“Especially if the abbot Gilbert sealed his right to rule.”

“Exactly.”

“How much farther?” he asked. The stairs were steep and slick with moisture in the lower regions.

“Maeve’s retreat is down with the storerooms. One more level, I think. I’ve been here before,” she volunteered when they reached the lowest level. “The goods that were stripped from the castle were piled in one of the storerooms like a hidden cache. Sir Roger said Genrose had wanted to give her parents’ riches to the poor. I suspect Maeve was holding on to them for the time when she would rule as baroness.”

They moved from door to door, finding the keys in precise order on the key ring. More goods littered the dusty floor.

“There’s another room around the corner,” Clarise informed him.

As they turned the corner, Christian pulled her back. “Wait,” he whispered. “There’s a line of light under the door.”

His vision was much improved, she thought, to discern the coppery glow. “Try the key,” she whispered. Nervously she patted Simon’s back, though the baby had already dropped off to sleep.

But the key wasn’t necessary. The door swung silently inward, and a pungent odor greeted their nostrils. The room was illumined with tallow candles, betraying Maeve’s recent presence. It was clearly an herbal of sorts, as a number of dried plants were suspended from hooks and littered the tabletops. What drew both their gazes was the cote of carrier pigeons. The birds fluttered in alarm as the couple edged into the room.

They stared at the cage in contemplation. “Was the message you discovered at Rievaulx small enough to be carried by air?” Clarise inquired.

“Aye,” said her husband, who had come to the same conclusion. He turned and gave her a respectful look. “It seems you have figured it all out, my love. I shall have to make you my chief tactician.”

She sketched him a curtsy. “We have yet to know the reason why Maeve and Gilbert would help each other.”

“Greed motivated both of them,” her husband guessed. “Gilbert desired power and fame.”

“And Maeve wanted to be mistress of Helmesly,” Clarise finished for him.

“They might have been lovers.”

She shook her head. “He could never have loved a woman. They were siblings, most likely, with those dark eyes so much alike. We have only to ask Doris. She is one of the few servants old enough to recall when Harold wed Maeve.”

He gave the rest of the room a quick inspection. “Maeve and Gilbert shared an interest in herbs as well. This herbal reminds me much of his.”

“It is done, then,” she said, feeling the tension rush out of her. At last the security and peace she had craved for so long was theirs to enjoy. “Simon is safe. Nothing else will ever threaten him,” she swore with a mother’s determination.

Christian’s bloodshot gaze lingered on her profile as she kissed the baby’s cheek. “Can we go to bed now?” he asked with his lids half shut.

“Oh, my love,” she said, remembering his condition with sudden contrition. “I hope you haven’t strained your eyes with all this nighttime activity.”

“Lady, you will turn me into a pudding-heart,” he swore, moving to snuff out the candles.

“Not at all. You are welcome to as much nocturnal activity as you please, so long as it’s restricted to the bedchamber.”

His answer was a laugh that was cut short.

Clarise allowed herself a smile. She had fulfilled the vow she had made to her father. She had surprised Simon’s would-be murderer and unveiled the plot to usurp the baronetcy from the rightful heir.

Making the Slayer of Helmesly laugh out loud was a challenge she looked forward to.









Epilogue


















A man once called the Slayer gazed into the lilac eyes of his newborn baby girl and saw his reflection in her pupils. In a former life, he’d been a dreaded warlord. Now he was an ordinary man. A profoundly humbled father.

The infant who was no more than a minute old was still wet from her passage into the world. Her lungs swelled with air as she cried, heralding her birth. Sunlight streamed through the open shutters to guild her bright red hair. An April breeze carried the scent of hyacinths from the meadow. Her weary mother groaned.

“I am never doing that again,” she vowed, lifting her lashes to observe them.

Christian lowered their daughter to the bed so Clarise could share in the miracle. “Look,” he urged, his eyes stinging with boundless joy. “Look how beautiful she is!”

He watched his wife’s expression as she absorbed the baby’s heart-shaped face, the cherry-red hair and bowed lips. Their daughter ceased to cry. She stared back at her mother, as though in recognition.

“Her eyes are violet,” Clarise whispered.

It was a self-admitted weakness that the warlord loved to watch his wife’s expressive face. Her intelligence and pathos never ceased to stir him. And while he’d nearly sacrificed his life to be worthy of her, he couldn’t help but confess himself a blessed man.

Ignoring the young midwife who pressed a compress between his wife’s legs, Clarise bared her splendid bosom and guided one ripe, pink nipple into the baby’s mouth.

The infant thrashed just once before she fastened on. “That was easy enough,” she commented, with relief.

“You’ve had practice, remember?”

She flicked him a patronizing look. “I don’t want to hear a thing out of you right now. You could never have survived what I just went through.”

He loved it when she scolded him. “Likely not,” he agreed, thrusting aside the nightmare of her twenty-four-hour labor.

“I am not doing it again,” she repeated. Her head lolled upon the snowy pillow.

He indulged her in all things, but he could not agree to this whim. Already he was looking forward to the day she healed, so they could resume their lovemaking. There was nothing in the world remotely like the passion that they shared.

He leaned over the suckling baby and dropped a gentle kiss on his wife’s lips, bruised from biting down on them while pushing. “Did I tell you that you’re beautiful today?”

She gave a snort of disbelief. “A bald-faced lie,” she retorted. Her lashes floated upward. “Will you bring Simon in?” she said. “I want him to meet his little sister.”

“In a moment.” He smoothed a flyaway curl from her cheek and watched her eyelids sink closed. His daughter sucked contently. “What will we name her?” he asked as the question suddenly occurred to him.

Clarise gave a sigh. “Rose,” she murmured.

The name was perfectly suited to the baby’s coloring. “Harold will be happy,” he added, thinking out loud.

Harold executed his duties as steward these days with newfound confidence. His marriage to Maeve had been quickly annulled, thanks to the efficiency of Ethelred, newly elected Abbot of Rievaulx. Harold still wandered in his speech and lacked an awareness of his surroundings, but he was loyal. And loyalty meant a lot in the household of a future baron.

As for Maeve, she had succumbed to a fate similar to that of her brother, the Abbot of Rievaulx. But instead of falling down a set of stairs, she had hung herself with her own hair, in the dungeon of Helmesly.

“Rose,” Christian whispered, shaking off the memories of the past. He caressed the back of his daughter’s head, then gave in to the urge to put his arms around both wife and baby. The midwife had traveled all the way from York to attend the birth. He wondered what she would think to see a mighty mercenary cry like a baby.

I’ve grown soft, he admitted, swallowing down a sob. He would never say it publicly, though his wife accused him often enough.

He had outgrown the unreasonable need to stir fear in strangers’ hearts. Now he used his sword for practice only and for protection. With Heathersgill and Glenmyre under his supervision, peace and prosperity cast their blankets over the land. And both seemed settled in for good.

He couldn’t help but reflect how much his life had changed since the fateful night he’d cut Simon from the belly of his dead first wife. The pivotal point had been when Clarise marched into his world and snatched his son from certain death.

As he sat basking in the bounty of their love, a shaft of sunlight warmed the disfigured half of his face. He believed beyond a doubt that Clarise had come to him as a reward for righteousness. The words from Ethelred’s book had come true!

“My sweet?” he whispered, leaning forward. He was filled with a need to share his gratitude.

“Mmmmm?” she grunted.

“Thank you,” he told her, pressing his lips to hers.

She cast him a feeble smile and kept her eyes shut. “You won’t be needing a nurse,” she remarked over the musical sound of their daughter sucking.

“Nay, but I may have to send Roger looking for a leman,” he replied with mock despair. “My own lady has decided to forsake the marriage bed.”

She was silent so long he thought she’d fallen asleep. “Try it, my love, and you will have a second scar to match the first one,” she muttered acerbically.

He threw back his head and laughed out loud. “You know I couldn’t bring myself to look at another,” he added, nuzzling her neck.

“I made you laugh,” she pointed out.

“Aye, you did.” It was their favorite game. One of so many private games they shared. To hell with the midwife, he thought, letting a tear of joy roll unchecked down his cheek.

He was not ashamed to admit that the Slayer of Helmesly had shucked the mantle of darkness.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue