here,” he commanded, desperate to make her hold still, and to understand.

She edged reluctantly toward him, but only in response to the threatening tone of his voice. He disliked having to speak to her that way. “Listen, Clarise,” he pleaded, locking her hands in his. “If we had designed some seeming accident, we would still have been guilty of Ferguson’s death. Aye, he was a blackguard and doomed to hell no matter the circumstances. But to execute him in cold blood would have made us no better than butchers ourselves. I have killed too many men, my love.” He squeezed her fingers to convey the horror. “I didn’t want the guilt of his death on my conscience. But mostly, I didn’t want it on yours.”

He could see that his words had hit their mark. She stood before him, revelation on her face. He wondered, hopefully, if she could see the love he harbored for her, if she would answer it.

“You risked your life to protect my conscience?” she inquired with wonder in her voice.

He loved how soft and breathless she could sound. “To prove myself worthy,” he said, releasing her hands.

“Worthy?” She held perfectly still. “Of what?”

He looked straight into her amber eyes. For a heart-stopping second, there were no walls between them. “Of your love,” he admitted.

It was not the answer Clarise expected. She forgot how to breathe. Of your love. The words replayed themselves over and over. Of your love. Of your love. She heard a humming in her ears. Her heart expanded and rose into her throat.

She had tried to convince herself that love was not an essential part of a good marriage. Until Christian said the word, she might have been content with the passion between them and the security of Helmesly’s high walls. But once it was spoken and hovered in the air between them, she knew that to be loved was the one thing she craved above all else. The one thing that assured her that her husband had overcome the demons of his past and let the light of goodness flood his heart.

“Oh, Christian,” she whispered. “How could you think that you had anything to prove?”

He gave her an incredulous look. “In case you hadn’t noticed, lady, I am feared by the people. I was born on the wrong side of the blanket. I have a scar running down one side of my face, and a wicked temper to match it.”

“I know how you came by that scar,” she told him, notching her hands at her hips. “And as for your temper, you are careful to guard me from it.”

“The people, my lady?” he prodded, entranced by her ability to reduce his fearsome qualities into nothing.

“The people have been fed lies by the Abbot of Rievaulx and by others. Gilbert wanted them to fear you. Elsewise he would not have poisoned their ears by predicting you would kill Genrose.”

Christian felt himself pale. “You know about that?” he asked.

She kneeled on the mattress beside him. “Husband,” she said, cupping his jaw in her delicate hand and forcing him to look at her. “There is something you should know about yourself; something someone should have told you long ago.”

“What is it?” he asked, feeling poised on the brink of self-discovery.

Her amber gaze warmed him like the sun. “You, my lord, are a good man. You are honorable and noble, chivalrous and incredibly brave.” This time he could not mistake the sheet of tears that slipped across her eyes and made them glitter. “And I am honored to be your wife. I am honored that you nearly laid your life down in the belief that it would make you worthy. But if you ever do anything so rash again, you will answer for it,” she added, using his own words against him.

He’d never been called those things before. Christian felt a silly smile overtake him. The urge to laugh out loud tickled his lungs, but he feared he would croak if he tried.

“I love you,” she added, throwing her arms around his shoulders. She buried her face in his tunic as if she would cry.

“I’m up here,” he reminded her, desperate for a kiss.

She beamed up at him. “I love you,” she repeated, pressing her mouth to his. “I have loved you since the night you prayed by Simon’s cradle. I knew then that you were not what people said, but a man with a pure heart and pure needs.”

Aye, and his manly needs were about to explode if they did not find immediate relief. Her words rushed over him like springwater over mountain stone. Their mouths fused in a heady blend of hunger and joy. As his hands sought the weight of her breasts, they fell back together in a frenzy of need, too long restrained.

An hour later Christian lay on his back, thoroughly replete and damp with sweat. “Will you always forgive me so thoroughly, wench?” he panted. He felt utterly relaxed.

Clarise rolled on her side to face him. “Think you that I’m done?” she asked, in mock seriousness.

He groaned in surrender. “Hundreds of warriors have raised their swords against me, yet you bring me to my knees with your wanton appetite.”

Clarise laughed out loud, delighted by his wit. How was it that she’d overlooked this lighthearted vein in him? Now that she considered it, she remembered several instances when he’d injected humor into their exchanges. She’d been too blinded by fear to see it.

“My lord,” she purred, rubbing her sweat-slicked body against his side. “Did you ever think that everything would end so well?”

He gave her a look, then fastened his gaze on the cobalt bed canopy. “Too cynical for that, I fear.”

“What is there to fear?” she asked. “The abbot is gone; Ferguson is dead.”

A moment passed when all that came from Christian was the sound of his breathing. “Someone at Helmesly was loyal to the abbot. They sent him missives informing him of certain matters. He was advised of Ethelred’s visit, for example. I saw the warning myself written on a small scrap of paper in Gilbert’s herbal.”

A chill settled on Clarise’s moist skin. “Will it matter now that Gilbert is dead?” she asked.

He hesitated again. “I cannot say. But as long as there is reason for caution, Simon is in danger. We should advise Doris never to let him out of her sight.”

She suddenly recalled the mysterious offerings of goat’s milk. “Do you recall the day that Simon fell ill?” she asked.

“How could I forget it?”

Gooseflesh prickled her tender skin. “The milk I had given him that day was not milk that I fetched myself,” she admitted. “I found a full bucket awaiting me that morning. I thought it might have been left behind by one of the milkmaids. Simon was due to waken at any moment, so I took it, loath to make him wait any longer. I think, perhaps, that it was poisoned.”

He stared at her in silence, lines of his face growing suddenly harsh.

“Please don’t be angry with me.” She put a hand to his cheek to calm his wrath. “Believe me, there is nothing you could say to me that would chastise me any more than I have chastised myself. But here is the strange part, my lord. The bucket was there again the next day and the next. I poured it out,” she hastened to assure him. “I may be impulsive, but I’m not stupid.”